Saturday, September 19, 2009

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS


It is impossible to talk about Genetically Modified foods without including an endless credit roll of actors participating in this industry. These include the obvious: Monsanto, Nestle, Perdue, Tyson, but also include Pfizer, WTO, World Bank, IMF, Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), most governments of the world, military industrial complex, logging industry, textile industry….. it would probably be simpler to list what businesses are NOT involved in the Genetically Modified (aka: GM, GMO, GE) foods industry.

It is also impossible now, to isolate the worldwide damage the GM food industry is responsible for, as unknown multiple millions of GM seeds have now infected vast agricultural lands worldwide. GM food itself is only a small part of the damage. This industry is responsible for soil depletion, species extinctions, water, land and air pollution, deforestation, desertification, many new diseases, elimination of millions of family farms worldwide, water shortages and misuse, animal cruelty, introduction of over 1,200 untested drugs and chemicals into the GM food supply that leach into land, air and water supplies, unregulated toxic "manure lagoons" that are often emptied directly into waterways, disinformation about the processing and content of the GM foods themselves, deliberate destruction of organic farming, unfair labor practices, ad nauseum.

No long-term research has ever been done on these crops that are now heavily integrated into the world's food supply and ecosystems. Introduced just over a decade ago, long term research was bypassed to push the GM marketing agenda through by claiming huge increases in crop yields and pest eradication that just 10-12 years later, reports worldwide have proven wrong. Dead wrong.

Americans and Canadians, apparently the easiest international dupes, are the biggest consumers of GM foods, perhaps because, unlike most industrialized nations, they are least informed about what GM food is and where it is found in the foods in the astounding US and Canadian supermarkets. And the GM food industry has fought long and hard to keep it that way.

It is time to fight back with all the energy a species needs to save its very existence. That is all that is at stake: the survival of ours (and most other species) on our planet.

How do we simplify this problem? First, the problem must be clarified so that a sixth grader can easily understand it. Do we shove all these industries into a mixer and pour out the result? If we lined them up on a table, we'd need too many tables.

Let's brainstorm powerful, effective ways to clean up our food on Earth, which will simultaneously clean up our water, aid and land for an added bonus!

1 comment:

  1. Hey! It's your CA friend from the culinary institute, etc!
    Long challenging opportunity to do some real good in our society.
    I think EVERYONE needs to watch that movie we went to see at the Crest Theater...."The Corporation." That is where I first learned about the Monsanto creature and the painful comprehension began about the food-chain corruption.

    It's going to take focus on the wide angle stuff and the microscopic and action everywhere. If we do not speak out, we are just a clique of like-minded people. If we speak out, we become visible and that has its advantages and its dangers. The big question is...."Are we safer being anonymous and in a victim status or by taking an aggressive posture and leading others to see the light?"

    I do much of both.

    Thanks, my friend. You are an honorable citizen of this nation founded by brilliant heroes and heroines.
    Synergy!

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