Posts Tagged ‘genetically modified foods’

More from Monsanto…

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

When I was a kid, soda was different.  If you look in some stores, you will see some Pepsi products that are called “throwback,” because they are made with the same recipe we had as a kid.  Natural flavors, sweetened with sugar, and Mountain Dew even had actual juice in it.  Sometime in the 70′s this all began to change.  We were instead fed things that came in crazy colors, cheaply flavored with artificial ingredients and sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Now, Corn Syrup in and of itself is not a bad thing.  However, it seems to be pretty addictive.  I know in junior high, we fed it to rats as an alternative to regular food and the rats chose the syrup every time-to the point of illness.  The results were fat rats that did not develop as well as the control group, had poor cognitive ability and memory.  Rats in the control group performed better in maze and other tests than those who consumed a diet high in corn syrup.  Now this was a science class in the late 70′s and not exactly Harvard Medical School, but the results anecdotally makes one think.  It seems that as time progressed we started adding High Fructose Corn Syrup to all manner of products.  Coincidentally, there has been a huge rise in both adult and childhood obesity as well as a number of health related problems.  So much so, that we no longer even use the term “adult onset diabetes” as more and more children are coming down with this malady.

So why the increase of corn syrup.  First off, it is grown easier.  Sugar is harvested in more tropical places like Hawaii, but corn is raised across most states.  Secondly, corn is cheaper to produce-even though it takes a huge toll on the water supply and when used as an additive can directly influence many products commonly relied upon by the less wealthy in the Americas.  Even though it is in high demand, we subsidize the corn industry-like we do the tobacco industry.

Enter Monsanto and its genetically modified corm crops.  As I have written before, genetically modified foods are not in and of themselves completely evil.  However, Monsanto created a strain of corn that was more likely to produce under adverse conditions.  They even patented their strain.  While that sounds harmless enough, what they don’t tell you is that their corn strain in mass production is a dominant strain.  If it cross pollinates with a nearby farm, the GM genes become dominate in that corn.  Monsanto has a history of planting this strain in huge factory farms near family owned and operated farms.  Now those farmers end up, through no actions of their own, producing a strain of Monsanto’s patented GM corn.  They have even taken farms to court for selling their corn and not paying them.  Moreover, their strain of corn is sterile.  That means that the kernels are fine for food or other uses, but will not sprout and grow.  This means that farmers must buy a new supply of corn for planting every year.  This has led to a host of litigations.  Not happy to control just the corn market, they introduced genetically modified, herbicide-immune soybeans. The plant is grown throughout the U.S. and represents about 90% of domestically grown soybeans. Since genetically modified crops are patented, Monsanto profits either from licensing or pricing on almost every soybean grown in the U.S.  Now they seeking to introduce GM alfalfa into the food stream.  Food Democracy Now says it is time to say NO!

From the email I received:

Tell President Obama WE are United! – It’s time to stand up to Monsanto!

Don’t let Monsanto’s GMOs Destroy Organic Dairy and our democracy!
Tell President Obama to instruct the USDA to immediately ban Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa from being planted and work to ensure that the organic industry is protected from genetic contamination and loss of profits and stand up for the basic rights for Americans to know what is in their food and how it’s produced.

Last week the Obama Administration chose to fully deregulate Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa, despite overwhelming public protest. In less than 6 days, more than 96,000 Food Democracy Now! members signed a letter asking President Obama and Secretary Vilsack to reject Monsanto’s genetically modified alfalfa based on concerns to consumer health, impacts to the environment and lack of adequate scientific testing, but they chose to cave to corporate pressure rather than protect the rights of America’s farmers and citizens.

Despite this bad news, we’re refusing to back down and are going to continue to press President Obama and Secretary Vilsack to rescind their unwise decision that not only restricts farmers’ ability to choose what to grow on their land, but is also entirely unnecessary as currently more than 93% of alfalfa grown in the U.S. does not use or need chemical herbicides at all, which is the argument for the necessity of Roundup Ready products in the first place.

