3 Ways to Thrive With Your Farmer, Family, and Children.

A Farmer is the Cornerstone to Our Efforts in Healing

A farmer’s work is in every home. Every person needs to eat. It’s not an option, if you want to sustain life. Farmers are the foundation to every meal in this world.

Now what you choose to put into your body is an option. As a parent, each of us has the power to choose how we want to raise our children, including the food we provide. With an epidemic on our hands, and over 50% of our children in a chronic illness, we chose food. My husband and I choose to invest in the way we eat. We see the power of:

knowing our farmer
community accountability, economics, relationships
eating beyond organic
eating real food
choosing to eat without harmful chemicals

With our first son having major complications, becoming autistic, and subsequent children facing eczema, ADD, cancer,etc.., we found recovery by eating foods from mindful farmers. We thank them weekly and consider our local farmers in Florida (and everywhere) a very important and respected part of our lives. Furthermore, although we go GFCF to recover, we have seen the power of raw milk for many indications; e.g., raw camel’s milk for autism, raw goat yogurt for eczema, and much, much more.

An Important Time

This is a very important time. Raw milk and beyond organic food is difficult to obtain. I’ve worked tirelessly for my kids and the children we love in foster group homes. Many times, I have to be very creative to give them real food. The choice to have life-less food, packed with sugars and additives are very accessible. Yet the choice to have beyond organic, nutrient-rich food is more difficult and expensive. Unfortunately, these farms are not subsidized by our government in the USA. Additionally, our rights to consume the foods from the farmers we trust is threatened because our government branches have extended their reach into my home. Into your home. The choice to eat real food is becoming harder.

My nature is to work hard, plow through, not ruffle feathers and figure it out. However, I have friends in high places. Really smart and politically experienced friends who can make this world an easier place for moms like me and parents like you.

Inception to Change

My sweet and very strong friend, mom, and raw milk/real food advocate, Liz Reitzig, called me a couple of weeks ago with wonderful news. A new alliance named Real Food Consumer Coalition with Liz, an incredible legal team, and journalism savant, David Gumpert, is now existent to represent every family in United Stated of America.

The goal is to publicize judicially and politically in a synergistic effort in order to push for freedom and access to real food and raw milk from a farmer of your choice. This includes farmers you may choose over the state line.

Your local grocery store does it, so it shouldn’t even be an issue – but it is! Let me personally share that I have an additional level of confidence when I know the farmer and the beyond organic practices. I want to support that farm. It’s just like our grocery stores (which we use), except the food from a farm is; more fresh, functionally packaged, and supports the little and mid-size farmers whom we respect.

Farmer advocates, Liz and Me — L to R, Mandy and Liz Reitzig at the 2016 Wise Traditions Conference in Montgomery, Alabama enjoying the local views.

I asked Liz to please send a letter explaining what is happening and how we could help! Please note there are three actionables linked at the bottom. I’m giving a little (every bit counts), and I’m sharing. Please feel empowered to copy, support and share this to provide choice even if you choose differently!

This is the letter I received (with “farmer” replacing the actual farmer’s name)…

The Letter Engaging our Freedom

The Real Food Consumer Coalition (RFCC) was founded with the intention of protecting our food rights and bringing transparency to our direct farmer-to-consumer exchanges.

RFCC is seeking your help in securing our rights to choose the foods and farmers of our choice!

During our short 6 months as a group of concerned individuals, we have worked closely with a farmer. He was under investigation by the USDA for meat sales that did not conform to the USDA strict guidelines for slaughtering at a USDA inspected facility. In fact, the vast majority of the farm’s private buying club members did not want their meat coming from USDA inspected facilities. Nevertheless, the USDA continued with the investigation including requiring this farmer to hand over thousands of pages of sales records. He did not do this in USDA’s allocated time frame and was subsequently charged with contempt of court.

A New Directive

RFCC stepped in, and with the help of many donors, we hired legal counsel for the membership as a whole, the farmer, the USDA, DOJ and the courts to peacefully resolve the contempt of court issues with no personal and confidential consumer information disclosed in the process. This huge victory in early 2017 was the beginning of our efforts on behalf of hundreds of farmers like him who produce food that people want.

Even with the contempt of court victory, this farmer’s challenges are not over. Nor are the challenges of all the other farmers who help people get the foods they need even at the expense of interstate sales. Since this contempt of court victory, RFCC has worked closely with Emord and Associates, a specialized law firm based in Washington, DC, to create a citizens petition requesting the FDA to no longer aggressively prosecute farmers for transporting raw milk across state lines as long as the farmers use proper labeling on their product.

First Step

The petition is the first step in changing our outdated policy on interstate transportation of raw milk. In 1987, the FDA made it illegal to transport raw milk intended for human consumption across state lines. Since then, they have used that regulation as the means to aggressively raid, and often shut down, small-scale dairy farms that people depend on. One most recent casualty of the regulation is Humpback Dairy in Missouri.

With the petition now filed, and in the FDA waiting response (they have 180 days from the April 26, 2017 filing date), we will pursue the regulatory change from multiple angles simultaneously. While the bureaucrats at the FDA have a chance to look over the labeling and make a decision on the petition itself, we are raising funds to hire a DC based lobbyist to work with us in Congress, making the connections we need with legislators so that the petition can have the greatest impact possible. For this effort, we need to once again reach out to our supporters and advocates and ask for help. The RFCC steering committee and close allies are donating thousands of hours to this cause to make raw milk available again.

Will you help us with a donation of any size so we can continue the work we are doing and hire the right people to help us get the job done?

Support and Updates

We appreciate your support. Please follow http://www. davidgumpert.com/blog for all updates on the court case, the petition and the legislative campaign as we get it going. We are so excited to be doing this work on behalf of everyone who wants the freedom to choose the foods of their choice from the producer of their choice.

Thank you for joining with us to make this a success!

Liz

Links:

About us: https://realfoodcc.com/

Our crowdfunding campaign https://www.gofundme.com/real-food-consumer-coalition

Link to the Petition: http://hartkepr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017-4-26-RFCC-Petition-GoFundMe.pdf

Press release: http://www.einpresswire.com/article/379359999/consumers-petition-fda-for-labels-instead-of-raids?r=paDSC8R_O3ePQvgnFf

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Mandy

Mandy is the force behind the nonprofit advocacy portal Real Food Recovery. Seeing the need for children at risk to have better foods and education to handle their trauma, Mandy founded a nonprofit organization using real food, real discussion, and encouragement. A Wife, Mom of birth and adopted children, author, BSc., Functional Nutritional Therapy Practice, Mandy shares simple food tips online and volunteers at local Group and Orphanage Homes.

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