Yummy, cloned corn!

If you don’t know what genetically engineered food is then it’s time you learn. I thought it just meant that it was altered somehow (innocuously) to make food better. But after reading up on the subject, I am sad to report that it has more to do with making a better profit than making better food. When over three fourths of processed food is genetically engineered, we need to not only learn what it is but start speaking up regarding our concern for what it is doing to our food supply and us. Again, the consumer is at the bottom of the list of priorities when it comes to what Agribusiness is up to. You may be surprised to learn what genetic engineering means to our health, the environment and the future of agriculture.

From an article on alternet.org, the author of the article quotes from a book called Your Right To Know: Genetic Engineering and the Secret Changes in Your Food by Andrew Kimbrell. As the founder and director of the Washington D.C. based center for Food Safety and the International Center for Technology Assessment, Kimbrell is well-versed and knowledgeable about what is happening to our food.

In this article, Kimbrell is interviewed by the author regarding the subject of genetically engineered food. Kimbrell basically challenges what the chemical companies have done to corrupt nature via their technology to fit their economic agenda. He believes that with all the damage that has been done by man forcing nature to adapt to him, that our lesson to be learned is that we need to instead adapt our food production techniques to nature. But the chemical companies don’t like this idea because it cuts them out of the equation such as in organic farming techniques. So, instead they want nature, including man, to fit their technology and their economic system. Here is what Kimbrell had to say about the what is behind the technology:

So, for example what we have with genetic engineering, if you spray herbicide on crops, it kills them, it kills everything green, it doesn’t just kill the weeds, it kills the crops. So, the idea would be, as weeds become resistant to herbicides, to stop using them, and find other ways of weed and pest control. But that didn’t fit the needs of … the chemical companies. That would mean less of their product. So, instead of changing their technology and economics to fit nature, they said “let’s change plants so they can withstand huge amounts of our chemicals” — herbicides — and four out of every five acres of genetically engineered plants in this country and in the world are planted solely because they can tolerate these herbicides.

Now if that doesn’t scare you nothing will. The way Kimbrell explains it is that the chemical scientists put foreign bacteria, foreign viral chains, foreigh anti-biotic resistant genes into each cell of every food. So, what you end up with is that “every cell of genetically engineered food has a novel bacteria, novel viral promoters, has a novel genetic construct whether it be the herbicide tolerant gene or the Bt, and has an anti-biotic marker system”.

So what is the result of all this monkeying with nature? According to scientists at the FDA who you never hear from, they state that the risks are that it could take a nontoxic food and make it toxic, it can create new human allergies, it significantly reduces the vitamin content in the food and that there has been peer-reviewed scientific evidence that it can be harmful to the immune system. In addition to this, there is the additional problem that the environmental risks amount to biological pollution such as the gene jump to “super” weeds which are resistant to just about any herbicide.

There is also the problem of the “living pollution” in the fact that once these genetic engineered seeds are sown in the fields, they grow, disseminate and mutate which is difficult to contain. Even in small field trials, even if only a few species are affected, it becomes biological pollution. What this amounts to is the ultimate unnatural monoculture or monoculture on steriods. So, in genetically engineering a plant, you are not only crossing species but you’re crossing phyla. In other words, you end up with one type of wheat, one type of corn, etc. And, if there is a corn blithe or a wheat blithe, the whole crop can be wiped out. This is the result of reducing genetic diversity which has the possibility of being devastating to food crops. If we continue on this path of genetic engineering, we can end up with literally one variety, or two varieties of plants, in which the engineering is targeted solely towards more abundant yields, easier to store crops and the easiest to sell.

What further complicates this industrial food pollution process is that there is no mandatory testing, and no mandatory labeling so that as consumers, we aren’t even informed as to what we are buying. All the FDA has established is a voluntary consulting process whereby the food manufacturer can choose to consult with the FDA if there are issues. What would happen if we had this same lack of regulation in drugs? Yet, we are accepting this with genetically modified food without even knowing what the true risks are.

In order to determine what kind of food you are buying, you actually need a guidebook that helps you navigate the aisles of your local grocery store. The best resource for determining the source of your food is to go to a website called Center for Food Safety which has continuous updates on what’s going on in our food supply. But we should never become complacent and allow our government to continue to look the other way while the big industrial food giants continue on their path of biological pollution. The first step in changing anything is education. So, I hope this article is helpful in bringing information to you to assist in the movement to stop the continued use and proliferation of genetically engineered food. Let your congressional leaders know how you feel. This is an important issue that affects every single one of us.