We need our message of unity and the rejection of this unnecessary and harmful technology to spread far and wide, please sign here:

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/337?akid=294.43500.t8R1jI&t=7

As has already been widely acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court, the USDA, scientists and active farmers, the planting of GMO Roundup Ready alfalfa will lead to contamination of conventional and organic crops, creating significant economic loss for important export markets and organic dairy and beef farmers.

While we are deeply disappointed in President Obama and Secretary Vilsack’s decision, we were fortunate enough to be at the 31st Annual Ecological Farming Conference at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California where pioneering farmers and leaders in organic and sustainable agriculture gather every year. When we received word of the announcement there was an immediate and collective response from the farmers and members inf this community that day that vowed to fight until this injustice was exposed to the world and ultimately overruled.

Over the course of the next few days, several dozen farmers and individuals from organizations working to promote best agricultural practices helped craft a letter to President Obama and Secretary Vilsack calling on them to reconsider and reverse their decision.

As members of this movement, we were greatly encouraged by the spirit of cooperation and the resolve that immediately took place as we worked together to craft a collective response.

In an effort to help spread that good will and resolve to fight this unjust decision we experienced this past weekend, we’d like you to join in this fight to protect the democratic rights of farmers and the citizens who support them.

If we are to win the fight ahead, we must join together and be united going forward. It’s time that President Obama and those in Washington learn that the rights of farmers and American citizens mean more than the unjust profits of Monsanto, which increasingly put the livelihoods of farmers and the integrity of our democracy at risk.

Please take a moment to sign this letter inititated by our organic and sustainable farmers and leaders, then pass it on to friends.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/337?akid=294.43500.t8R1jI&t=9

Farmers attending EcoFarm, the largest organic farming conference on the West Coast, roundly criticized the Obama Administration’s ill-conceived decision. Two California farmers stated:

“We are appalled by this decision,” said pioneering organic farmer Larry Jacobs, President of Jacobs Farm-Del Cabo. “This is a sad day for the future of the sustainable agriculture.”

“As an organic farmer and an organic dairy processor, the decision to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa is devastating for our industry and it could put our business at risk,” said Albert Straus, President and owner of Straus Family Creamery.

Condemnation of the bad decision quickly reached beyond the conference as one attendee heard from a leading voice in the movement, journalist Michael Pollan, who added:

“It’s hard to understand why the Obama Administration would put the organic industry at risk for the sake of an unnecessary and soon-to-be obsolete product like Roundup Ready alfalfa. This is a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, since 93 percent of alfalfa hay is grown without any herbicide at all,”  confided Pollan.

Finally, EcoFarm President Thomas Wittman, an organic farmer himself for over 25 years concluded what many at the conference felt:

“The ruling by the USDA Secretary disregards the organic farmers, the dairy industry, and the environment, and I am confident that the decision will be reversed in court,” said Wittman.

While the USDA’s decision to approve Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa was a temporary blow to some at the conference, many vowed to redouble their efforts in working to defeat the Obama administration’s latest assualt on farmers’ and citizens’ right to access to safe, healthy, organic and sustainable food.

It’s time to present a united front against Monsanto and out of touch politicians. Please take a moment to join us in telling President Obama to reverse the approval for Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa. Your action today could help save organic integrity for future generations.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/337?akid=294.43500.t8R1jI&t=11

Thanks for taking the time today to stand up for organic farmers and the integrity of the organic industry. Please forward this email to any family member or friend that you know cares about the future of our food and the planet.

Thanks for participating in food democracy,

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team

So where do you stand and what do you have to say?

