Genetic Engineering Explained
We see many friends ordering edamame for instance, at Japanese restaurants. And miso soup with pieces of tofu in it as well. We see non-organic “local” corn being sold at Whole Foods week after week, but have not once seen organic corn at Whole Foods in recent years. And we have to wonder: are the people who order the edamame and miso soup, and purchase the non-organic corn at Whole Foods aware of the impact genetic engineering is having, not only on their own bodies, but on the entire planet, and the fate of all human and animal kind??
Let us refer to Genetic Engineered plants as GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms.
The following crops are the current GM crops: soy, corn, cotton, canola, beets, Hawaiian papaya, zucchini, and yellow squash. With more to follow, as the GM companies are relentlessly lobbying to Genetically Modify additional food crops, including our precious brown rice, and other whole grains.
If you eat foods from the above categories that are not organic, and / or not specifically labeled as Non-GMO, you are ingesting genetically modified food. This does include oils and “sugars” made from these foods as found in almost all packaged food products.
What does this mean for you you may ask?? Here is the shocking truth. Foods are genetically modified in a few ways, and for a few reasons. Two of the main reasons are to create plants that either take poison in, or produce poison. Poison drinkers are called herbicide tolerant. Their DNA is altered with bacterial genes that allow them to survive otherwise deadly doses of toxic herbicides. The poison producers have genes inserted in them that produce an insect killing toxic pesticide. Then there are also the aggressive virus genes that are inserted into these plants to fight off potential, and much gentler normal plant viruses. All with dangerous side effects to humans.
And why do they do this you may also be asking. “They”, the food industry, the Genetic Engineering companies, they do this in order to control, own if you will, Mother Nature, in a greedy attempt to capitalize on natural abundance, even though studies and intellect suggest that this short sighted greed will not end well, for us or for the environment.
In a natural ecosystem, like many of the large organic farming businesses, the animals, the birds, the insects, and even the soil based bacteria’s are all in perfect synch with each other, each doing their part to create a perfect and abundant balance. It is a beautiful thing, and is what organics is all about. In GM plant fields there is NO LIFE.
Herbicides and pesticides affect every living thing that comes into contact with them, humans included. They are up to ten times more toxic to children, pets, wild animals, and insects, due to their close proximity to the ground, and their more fragile immune systems.
The pesticide toxin produced within GM plants such as corn is thousands of times more concentrated within the plant than as a topical spray. In other words, as if it is not bad enough to eat plants that have been sprayed the “old fashioned” way with poisons, it is exponentially worse to eat genetically altered plants that contain concentrates of these same poisons and worse, either super absorbed within them, or produced by them in every single cell of their plant bodies.
Animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM foods such as infertility, immune system problems including food allergies and asthma, accelerated aging, impaired insulin regulation, gastrointestinal changes, and changes in major organ functions. In fact, soon after GM soy was introduced in the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed. GM soy, corn, and papaya contain new proteins with allergenic properties, making the current US epidemic of food allergies and asthma a suspiciously plausible result of the casualty of genetic engineering that is unknowingly already upon us.
Several interesting studies have been done with wild animals, noting that they don’t / won’t eat GMO food. A study of geese migrating through Illinois found that they only ate sections of soybean fields that were non-GMO. Mice and squirrels in the Midwest infest farmer’s stores of non-GMO corn and grain, but don’t touch the GM corn, even in the dead of winter when they are super hungry. Buffalo in India that have traditionally been fed cottonseed feed won’t eat the cottonseed cakes made from GM cotton plants. The ones that did had reproductive complications such as premature deliveries, miscarriages, and infertility.
