Farmers Market Scam

Caught a great piece on Prime Time News L.A. tonight regarding local farmers markets in Southern California (see video below).  Get this: A number of vendors at the farmers markets are selling non-local, mass produced fruits and vegetables that they pick up at large wholesale produce warehouses in downtown L.A.  Any some have been found to be pushing pesticide-laden produce despite advertising their products as pesticide-free.  Ah ha ha ha ha...that's a gas.  Is anybody surprised?

To sell at farmers markets vendors are supposed to provide locally grown produce.  To be licensed, the farms must be registered with the farmers markets, and their location registered on the permit.  Guess what?  Many are lying and registering their dirt lots as farms.  NBC Prime Time News L.A. did an investigative report, visiting several falsely registered farms and finding something interesting.

Frutos Farms, owned and operated by Jesse Frutos, which sells produce at seven different farmers markets in LA and Orange counties, including Century City farmers market, the Larchmont market and the Buena Park market was busted at his dirt lot in Cypress.  When questioned at one of the markets, he claimed that all his produce was grown at his farm in Cypress, the one registered with the State of California.  NBC paid him a visit and he was forced to admit that none of the produce he sells is actually grown on the dirt lot.  Way to go, Jesse.  The news crew followed his truck on market days and caught him buying the produce at a big downtown warehouse, where they sold produce coming from as far away as Mexico.  Local, you know?
 
"You are selling some things at farmers markets that you didn't grow, that you got at wholesale produce markets?"

Jesse admitted, "Yes."

Another vendor, Juan Uriostegui, who sells produce at the West Hollywood farmers market on Mondays, claims to grow his produce at his farm in Redlands, in San Bernardino County.  NBC paid him a visit with officer Allan Lampman of the San Bernardino Department of Agriculture in tow.  Guess what?

Lampman asked Uriostegui to show him where he was growing broccoli, but all the farmer could show him was a patch of dry dirt.

"I'm looking at the fields, saying, 'I don't think you grew that broccoli,'" Lampman said.

Uriostegui has been busted and fined before for selling produce he hasn't grown.  But hey, farmers markets are great places to flip produce and turn a profit.  Call Frutos and Uriostegui brokers.  Unfortunately, they are misleading their customers.

NBC also purchased strawberries from five different vendors claiming to carry pesticide-free goods.  When tested, three of the five actually contained pesticides.  One vendor called "The Berry Best," owned by Mary Ellen Martinez, which sells at the Torrance farmers market was questioned and told that her pesticide-free strawberries were found to have four different pesticides on them, said she didn't know how that might have happened.  She thought perhaps that pesticides used at a neighboring farm drifted over to her produce, but according to the testing lab that would be impossible due to the concentrations found on her best berries.

This is no surprise to me since I know that the more popular a trend becomes, the more likely it will be infiltrated by shysters--a lesson for everybody to do their homework.  I can say if this is happening in Los Angeles, it is most definitely happening in farmers markets across the country.  So it's a good idea to practice diligence and do one's own research.  It would probably be a good idea for the farmers markets themselves to conduct periodic investigations.

One farm that came out glowing--and my wife confirms its legitimacy too, as she takes our children there to pick fresh berries--was Underwood Farms in Moorpark.  They sell produce at 14 local Los Angeles markets, all grown on their family farm.

So get smart--ask questions and take no vendor's mere presence at a local farmers market for granted.  They might be selling you something you can get a your local supermarket for much less, and pulling the wool over your eyes with regard to their pesticide-free status.  Thank you Prime Time News L.A. for some top-notch investigative reporting.

Bee Troubles

Did you see 60 Minutes last night. Wow! They did a incredible piece on the mysterious dwindling of our region's bee populations. What a fascinating, yet baffling, conundrum. Apparently, 90% of the beehives kept by professional beekeepers are dying out, or the bees are leaving, never to return, a rarity among honeybees, which are a eusocial community (specialized workers labor for and protect the reproductive queen). The bee's labors are primarily gathering nectar and in turn pollinating the earth's plants species. They don't often leave their own.

According to the report, one third of our entire food source comes from produce dependent on bee pollination, so, naturally, it presents quite a problem that so many bees seem to be disappearing. Although it is as of yet unknown what is causing the diminishment of the bee population, experts believe that it has to do with pesticide use, viruses, and plain old bee stress that's leading to the rapid demise of our most crucial allies.

As I point out in my upcoming book--The Six Keys to Optimal Health--pesticides are not only poisonous to man, they are toxic to many other useful species, including bees. Limiting our use of poisonous pesticides would certainly decrease our own health risks, but it might also help preserve some of the other precious lifeforms on this planet. Obviously, completely abandoning the practice of crop spraying is not practical--not economically, and not from the standpoint of providing food for the entire country. However, we can try to purchase more locally grown, organically farmed produce. That, at least, would lessen the need for massive crop spraying a little, you know?

What I found most interesting in the piece was that leading experts pointed out that bee populations are dwindling due to major stress. Honeybees are overworked--transported across country in trucks (I swear; check out the piece here) to pollinate a bevy of crops--usually feeding on a sole food source, and subjected to serious toxic exposure. Their weakened immune systems lead to their susceptibility to viral infections, and indeed, that's what autopsies of dead bees has shown, major viral infestations. But as scientists point out, viruses are unlikely to be the primary cause of illness; more likely, bees are succumbing to opportunistic parasites which are able to thrive due to the bee's weakened compositions.

Sound familiar? Yes, it's exactly what happens to us when our bodies become weak due to the stresses of our lifestyles; we also become susceptible to illness under these conditions. It's a universal theme. Dr. Marla Spivak, the foremost authority on honeybees in this country, confirms that stress plays a major part in the lives of honeybees. According to Dr. Spivak, "They mirror us. We have a really close association with bees. They reflect what we are doing." In other words, their stressors are some of the same things we expose ourselves to on a daily basis.

So there you have it--watch the bees. What they're experiencing is what we're also going through, just on a larger scale. The extensive disappearance of bees is a good sign that it's time to change. Let's hope that we can start making the necessary changes before something drastic happens.