Moms have the power

You’ve probably suspected it all along – the most powerful consumer in a grocery store, the one who really can influence what is put on the shelves – is dear old mom.  Robyn O’Brien in Prevention writes:  “Ninety-six percent of American mothers plan to make changes to their food-buying habits in 2013.”

The survey used to come up with the above percentage revealed one very interesting fact that, in my opinion, highlights one of the bigger information trends of our day.  When it comes to stocking pantries and fridges, moms rely more on information from friends and blogs than from doctors, dieticians or other experts.

The survey was conducted by Fleishman-Hillard and TheMotherhood.com.  The Prevention article goes on to say,  “Moms are turning to their peers online and off for information about food – from general to more specific information about genetically modified organisms, pesticides and other food safety topics,” said Kristie Sigler, senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard. “This study showed that moms place higher priority on the opinions of bloggers and peers than that of experts like doctors and dietitians – an important takeaway for food marketers.”  Read full article here.

So take notice food manufacturers!  “All Natural” or “Farm Fresh” on the front will only go so far once a savvy shopper turns the carton around and reads a paragraph of genetically modified and artificial ingredients.

Click here for a list of all the common ingredients that are GMO.

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All the genetically modified food I ate this Christmas

This post is a reality check.  I am not trying to be a drag or rub unpleasantness in anyone’s face but I am going to honor the intent of this blog as I continue to “get to the truth about GMO in our food supply”.  This holiday season was a stark reminder to me about what it would really take to avoid GMO food entirely.  I honestly am not sure I will ever be up to the task on a permanent, year round basis.  It is simply too monumental of an endeavor.

I am just beginning to get the knack of avoiding genetically modified food in my own home.  I’m a savvy shopper who takes my reading glasses shopping with me, who turns every product around, who reads the fine print on the back.  I am learning my hidden GMO ingredients.

But during the holidays, we are invited to others’ homes, to dinners out, and food preparation is out of our control.  Below I discuss just some of the many items readily available for our consumption during the holiday season.   Whether lurking atop a platter on my sister-in-law’s beautifully decked Christmas table, soaking in a savory marinade on an hors d’oeuvres tray,  or pouring into a high ball glass or beautiful piece of stemware, GMOs are so pervasive it is sadly laughable to try to avoid them unless you are willing to never leave the confines of your own home.

Oils – danger Will Robinson!  Marinades.  Salads.  Dips.  Sauces.  Gravies.  Desserts.  Breads.  Crackers.  Sweet breads. Cakes. Cookies.  Unless it is 100% organic canola oil or pure extra virgin olive oil, it is GMO.  (Sauces and gravies likely also contain corn starch and/or other corn products… big time GMO)

Candy – homemade candy, though lacking in additives (a good thing), is made with corn syrup as the main ingredient.  How many cooks do you know who seek out 100% organic corn syrup for their holiday candies?  And if such a dedicated cook finds it, it ain’t gonna be cheap.

All things dairy:  cheese, cream, ice cream, butter.  Only a few dairies are bovine growth hormone (rBST or rBGH) free in their non-milk products and many dairies still use the hormones in their milks.  So in addition to the pure forms of these products, we are talking about a plethora of recipes that call for butter, cheese, cream cheese, cream, whipping cream – you get the idea.

Meats – here I got lucky because my sister-in-law served a hormone free, anti-biotic free prime rib.  I don’t know if it was grass-fed though.  And if it was not organic, it ate GMO corn feed.  (I didn’t push it any further when she told me it was a hormone and antibiotic free prime rib.  I simply complimented her on both her choice of meat and how perfectly she cooked it.  The thing cut like butter.)

Cocktails – try to find a cocktail mix, juice in a jar or frozen juice can that does not contain high fructose corn syrup.  Even if they contain sugar instead, if it isn’t pure cane sugar, it comes from the genetically modified sugar beet.

Wine and beer?  Fermented with GMO sugar and yeast.  This category is one of the most difficult for me.  I’m sorry.  I can’t say goodbye to wine and beer.

So there is my short description of common GMO laden food and drink consumed by me and gifted to me – all of which I ate and drank this holiday season and it isn’t even New Year’s yet.  I am learning to pass on the homemade almond roca and caramels (after I have just a few), but it saddens me to know others will cheerfully gobble it up while completely unaware that anything could possibly be wrong.  Generally, people just aren’t ready to know, don’t even want to know, all this GMO jazz and who would really want to know if they could avoid it? I was once blissfully ignorant too.

If you’ve even read this far, you are one of the few and I commend you.  If we could only turn a blind eye to the manipulation of our food by mega-multinational-conglomerates – and it would all just go away.  If only…

Written by Julie Kay

GE salmon and then what?

There are a lot of things we can do technologically, but that doesn’t mean we should.  Science is making it possible for us to manipulate the DNA of living things – plants and animals.  So what’s next?  If it meant we could grow taller, would we willingly mix the DNA of a giraffe with our own?  All these DNA concoctions summon memories of that creepy movie The Fly when Jeff Goldblum unknowingly gets into his newly invented telepod contraption with a fly – thereby mixing the two DNAs.  The thing about altering DNA is, once it’s altered there is no going back.  Jeff Goldblum was never going to be just plain human again.

Genetically engineered salmon, or transgenic salmon could show up your dinner plate very soon, as the FDA recently deemed it not a threat to the environment or to us.  The above photo shows the desired trait of the altered DNA.  Size.  That’s it.  Bigger fish.  More money.  Below is a brief description of what transgenic salmon is, as reported in the Huffinton Post.

The AquaAdvantage salmon has an added growth hormone from the Pacific Chinook salmon that allows the fish to produce growth hormone all year long. The engineers were able to keep the hormone active by using another gene from an eel-like fish called an ocean pout that acts like an “on” switch for the hormone. Typical Atlantic salmon produce the growth hormone for only part of the year.

