Sustainable Community Living

This new book by Claire Hope Cummings reads like a science fiction novel about some other planet.  It is hard to believe we have allowed big business and governments to do the things they have done to our food supply.  I’ve followed GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) for a while now, but have a hard time finding real facts on the web.  However Claire has done the research and better than that she has seen the industry first hand.  She was an environmental lawyer for twenty years, four of them with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.  She gives clear and shocking facts for all those that care about the future of food to see. (I’m assuming you already know a bit about GMOs and know they are already in your food supply.)

Here are some of the startling facts:

• 97% of 75 vegetables whose seeds were once available from the USDA are now extinct.
• Everything imaginable has been engineered into food.  There is corn that produces the hepatitis B virus, corn with a human contraceptive, corn with jellyfish genes that glow in the dark, and corn with chicken genes. There are human genes in tobacco, sugar cane, and rice!   (Remember despite company claims these engineered plants are know to be transgenic!  Meaning they cross these species barrier and don’t just stay in the one engineered plant!  BT (designed to kill bugs biting the plant) which was designed to stay in corn has now been found in the guts of honey bees where it destroys the “good bacteria” responsible for food digestion.  It is also found in humans or anything that eats this corn!!)
• There are now many world wide studies confirming that GMOs are hazardous to human and environmental health.  One out of Ireland showed that food-related disease doubled during the same time that GMO food was introduced.
• Rats fed GMO corn had blood cell formation problems, and those fed GMO soy had liver problems, which were even worse in rats red GMO canola.
• These companies are not required to label food products is the US containing GMOs as they are in Asia and Europe.
• Between 1999 and 2005, there were 115 documented case of GMO contamination, twice as many in the US as in any other country.
• Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer/Dupont and Bayer now have a decade of experience with contamination.  They have been fined, chastised by consumers, and sued by farmers, but they have done nothing.
• Over 80% of processed foods sitting on the grocers shelves contain GMOs.

Don’t think you have eaten GMO’s?  Think again, one study tried to find at least one small group of people without GMO contamination for a comparative study and could not find one person that wasn’t already contaminated!  You eat Nabisco or Kraft foods?  Then you eat GMOs. Kraft Foods spun off from Altria Group (formerly Phillip Morris) and became its own public company in 2007.  Phillip Morris…mmm…you remember the tobacco with human genes in it?  Mmmmm wonder what that is used for.  Hope you don’t smoke!

How about eating anything made by General Mills?  General Mills manufactures breakfast cereal, yogurts, baking mixes, dinner mixes, fruit snacks and grain snacks, among other products. In 2007, the Minneapolis-based company employed 28,100 people and reported sales of $12.4 billion.  General Mills has not provided transparent information about its use of genetically engineered products and has fought proposed regulations requiring the labeling of GMO foods.

How about Kellogs? Kellogg’s produces several lines of breakfast cereal and foods, such as frozen waffles and toaster pastries. The company, based in Battle Creek Michigan, employs over 26,000 people. In 2006, Kellogg’s reported sales of $10.9 billion. Kellogg’s has worked to block US legislation requiring producers to label items containing GMOs.

Are you starting to get the point?  You are being experimented on by big business.  You think the government protects you?  Think again, GMO slips through the cracks and is a self-regulated industry providing their own reports to the government on safety.  Hundreds of these companies executives now sit in key positions in our government.

Your tax dollars even went into the development of the terminator gene! Complements of the USDA and your hard earned tax dollars!  Now Monsanto uses it in there seed so farmers must by seed from them every year instead of saving it from year to years as humans have done for millenia.  Now one large company controls the very food you put in your mouth.

Cargill, the second largest privately owned corporation in the US and one of the largest producers of GMO,s (read this link to understand the depth of which this company owns the food supply) owns the following companies or supplies them with GMO laden foods either directly or through animal feeds:

• McDonalds
• J.M. Smuckers
• Coca Cola
• ACCO Feeds
• Nations second largest beef processor
• You know I have to stop here, the list is exhaustive!!!  I could type for another hour and not get them all down here, but you get the point.  Research it for yourself.  Learn, educate yourself and start growing your own food.

How do you stop this from happening to your food?  With your $, stop buying contaminated food.  Next time before you shop go to this web who keeps an an on big business and find out what is in your food.  You vote with your $ when it comes to big business.