I inadvertently did a little study of my own a few weeks ago. I received two sample boxes of cereal in with my Sunday paper. They were labeled with some of my favorite misleading terms: “whole grain, all natural, low fat, healthy, etc.”. Not really giving it much thought (it was Sunday morning after all), I said, “I’ll put these in the bird feeder”. I have these really demanding birds in my yard. I love watching them, and I feed them a wild birdseed blend that attracts pretty much every bird in the neighborhood. They devour a bird feeder full of seeds and grains, in less than an hour, every day. I dumped the two boxes of cereal into the feeder, and to my surprise, hours later, the bird feeder was still full. My (picky) birds had not touched the cereal in the feeder. Neither did my very piggy squirrels. I had to dumpster dive in my own garbage can to find the cereal boxes. I was shocked when I read the labels. They contained corn syrup, canola oil, cottonseed oil, BHT to preserve freshness, artificial color, artificial flavor, and more. None of it was organic, so one can safely assume that it was all genetically engineered. I am so glad that my birds and squirrels were smart enough not to eat it. I threw it all away, replaced it with the birdseed mix, and it was gone within minutes. A real mob scene!!
The only published human GMO feeding study revealed that even after we stop eating GMOs, harmful GMOs continue to be produced inside of us. Genes inserted into GM plants transfer into bacteria inside our intestines, and continue to function, transforming our intestines into living pesticide factories!
It is becoming harder and harder to find pure, heirloom quality, non-GMO food such as what we prepare here at Wholly Macro. Heirloom means: food in its original ancient form, its unaltered state. There are many vegetables, grains, and beans that could be lost to us forever were we to lose the heirloom seeds that produce them. Genetic Engineering targets, and is inserted into, the seeds of the plants. GE companies are claiming ownership of plant seeds, and then altering them into genetically engineered seeds. It is essentially important to keep the organic and heirloom plant seeds out of the hands of the GE companies, and especially important to healthy vegetarian eaters in particular, because we eat the seeds of plants directly in our diets. Brown rice is the seed of the rice plant. Beans are the seeds of the bean plant. Nuts are the seeds of nut trees, and so on. We cannot eat genetically engineered seeds!
We should not wait for more research, or the slow machine that is our government, to warn us against eating GMOs. Let us learn from the animals. They are warning us now. And perhaps if enough of us choose non-GMO foods, we could slow the food industries pursuit of genetic engineering, and maybe even force them to remove GM ingredients from our food supply. It is more and more important to do so, for our own health, for the planet and environment, and for future generations of humans and animals. Let us all do our part now that genetic engineering has been briefly explained.
In health as always.
Gayle and Jaime.
Let us refer to Genetic Engineered plants as GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms.
The following crops are the current GM crops: soy, corn, cotton, canola, beets, Hawaiian papaya, zucchini, and yellow squash. With more to follow, as the GM companies are relentlessly lobbying to Genetically Modify additional food crops, including our precious brown rice, and other whole grains.
If you eat foods from the above categories that are not organic, and / or not specifically labeled as Non-GMO, you are ingesting genetically modified food. This does include oils and “sugars” made from these foods as found in almost all packaged food products.
What does this mean for you you may ask?? Here is the shocking truth. Foods are genetically modified in a few ways, and for a few reasons. Two of the main reasons are to create plants that either take poison in, or produce poison. Poison drinkers are called herbicide tolerant. Their DNA is altered with bacterial genes that allow them to survive otherwise deadly doses of toxic herbicides. The poison producers have genes inserted in them that produce an insect killing toxic pesticide. Then there are also the aggressive virus genes that are inserted into these plants to fight off potential, and much gentler normal plant viruses. All with dangerous side effects to humans.
And why do they do this you may also be asking. “They”, the food industry, the Genetic Engineering companies, they do this in order to control, own if you will, Mother Nature, in a greedy attempt to capitalize on natural abundance, even though studies and intellect suggest that this short sighted greed will not end well, for us or for the environment.
In a natural ecosystem, like many of the large organic farming businesses, the animals, the birds, the insects, and even the soil based bacteria’s are all in perfect synch with each other, each doing their part to create a perfect and abundant balance. It is a beautiful thing, and is what organics is all about. In GM plant fields there is NO LIFE.
Herbicides and pesticides affect every living thing that comes into contact with them, humans included. They are up to ten times more toxic to children, pets, wild animals, and insects, due to their close proximity to the ground, and their more fragile immune systems.
