This year on January 21st Whole Foods sent out an email to all their customers and Friends on Face Book that said they were going to compromise with the FDA. They said coexistence was the best we can get from the UDSA on the issue of GMO’s.
Organic Consumers Association (OCA) members asked OCA if they were going to allow industry leaders such as Whole Foods, Organic Valley and Stoney Field, to accept coexistence with GMO Alfalfa and other GMO foods?
This led the OCA to write the blog article “The Organic Elite Surrender to Monsanto, What next?” http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22449.cfm However, within one hour after publishing this blog, the USDA published their decision to allow alfalfa with no restrictions at all. It has been said that the Whitehouse told the USDA that they they wanted Monsanto to be able to plant GMO alfalfa with no restrictions at all. This is contrary to rulings of federal courts, and warnings of scientists.
There are 23 million acres of alfalfa. 15% of all crop land is planted in alfalfa. Until now 93% of alfalfa growing has not been sprayed with herbicides. Now with the alfalfa fields being planted with Round Up resistant seed they will be more likely to spray these fields with herbicide. This will increase the use of herbicides in the United States on this 15% of crop land and thereby increase the pollution of our land and water. It will increase the appearance of what is called super weeds. Alfalfa puts out a lot of pollen so it will cross-pollinate all the fields near it and move Round Up Ready alfalfa seeds into organic fields. Since all the dairy cows and goats are usually fed alfalfa, there will be a complete invasion of GMO alfalfa into all alfalfa including organic alfalfa. This means all milk producing animals will be eating GMO’s eventually. This is bad news for those of us who consume milk.
OCA believes this is a premeditated act on Monsanto’s part to pollute all Alfalfa in an effort to force the organic community to weaken and allow GMO alfalfa into organics. This would then give them a door into organics that allows all GMO seeds to be allowed by the organic community in the future. Monsanto has been trying to get the organic certifying bodies to allow GMO food since the beginning of GMO seeds. It is their expectation that when their seed pollutes all the organic fields and there is only GMO alfalfa in existence that the organic farmers will not be able resist them. However, organic farmers will continue to resist GMO food. We need to be sure to do all we can to support farmers if we don’t want to continue the march of GMO food into our food chain. It is imperative that we get GMO food labeled immediately.
In the early 90's the first GMO foods came on the market. When Monsanto executive Norman Brasnick was asked about labeling of these new GMO foods during an interview with Kansas City Star, he said putting a label on GMO food was like putting a cross and skull bones on the packaging. They know this would destroy the GMO market. They will fight labeling until we force it on them. So force it on them we must! It is obvious that the federal government is not out to protect our interests.
Watch Dr. Mercolas most recent interview with OCA Founder and Director Ronnie Cummins here http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22541.cfm and learn more about how the Obama, Bush junior, Clinton and Bush Senior administration has created a revolving door between the FDA, and Monsanto as well as the USDA and Monsanto and other governmental jobs and Monsanto. Ronnie Cummins gives a long list of people who work at Monsanto that have been given federal government jobs and states the nasty things they have done while in the federal government to unleash GMO food upon the public. You really want to hear this. It would be unbelievable if not for the fact that it is all verifiable and true. Monsanto donates huge amounts of money to many of our officials running for federal offices. We can complain and change who we vote for, but believe me much of the federal government ihas been bought out by biotech and we are not being listened to. Where we have the most power is in voting with our pocket book. Make sure you are not buying GMO’s. If we do not buy them, the manufacturers of packaged food will quit buying them from farmers and farmers will stop growing them.
We have to pressure the food stores to educate their customers and label GMO foods and prepared food products as containing GMO ingredients. It is simple enough for them to do. They need to let their customers know that the word “Natural” does not mean organic and products labeled “Natural” often contain GMO ingredients. (Many people think natural and organic are the same.) Next they need to place the following three words below all packaged foods that are not certified Non-GMO and are not organic but contain corn, soy, canola oil, cotton seed oil or beet sugar (may contain GMOs). It is really this simple to start change.
So what do you do if your stores refuse to label GMO food. The next step is local government. We can pass laws at the local level in our states, counties, and towns since the federal government has been taken over by the biotech companies. Start with your retail store. If you don’t get results from your grocery stores. Get local laws passed that require grocery stores to put up signs that say may contain GMOs on the shelf below appropriate products. This will be much easier to do than you think. Polls show 93% of people want food to be labeled for GMO’s. It would be easy to pass this in many local areas. It just takes action on our part. If your local government officials are not interested and you have a local ballot system, use it. In many areas of the U.S. you can get petition signatures from citizens and put this on your local ballot for citizens to vote on. Since most citizens want GMO food labeled, you will be able to get this implemented if you put it on the ballet.
While waiting for the stores to make changes tell everyone you know about alfalfa being contaminated and that the Whitehouse not only allowed this, but insisted on letting Monsanto plant GMO alfalfa with no restrictions! Send this blog out to everyone on your email list. If you want to see all milk contaminated with GMO’s including the organic raw milk you purchase from your local farm, just put your head in the sand and pretend this is not going on and that will be the final result in a few years. We must all refuse to eat GMO’s. We must only buy the big 5 foods if they are organic or certified Non GMO. ((soy, corn, cotton seed oil, sugar beets (sugar from sugar beets) and canola oil)) We must make sure our friends, family and neighbors are doing the same. We can do this and it is not even hard. It is a matter of reading labels and not buying anything with possible GMO’s. This includes asking at restaurants about these foods being in their dishes and telling them you do not want to eat the food there anymore if they do not quit buying GMO foods. They will tell you it is hard to purchase non-GMO food for the top 5 GMO ingredients and indeed it is, but guess what, they can do it if they make the effort. Tell them to buy local non-GMO produce.
If you think your health has been unaffected by the GMOs that were unleashed on our country since 1994, think again. Watch the videos at this website: http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Home/index.cfm
Do you have unexplained digestive problems, or inflammation in your body. Aches and pains that you can’t figure out the cause of. The little amount of research that has been accomplished without Monsanto hiding it might lead us to believe the increase in chronic degenerative diseases is due to GMO food flooding our market. Here is some prior information from my earlier blog about health concerns with GMOS.
Why be concerned about GMOs (genetically modified organisms)? Well let’s look at the warning sent out by the American academy of environmental medicine last year to its physicians.
They told their constituents to advise their patients to eat only non-GM (genetically modified) food.
They warned that the GMO animal feeding studies show reproductive problems, organ damage, gastrointestinal problems, immune system problems, and accelerated aging. You can see their position on GMO’s here at http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html
Studies with animals have shown a 5-fold increase in infant mortality, smaller babies, sterile babies, and inability to have babies by third generation.
There is only one human feeding study currently published. GMO soy was used in this experiment. GMO soy is designed to not die when sprayed with round up spray. It is called round up ready soy. When the people in this study digested food made from GMO soy, the genes inserted in the soybeans they ate transferred into the DNA of the bacteria inside the human subjects. These human subjects now had round up ready gut bacteria. We don’t know if the round up ready soy DNA that transfers to our gut bacteria will they stay there forever or if it may even splice into our own DNA. We don’t know since the research has not been required to be done by the FDA.
Here are some resources and places to get more information:
The Non-GMO Shopping Guide:
Jeffrey Smith’s site, who has been the leader in educating the public about GMOS:
Non-Gmo Labeling Site – see who is selling Non-GMO food and find out about labeling:
Talk to your neighbors, people you work with, those in your church or spiritual community. Talk to everyone who will listen about GMO food!
Join Millions Against Mansanto: http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm
Send this blog to everyone on your email list!