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The REAL Truth about Genetically Modified Food

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

Life is complicated.  It is never black and white.  We like to think that our choices are easy and that the answers are right in front of us.  So, what about Genetically Modified Food?  Here is how I see and understand it:

Norman Borlaug started his work in the middle of the 20th century. There were thousands of starving  people in Mexico due to crop failures.  His work led him to specialized breeding of wheat crops that were more resistant to crop blight and produced higher yields.  This was the early stages of genetically modified agriculture.  He took his work to India, Pakistan, even China to produce strains of crops that produced better yields and were more resistant to the diseases that were destroying crops in third world countries.  In return, thousands (or perhaps millions) of people were saved from starvation around the globe.  Norman Bourlag was a humanitarian and has some of the highest awards in the world.

His one and only goal was to produce food to feed starving people around the globe.  There are still countries where the food supply is desperate.  Genetically modified food crops could produce higher yields and coupled with some other modern technology, could help some of these developing nations to feed and support their own people.  Remember, any cross breeding of crops is a form of genetic modification.  But even gross genetic manipulation, in a lab, that produces food crops that can feed starving people is not necessarily a bad thing.  While I don’t see any reason to have GM food in my food supply, who am I to say that our American lifestyle of throwing away an average of 40% of the food that we produce means that starving people in Africa and India should have nothing rather than GM food crops.  The idea of GM food was originally conceived to feed third world countries.

Unfortunately, with any progress in science, someone is out to make a buck.  While I would like to eschew this philosophy entirely, it is the system of capitalism that we live in.  It has become pretty obvious that the Marxist Utopian society does not exist.  Besides, the pursuit of the almighty dollar has led to some of the biggest and most impactful advances in technology that the world has ever seen.  If you are reading this blog, then you have are experiencing the benefits of that innovation.  For good or bad, we are not the kind of people that can stay static, and the desire to be better off has been the motivating factor for that small smart phone, the iPad and even the automobile.  So in this environment of making it rich, it is not so shocking that we developed a wonder like the “Super Tomato.”  The idea behind this fruit is that commercial farms in America can produce stronger tomatoes through genetic manipulation that would not bruise as easily and would transport farther, thus making them more money.  This type of thinking has led to Monsanto’s development of GM corn that is patented and easily cross breeds with other corn.  So when they plant it in a field, it often cross pollinates with smaller farms nearby, who now have the patented GM corn of Monsanto growing in their field, whether they want it or not.  Just to make sure they make more money, the basic strain they plant for production is completely sterile, so farmers now need to buy new seed corn instead of setting aside some of their own crop.  Who wins?  Certainly not the small farmer.

On the other extreme are green purists.  In this far extreme lie groups like Greenpeace.  While Greenpeace hold many of the same values that I hold, they often are too radical in what they cling to for my liking.  Opposition to GM food crops by Greenpeace and many of their contemporaries led to a distinctly terrible situation in Zambia in 2002.  Some of the food donations to poor and starving people in a drought and famine afflicted country contained some portion of GM food.  Outspoken opponents to the GM movement encouraged the leaders of Zambia to reject this food.  In the end, many people starved and in some cases continue to starve due to rejections like this.

Somewhere in the middle lies the best course.  But due to propaganda and fear, the middle ground is often not where anyone lands-just look at American politics.  Yes there are risks to GM foods.  When you add a gene from a Brazil nut to a soybean so it produces a more nutritious soybean, you can trigger allergies in those who are allergic to nuts.  When we look at the rise in things we don’t completely understand (like nut allergies) it make GM food look like a great scapegoat for many of our ills.  To make matters worse, greed goes head to head with ethics.  In the case of Starlight corn, the government approved it only for animal consumption due to allergen trigger concerns, until more tests were done.  However, producers of corn products never bothered to tell farmers this, as they expected approval before harvest, so the result was Starlight corn illegally added to consumer products.  We do not know the long term affects of GM foods on the health and well being of humans (and remember doctors used to smoke and endorse cigarette brands).  On the other hand, taking a blanket stand against ALL GM food seems extreme as well.  If we can use GM foods to produce safe and healthful crops that can feed starving people in third world countries, then it definitely has a place in our modern world-at least for the time being.