The Center for Food Safety (www.centerforfoodsafety.org) sharply criticized today’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) announcement releasing an Environmental Assessment (EA) on the controversial AquaBounty AquaAdvantage® transgenic salmon.  The FDA action is widely viewed as confirmation that the Obama Administration is prepared to approve shortly the first genetically engineered (GE) animal intended for human consumption in the face of widespread opposition.

“It is extremely disappointing that the Obama Administration continues to push approval of this dangerous and unnecessary product,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for Center for Food Safety.  “The GE salmon has no socially redeeming value; it’s bad for the consumer, bad for the salmon industry and bad for the environment.  FDA’s decision is premature and misguided.”  Read full article here.

Sneaky and diabolical

 Learn more www.organicconsumers.org

While the rest of the nation is distracted by violence aimed at the most innocent of our citizens, by fears of careening off a metaphoric fiscal cliff, by the frenzy of the holidays – Monsanto is quietly and adeptly slipping verbiage into two senate bills that will effectively give them green lights to plant genetically engineered (GMO) seeds wherever and whenever they wish.  Government, environment, consumers be damned.  Yep it’s true.

Here is a quote from the Millions Against Monsanto facebook page:  Monsanto could get everything it wants for Christmas, unless we convince legislators this week to strip both the 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill (H.R. 5973) and the Farm Bill of dangerous riders that would give the biotech industry unprecedented power and immunity from not only an already-weakened review process, but also from federal law.  If this appalls you, you can sign letters to your representatives to stop these riders by following directions from the above site.  Congress is back in session and while they hammer out the fiscal cliff deal, these sweeping riders slip through the cracks.

It is so wickedly clever.   Monsanto knows what they’re doing.

Written by Julie Kay.

These foods are GMO

This picture lists the common foods that are genetically modified, mostly for the purpose of tolerating herbicide and providing a toxin to bugs, or in the case of dairy – to enable the cows to be milked all day long.  It may not seem like a long list upon first glance, but processed foods are LOADED with the above ingredients in many, many forms and strange sounding names.  Try to find a processed food that does not have some form of soy or corn in it.  It doesn’t have to say corn or soy to be a corn or soy product.  I recently blogged the list of all the hidden ingredients that contain corn and soy.  Some of them you would never suspect!

Tell the truth, the half-truth, and nothing but the half-truth

Photo Credit: Ken Kuhl

Watch this video below about how the executives of Fox News killed a story about dairy cattle and bovine growth hormone, or recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) because of pressure from its creator, Monsanto.  And don’t let the fact that it is Fox sway you.  It could just as easily be MSNBC or ABC or heck, probably even public television, as even that stalwart entity is relying more and more on corporate sponsorship as public funding gets cut.

The video is from 2006 and though some dairies (due to public outcry) have since stopped using rBGH in their milks, many still use it for ice cream, butter, cheeses, yogurt and other dairy products.  Click here to learn more about recombinant bovine growth hormone and the health risks associated with it from the Cancer Prevention Coalition.  The risks listed there don’t even include the proliferation of antibiotics and nutrient killing pasteurization processes used in the dairy products because of pus leakage due to mastitis of the udders – as the cows are milked way more than would otherwise be possible without the hormone – and they get infections.  Guess where the pus ends up?  I’m really sorry to be so graphic but we need to wake up and know what is in our food!

The video below is also a 10-minute exposé on how our news is heavily influenced by corporate interests.  In other words, the “News” is about what Big Business wants it to be about.  It is a hard fact to accept, I know.  I don’t want to believe it either but the more I learn about just the singular topic of GMOs, the more I realize we have been and are continuing to be duped by multi-national corporate interests.  Imagine all the other industries that lie so they can sell products.   I honestly wish I could report that big business has our best interests at heart and that they want only the truth to be known.  But I can’t make that report because in case after case that I am uncovering on my journey here at SLEUTH 4 HEALTH, I am seeing the opposite.  The companies I have investigated want to sell products, make money and they will do whatever it takes to “get around” the truth and get past the regulatory agencies.

GMOs across the pond

I was reading through an article about speeding up the roll-out of GM crops in the British publication The Daily Telegraph and as I kept clicking on related articles, my stomach lurched, twisted and tied itself into a nasty knot.  There is a sentiment in British government that GMO opponents are a bunch of loons and that the answer to all the world’s hunger woes is in genetic engineering.  The Brits in government want all of Europe to wise up and start planting these seed darlings of technology.  Owen Paterson  is the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs secretary, and he told The Daily Telegraph that “GM crops should be developed to feed the world.”

The backlash against GM food and crops in the UK has come mostly from consumers.  What became clear as I read through the articles was that according to the prime minister and his spokespeople, the fear-mongering consumers are going to have to buck up and eat GM food whether they like it or not. Read article in The Telegraph.

Now, folks, for me this is of mammoth concern.   First of all, we in the US look to Europe as our model when it comes to fighting the mighty biotech wave that is wrapping its DNA altered seed all around the globe.  If they cave, we get knocked down a peg or two or ten.

The way that the industry veils GM as the savior for the world and the answer to drought, frost, shortage, low crop yields, pesticide use – is diabolical.  Right now the predominant use of GM crops is so they can be doused in herbicide and NOT die (we’re eating that) and in the case of corn, so that the guts of bugs that bite them can be split open so they’ll die (we’re eating that too).  The farmers become dependent on the seeds, which are patented, and the farmer must buy new seed every year as they will be sued if they collect seed for next year’s planting.  The farmers must also buy the Roundup every year.

Biotech wants to make money, not feed the world.