I'm all for science and the many good things it has brought us. Life-saving drugs and improved surgical techniques have saved many lives. And the researchers and doctors who once pooh-poohed the idea that what you eat could affect your health are now climbing on board the healthy foods bandwagon.
That's good science. Let's talk about Monsanto, et al and good-only-for-the-bottom-line science. Years ago when the chemical companies were pushing their pesticides and herbicides, they had a real problem. Unfortunately the products that could kill the bugs and weeds also killed the crops. What to do? What to do?
How about messing around with a little gene splicing so that the seeds were resistant to the poison that killed bugs and weeds? You could spray Roundup all over the corn, soy, etc. since the crops were Roundup-resistant. Not only could you sell the heck out of Roundup, but now the only seeds the farmers could use were those Roundup resistant ones. And the best part? These little buggers produced sterile plants, so no problem with saving some of the seeds to sow next year because all they would do is just lay there and rot. The company bean counters were beside themselves with joy. Self-propagating profit! But you better not fool with Mother Nature. Her little bugs and weeds developed a resistance to Roundup so farmers had to use more and more of it. Again a win-win for Monsanto.
You will hear that the majority of these frankencrops are not in your supermarket. They are, instead, used as animal feed. Of course - just like us - animals are what they eat. Since the GMO crops are cheaper than the old conventional varieties, they are sold to the food manufacturers to be converted into that super sweetener High Fructose Corn Syrup. They are also used in most processed foods under a plethora of names that are not only unpronounceable, but give little hint of their origin.
There are still some corn, soy and other crops that have not been 'improved' by agrichem (my word) companies. They are clearly marked ORGANIC - NON-GMO. If you make the decision to do without pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, antibiotics, etc. in your food, it is difficult but not impossible. The extra that you spend for real food will be much less than what you would spend at the doctor's office attempting to undo the damage done by our food manufacturers.
If you would like to give real food a fighting chance, you can download a free list of Non-GMO foods to take with you when you shop. This is by no means a complete list, since it's a category that changes frequently. You can return to this site later on to see the updates.
http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/
NANO WHAT?
The wonders of modern science are truly mind-boggling. First we had GMO, then we had BPA and now -tada!- the purveyors of our foodstuffs proudly present - NANO!
As you know, in our blog we have beaten the heck out of GMO and stated our aversion to all things Monsanto, and then we jumped all over plastics and can linings and BPA. Bloody but unbowed, science has now snuck in the back door with a science fiction staple - nanoparticles.
Nanotechnology, that geeky mad scientist vision of the future, has now invaded the food industry. While we may not thrill to the idea of tiny robots scurrying about our bodies, poking their teensy noses into every cell and molecule, we can at least see the possibilities of their being useful in a medical sense. In our food - not so much.
Few, if any, studies demonstrate the safety of nanoparticles in food, yet nanomaterials are making their way into our food supplies. Currently the United States has no labeling requirement for products or packaging containing nanomaterials. The FDA has stated that nanomaterials cannot generally be regarded as safe. Ingredients that are GRAS (generally recognized as safe) at the macro level may not be safe at the nanoscale.
Their small size allows nanoparticles to go places in the body that larger particles cannot. Whether you inhale 'em, eat 'em or rub 'em on your skin, once they get in you they can penetrate cell walls and pass into the lymph and blood system. From there it's a hop, skip and jump to bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen, liver, heart and they're even small enough to cross the blood brain barrier.
A laboratory study showed titanium dioxide nanoparticles in the white powdered sugar that coats Dunkin' Donuts Powdered Cake Donuts and Hostess Donettes. (See Slipping Through the Cracks: An Issue Brief on Nanomaterials in Food http://asyousow.org/health_safety/nanoissuebrief.shtml.)
Back in 1966 a classic sci-fi movie was released called Fantastic Voyage. To save the life of a diplomat, a group of doctors and scientists in a submarine were were shrunk down to the size of a bacterium and injected into the diplomat to "make repairs internally". This is actually the cutting edge of medicine today (not tiny scientists - nanobots). Amazing - and no prob. Years of research and countless studies enabled such breakthroughs. Unfortunately, when it comes to what goes into our foodstuffs, the attitude seems to be "Oh, wow. A whole country full of lab rats. Let's throw this out and see if anybody develops anything interesting."
If you needed still another reason to avoid processed foods, think about this one. Pleasant dreams.
Here goes the crusader again! Our crusade today is the avalanche of Genetically Modified food that is overtaking our markets. Ever since those busy little scientists started tinkering with cross-species genetics, i.e. Monsanto bringing us RoundUp resistant crops, etc., it has become more and more of a challenge to find foods that haven't been tinkered with. The FDA is currently deciding whether or not these foods should be labeled as GMO. (Why should that even be a question?)
For those of you who want to know which foods are non-GMO - yes there still are some - you can download a PDF booklet that gives you a list of all the presently non-modified foods that are available. Download it, print it off, and take it with you when you grocery shop.
http://mercola.fileburst.com/PDF/GMObrochure.pdf
Our advice? If ain't in the booklet don't eat it.