The pesticide toxin produced within GM plants such as corn is thousands of times more concentrated within the plant than as a topical spray. In other words, as if it is not bad enough to eat plants that have been sprayed the “old fashioned” way with poisons, it is exponentially worse to eat genetically altered plants that contain concentrates of these same poisons and worse, either super absorbed within them, or produced by them in every single cell of their plant bodies.
Animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM foods such as infertility, immune system problems including food allergies and asthma, accelerated aging, impaired insulin regulation, gastrointestinal changes, and changes in major organ functions. In fact, soon after GM soy was introduced in the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed. GM soy, corn, and papaya contain new proteins with allergenic properties, making the current US epidemic of food allergies and asthma a suspiciously plausible result of the casualty of genetic engineering that is unknowingly already upon us.
Several interesting studies have been done with wild animals, noting that they don’t / won’t eat GMO food. A study of geese migrating through Illinois found that they only ate sections of soybean fields that were non-GMO. Mice and squirrels in the Midwest infest farmer’s stores of non-GMO corn and grain, but don’t touch the GM corn, even in the dead of winter when they are super hungry. Buffalo in India that have traditionally been fed cottonseed feed won’t eat the cottonseed cakes made from GM cotton plants. The ones that did had reproductive complications such as premature deliveries, miscarriages, and infertility.
I inadvertently did a little study of my own a few weeks ago. I received two sample boxes of cereal in with my Sunday paper. They were labeled with some of my favorite misleading terms: “whole grain, all natural, low fat, healthy, etc.”. Not really giving it much thought (it was Sunday morning after all), I said, “I’ll put these in the bird feeder”. I have these really demanding birds in my yard. I love watching them, and I feed them a wild birdseed blend that attracts pretty much every bird in the neighborhood. They devour a bird feeder full of seeds and grains, in less than an hour, every day. I dumped the two boxes of cereal into the feeder, and to my surprise, hours later, the bird feeder was still full. My (picky) birds had not touched the cereal in the feeder. Neither did my very piggy squirrels. I had to dumpster dive in my own garbage can to find the cereal boxes. I was shocked when I read the labels. They contained corn syrup, canola oil, cottonseed oil, BHT to preserve freshness, artificial color, artificial flavor, and more. None of it was organic, so one can safely assume that it was all genetically engineered. I am so glad that my birds and squirrels were smart enough not to eat it. I threw it all away, replaced it with the birdseed mix, and it was gone within minutes. A real mob scene!!
The only published human GMO feeding study revealed that even after we stop eating GMOs, harmful GMOs continue to be produced inside of us. Genes inserted into GM plants transfer into bacteria inside our intestines, and continue to function, transforming our intestines into living pesticide factories!
It is becoming harder and harder to find pure, heirloom quality, non-GMO food such as what we prepare here at Wholly Macro. Heirloom means: food in its original ancient form, its unaltered state. There are many vegetables, grains, and beans that could be lost to us forever were we to lose the heirloom seeds that produce them. Genetic Engineering targets, and is inserted into, the seeds of the plants. GE companies are claiming ownership of plant seeds, and then altering them into genetically engineered seeds. It is essentially important to keep the organic and heirloom plant seeds out of the hands of the GE companies, and especially important to healthy vegetarian eaters in particular, because we eat the seeds of plants directly in our diets. Brown rice is the seed of the rice plant. Beans are the seeds of the bean plant. Nuts are the seeds of nut trees, and so on. We cannot eat genetically engineered seeds!
We should not wait for more research, or the slow machine that is our government, to warn us against eating GMOs. Let us learn from the animals. They are warning us now. And perhaps if enough of us choose non-GMO foods, we could slow the food industries pursuit of genetic engineering, and maybe even force them to remove GM ingredients from our food supply. It is more and more important to do so, for our own health, for the planet and environment, and for future generations of humans and animals. Let us all do our part now that genetic engineering has been briefly explained.
In health as always.
Gayle and Jaime.