Genetically Modified Food

I have an obsession with the health news. I know that others have obsessions with the sports page, the headlines, the entertainment. I think I'm the only one I know who reads the health news with any regularity. It's always changing. One day eggs are good for you, and the next they will kill you. One day salt is bad, and the next it is good for a select few. And on and on.

But there are ongoing issues. And I do find them interesting.

Big on the news lately (or the news that I read anyhow) is the role of GM foods. How safe are they? Will they save the world? Or just make Monsanto own every seed in the world? I get asked this by friends who know I read up on this stuff. And the answer is always, the GM foods aren't tested. Why not? Well . . .

www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pusztai.html

www.connectotel.com/gmfood/soyarefs.html

Monsanto has always had so much bad press. Lately, there are suits over it's patenting of seeds. Creepy and interesting . . .

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0115-04.htm

I guess I first became aware of Monsanto when the U.S. started allowing the company to sell bovine hormones in this country. Of course, Canada and Europe didn't buy the Monsanto line that the bovine hormones were not only fine for you, but beneficial. My mother didn't buy it either, so I heard a lot about it. So, is our conventional milk bad for us? And if you buy organic milk, what about the rest of the dairy you eat?

www.preventcancer.com/consumers/general/milk.htm

Then there's the yucky Monsanto product, aspartame. (At least aspartame was a Monsanto product. I'm not sure if it still is.) Whenever I see someone drinking a diet soda, I want to say, STOP! So odd to think that Donald Rumsfeld was a part of the party of men who helped get apartame approved. But the stuff has really bad news attached to it. Plus a lot of studies say it makes you fat ( or rather, increases your appetite), so if you drink it to stay thin, well . . .

www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/dangers.htm
www.naturodoc.com/library/nutrition/aspartame.htm
www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/
www.321recipes.com/aspartame.html

Of course Monsanto likes to claim that their GM foods will save the world by producing drought or pest-resistant crops. Miracle crops. But I'm not sure the evidence is in their favor. There are a lot of studies that suggest conventional ag. techniques are, in the end, the best for everyone. And there are some sad cases. The cotton farmers in India, for example

www.scidev.net/en/features/gm-in-india-the-battle-over-bt-cotton.html

And what about the risk of these genetically modified seeds mixing with the native seeds?


www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1130-03.htm

And then Monsanto did argue that Agent Orange, or dioxin, wasn't harmful. Didn't they?

www.organicconsumers.org/dioxcov.html

But then, you can always think you don't eat GM food. But are you sure? Even your vitamins contain GM food, as do so many other items you might not think of . . . And remember, they aren't labeled as such because the corporations don't want to alert you to what you might be buying, I guess. You have to scroll down on the entry below to get to a list. Or you can lookat the pdf for a more complete shopping guide.

www.disabled-world.com/fitness/gm-foods.php

truefoodnow.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/web_new-ge-booklet.pdf