Sustainable Living: How to Avoid GMO’s
By Shawn Dell Joyce
It is very difficult to avoid eating genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) in our country, because they are so pervasive in the food system and unlabeled in the grocery stores. Part of the reason for this is biotech giants fought to keep GMO foods unlabeled.
Some 200 million acres of the world’s farms grew biotech crops last year, with over 90 percent of the genetically engineered (GE) seeds coming from US-based Monsanto. Scientists have taken genetic materials from one organism (like a soil bacterium), along with an antibiotic resistant marker gene, and spliced both into a food crop (like corn) to create a genetically modified crop that resists specific diseases and pests.
There has been no long term independent testing on the impacts of these “franken-foods” on the ecosystem or human health. Instead, there is a long litany of concealed truths, strong arm tactics and even outright bribery by the world’s biotech giants. Most recently, the growth hormones from GE organisms known as rBGH, which is given to cows to make them produce more milk, were banned in Europe and Canada after the authorities found out about the health risks resulting from drinking milk from cows treated with rBGH hormones. Some American milk producers started labeling their milk “rBGH and rBST free.” Monsanto, which sells bovine growth hormones under the brand name Posilac, began suing dairy producers to force them to stop labeling their milk.
In addition to most milk products, GMO’s can be found in most commercially-farmed meats, and processed foods on store shelves. In our country, 89 percent of all soy, 61 percent of all corn, and 75 percent of all canola are genetically-altered. Other foods like commercially-grown papaya, zucchini, tomatoes, several fish species, and food additives like enzymes, flavorings, and processing agents, including the sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet®) and rennet used to make hard cheeses, also contain GMO’s.
To complicate matters, GMO’s move around in the ecosystem through pollen, wind, and natural cross-fertilization. The Union of Concerned Scientists conducted two separate independent laboratory tests on non-GM seeds “representing a substantial proportion of the traditional seed supply” for corn, soy and oilseed rape. The test found that half the corn and soy, and 83 percent of the oilseed rape were contaminated with GM genes, eight years after the GM varieties were first grown on a large scale in the US.
The reports states that “Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level.” There could be “serious risks to health” if drugs and industrial chemicals from the next generation of GM crops were consumed in food.
What can you do to avoid GMO’s?
• Know how your food is grown by buying directly from local farmers.
• Support organic agriculture, and food producers who label their ingredients, particularly dairy farmers.
• Eat pastured meat raised on organic feed-the only way to ensure this is to buy from someone you know.
• Support farmers who are a sued by biotech giants. Monsanto has set aside an annual budget of $10 million and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting more than 150 farmers for a total of more than $15 million.
• Demand labeling on all GMO-containing products so that we at least have a choice!
Tags: Shawn Dell
April 8th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
i am not against GMO’s.
i have no problem with them.
i consider children technically GMO’s.
take some genetic material form one thing, mix it up with another thing and presto: a baby.
a GMO.
what i do have a problem with is that people pollute, trash the planet, and uses, use, use.
then they have a kid and all of a sudden they are ecologists that want to saved the planet for their children.
what were they doing in the mean time?
did they realize they were participating in the destruction?
people like me who have sacrificed and been careful and respectful of the planet since they were aware they were alive were laughed at when we advocated recycling or giving up their selfish need to become genetically immortal.
i was recycling and growing my own food and sewing and weaving before you were born.
mad?
damn straight i am mad.
all those years of conscious effort destroyed because of people refusing to cut back on procreation.
organic products are a scam.
organic does not necessarily mean safe.
when i lived in Egypt they fertilized the fields with human waste.
the vegetables were “organically’ grown.
i resent the usurping of a term that originally meant carbon based compounds, hydrocarbons, and their derivatives to some twisted silly touchy-feelly definition associated with a vegetable that is safer and better to eat.
GMO’S are the least of the problems scraped up by people to be a threat to the planet.
overpopulation is a bigger threat.
it is not the food conglomerates or the oil producers that are the largest polluters.
they are only producing products that are demanded.
the plastic industry that makes toys and diapers for children demands the by-products of these industries to make products for children.
plastic toy manufactures are the largest polluters.
people need gas to get to work to buy plastic toys and stuff for kids.
GMO’S showed up to feed the growth in population.
we don’t need labeling to have a choice. the choice is there.
stop having kids. then the cycle will be broken.