As individuals, we are responsible for making our own well informed decisions.  I do not see any need for GM food in my particular diet.   Unfortunately, there is no clear labeling requirements, so it is already there.  I do my best to buy local food.  This reduces my chances of introducing GM food.  That being said, I do not make my own taco shells, so GM food is already there.  While I would like to avoid GM food for myself, I don’t think I have the right to make that choice for the millions of starving people around the world.

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How safe is your breakfast?

Friday, September 17th, 2010

I love food.  I love cooking it, eating it, trying new styles and products…. all of it.  I guess that is why I gravitate toward food events, love making friends with chefs, could easily shop only at gourmet stores and why I spent so many years in grocery and hospitality careers.  Being on a budget, I can scarcely afford to buy solely organic, but I try when I can.  I do make certain food choices that I almost never waiver on.

The first one is eggs.  I don’t always buy organic, but I always buy cage free.  Why?  I think that if I am going to eat eggs, that I need to spend that few dollars a month on something better for me and that does not promote the cruel mass production of foodstuffs.  While I am not so naive as to believe that all the hens who produce these eggs are happy and running around a large barnyard, I can feel reasonably certain that they are not stacked in cages 12 feet high, with no room to walk, and laying in their own waste.  Many people do not eat veal for the way it is raised, but are perfectly happy to buy the cheapest eggs on the market, ensuring the cruelest possible treatment for the hens that delivered them.  Since I buy these cage free eggs, I had no worries about the large egg recall that occurred.  Cage free hens are less likely to be contracting salmonella and are less likely to be fed the hormones that promote egg production.  Consequently, they are also less likely to need the antibiotics necessary to keep chickens healthy in this type of environment.

The second thing I rarely stray from is that I eat little beef, and when I do, I buy high quality.  Reasons for this are varied, but the biggest is that raising cattle is a poor use of the world’s resources.  We use exorbitant amounts of fresh drinkable water to raise cattle and the corn and soy beans to feed them.  Consequently, we need more of everything-land water, pesticides, to raise the feed, only to use more water and land to raise the cattle.  Cattle are often kept in the same deplorable conditions as chickens-requiring huge amounts of antibiotics and hormones to make the biggest profits.  A cow’s natural diet is grass, but rather than feed them grass (which would require more land) they are usually fed grains which makes them produce methane gas, a greenhouse gas.  Or worse, cows were even turned into cannibals, which is what led to the huge outbreak of mad cow disease.  We have tainted beef recalls all the time, and no one seems to even notice.

In fact, there have been some 85 food recalls since July of 2009.  That is a pretty steep number.  When there was a pet food recall, and pets died, we were up in arms.  These deaths were hard to track, as there is no central database for this type of thing, but it was in the hundreds for sure and possibly in the thousands.   The furor and uproar in the US was unbelievable.  Pet food was pulled form shelves, whole pet diets were changed, congress pressed, the USDA petitioned, and concerned pet owners frantically called hotlines and checked websites daily to make sure the food they gave their animals was safe.  Contrast that to the estimated 76 million Americans who get ill from food each year.  As many as 325,000 end up in the hospital and 5,000 (mostly children) die EVERY YEAR from food related illness.  Still a food recall on eggs passes with barely a whimper and a food recall on beef hardly registers a blip on our radar.  The billions of eggs that were pulled from store shelves were basically form only two huge farms, and there is evidence that it was found a week before the actual recall was issued-while they continued to deliver eggs.  I won’t even go into the BPA that taints most of the bottles that contain that “cleaner and safer” bottled water (as well as plastic baby bottles and other packaging).

