In this, the age of instant coffee creamer, microwave dinners, and so-called “happy meals”, it seems easier than ever to remain disconnected from the truth that what we put into our bodies can have long-term effects on our health.
Still, the rhetoric is slowly shifting now that Proposition 37, California’s 2012 ballot initiative which would have required the mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms, has necessarily ushered the dialogue into the national arena. Though the measure was reportedly defeated by a relatively small margin, now is the greatest opportunity for education.
The hotly debated Prop 37 sparked a long-overdue and far-reaching conversation on the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods and, for that matter, on the blind trust many Americans seem to place in the multi-billion dollar biotechnology industry that supplies those foods, as well as the federal government whose shoddy lack of industry oversight means that every day more and more people develop life-threatening conditions or chronic illness. In short, where the government has failed to protect the people with clear regulation and accountability of biotech corporations, some of those concerned people are now taking matters into their own hands by helping to share the truth about genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Sometimes referred to as “Frankenfoods”, GMOs are living organisms, patented and patent-protected by the very biotechnology companies that “create” them. In a process that is both unethical and imprecise, the DNA of one species is extracted and forced into the DNA of another, unrelated life-form- sometimes animals and sometimes crops. Animals such as salmon are genetically altered to be larger and grow faster, which can mean any number of eventual health complications for the animal, not to mention for the person who later eats that animal. Crops like soy, corn and canola are genetically altered either to be more resistant to particular brand of pesticide/herbicide manufactured by that same biotech company, resulting in the increased use of chemicals on the crop (and increased sales profits for the company), or they are manipulated to biologically produce the pesticide themselves, meaning that once ingested, the pesticide bacteria break open the stomach of any insect that bites the plant, killing it.
According to Jeffrey Smith of the Institute of Responsible Technology, two recent studies – one on mice and one on pregnant women – indicate that the very same deadly process may already be at work inside the stomachs of millions of unwitting consumers and even the still-forming brains and bodies of unborn children. This, he says, could account for the steady increase in diagnosed (and undiagnosed) digestive disorders throughout the United States. Likewise, a surge in reported cases of food allergies, autoimmune diseases, infertility, autism and even cancer may also be related to the consumption of GM foods.
To learn more, please visit: http://www.responsibletechnology.org/.
– by Angela M. Doss