Why does this happen so often and so easily?  The short answer is that the public is often duped by premiere public relations departments and advertising, while USDA employees and politicians bend the rules for corporate interests.  Add to that the complications of bloated and unorganized government that is in charge of watching our food supply and you have a recipe for disaster.  According to an article in the L. A. Times (to which I was alerted by Green LA Girl-a blog you should definitely subscribe to):

in the U.S. cheese pizza is regulated by one federal agency, but a pepperoni pizza is overseen by another. An open-faced turkey sandwich, likewise, falls under the purview of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but one with two slices of bread is under the jurisdiction of the FDA. Liquid beef broth and dehydrated chicken broth? USDA. Liquid chicken broth and dehydrated beef broth? FDA.

In an effort to try and make the food chain that we partake in safer and easier to regulate, there is a bill out there.  Titled the Food Safety Modernization Act this bill has passed committee and will likely die in the Senate.  Of course there are rumors  abounding about what this bill will and won’t do.  The multi-billion dollar food production industry is likely behind many of the rumors that it will stop farmer’s markets, kill small family farms, and interfere with organic food production and labeling.  In reality, this bill would only be a start to healthier food.  According to the Enviroblog:

The Durbin bill would:

  • Require food processors to anticipate and prevent possible contamination in the food production process.
  • Increase FDA inspections of food-processing plants based on risk associated with a particular product.
  • Require imported food to meet the same safety standards as domestic food.
  • Establish science-based minimum standards for safe fresh produce farming.
  • Empower FDA to order mandatory recalls.

There is another synopsis on the Food Poisin Journal, and you can read the bill in it’s entirety or by its informative summary here.  Mostly stalled by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn this bill is an expensive one.  But with the annual impact of food borne illness estimated at $152 billion, how much is reform worth?  You can join the Make Our Food Safe Coalition in an effort to alert the Senate to your support of this bill.

The best thing that you can do is vote with your dollars and buy locally produced foods, support farmer’s markets, and the like.  Unfortunately, those with the lowest incomes in America are disproportionately affected by food safety issues.  These are the same folks who are less likely to have access to health care and insurance.  This leads to more visits to emergency rooms by under or uninsured and raising the costs of health care and insurance across the board.  Just one more example of how all things are interrelated and how impact in one area is an impact in many others.

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Super Tomato? No, it’s not a superhero, it’s genetically modified food…

Monday, October 12th, 2009


The debate over genetically modified food has been going on for years. Remember when the so called Super Tomato came out? It was a genetically altered tomato (Flavr Savr) that was more immune to the trials and tribulations of transport, disease and pests than any tomato in history. Sounds great, right? In fact, the argument for genetically modified food sounds good at first sight. But look under the hood, and the answers are not so clear…

First off, let’s define what we mean. Genetically altered food is food derived from organisms who’s DNA structure has been altered by specific targeted manipulation of its genetic structure. To put it in simple terms, everything that we do is controlled by genes. Tomatoes soften as they ripen. To make them stay firmer, and thus less susceptible to disease and rot, scientists created a “super tomato” by inserting a new gene into the genetic structure of the plant to make its fruit stay firmer while ripening. This is completely different from cross breeding and selective breeding in which different species are cross bred to create new types of particular species. We have created new species of plants and animals by breeding them for generations. This allows nature to decide which genes will work together on their own to create a new sub species that has new characteristics. We have bred roses to have new colors, different produce to have different flavors, and even different breeds of dogs that have specific traits. genetic alteration, on the other hand, involves artificially manipulating the genes of a particular organism, usually to introduce traits that are not even part of the natural make up of the species.

At first glance, there does not seem to be any problem with genetic manipulation. We seem to be just speeding up the work that could otherwise be done through years of selective breeding. However, there are issues that could have impacts on the supply chain that are far reaching indeed. When we mess too much with the natural order of things, we often create a bigger problem than we had before. Think of how we introduced no native species to various parts of the world for one reason or another, and the disastrous results that have occurred (killer bees, for a start). Now imagine what damage we could be unleashing on the earth when we breed a new chicken with four legs or some other weird thing. We still have not fully realized the impact that we have had on the human race with the “improvements” that we have made in the last 50 years. The introduction of hormones into our poultry and dairy supply may be the reason we see earlier development of adolescents, and the outcry over BGH in our dairy supply is widely known.

Going beyond the unknown and into the current world, the problems of genetic manipulation become issues of ecology and economy. Monsanto corporation is the creator of the world’s best selling herbicide, Round Up. In creating these herbicides, it has also created many dumping grounds for serious chemicals, and released flawed studies as to the potential dangers of poisons like dioxin, that could potentially have a devastating effect on the bio-sphere. It is also responsible for much of the genetic manipulation being done in our food supply chain. They are the ones who created and marketed BGH as a way to increase milk production in cattle. Unfortunately, BGH has also been linked to breast and prostate cancer. The same company who has been creating poisons for decades is also leading the way in GMF (genetically modified foods). That alone sends up red flags. One of the most damaging issues of the Monsanto GMF program is that it is striving to create sterile plants.

Sterile plants mean that seed produced from these new “super foods” is usually sterile and its seeds cannot be used to grow new plants for the following season. The results of this sterile seed to the world stage could be potentially devastating. Plants generally depend on pollination to grow crops. Pollination is a process that generally occurs naturally by bees, birds, and other insects. This is why the loss of bee population can be harmful to more that just the production of honey. Large scale operations that employ Monsanto’s sterile GMF plants for their crops, may be located near smaller farmers who use a different strain of corn, for example. Through natural pollination, their crop may now become partially pollinated by Monsanto’s GM corn through no fault of their own. Now they are selling GM food without their knowledge. Furthermore, the crop seed that they may be holding bad to plant for next years crop may be completely sterile, which would have a devastating effect on the following years crop for that small farmer. If you couple that with the fact that Monsanto sells these “Terminator” seeds throughout the globe, the end result could be beyond belief. If a small farm in Iowa faces this problem, imagine the devastating effect on a small village in a developing world. Slowly, the world’s food supply could be taken over by Monsanto’s sterile GM food, which is good for them but bad for the rest of us. The issue goes even deeper, as this is promoting monoculture which are bad for the environment. Currently most of the bananas that are supplied to the world markets are one single species. A fungus, insect or disease that attacks this particular species of banana could potentially wipe out our banana supply chain in a way that the world couldn’t recover. Now imagine the result if the world is using a single breed of corn or wheat. Starvation and famine could come to the entire world, the way it is seen in far away lands that we like to ignore.

Unfortunately, you may be buying GM foods without even knowing it. The EcoSpheric Blog provided the following lists, so jump over and read their article. The list of GM foods that are approved for commercial sale include: canola oil, radicchio, corn (which you know is in everything!), cotton, papaya, potato, soybean, squash, and tomato. And these products do not even have to be labeled as such! Here are some of the products that may already be in your pantry that use GM foods: Alpo Dry Pet Food, Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, Ball Park Franks, Betty Crocker Bac-O’s, Boca Burger Chef, Max’s Favorite, Bravo’s Tortilla Chips, Duncan Hines Cake Mix, Enfamil ProSobee Soy Formula, Frito-Lay Corn Chips, Gardenburger, General Mills Total Corn Flakes Cereal, Heinz 2 Baby Food, Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Light Life Gimme Lean, McDonald’s McVeggie Burgers, Morningstar Farms Better’n Burgers, Morningstar Farms Harvest Burgers, Nestle Carnation Alsoy Infant Formula, Old El Paso Taco Shells, Ovaltine Malt Powdered Beverage Mix, Post Blueberry Morning Cereal, Quaker Chewy Granola Bars, Quaker Yellow Corn Meal, Quick Loaf Bread Mix, Similac Isomil Soy Formula, and Ultra Slim Fast. This list alone shows how the American public has been kept blissfully unaware of the things we may be consuming.

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