Did you know that October is the first official Non-GMO Month? This month, retail stores nationwide will celebrate the consumer's right to be informed of foods and products that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
What exactly are GMOs again?
GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms, are products of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering, or GE), which creates new combinations of plant, animal, bacteria and viral genes by combining DNA from one species with DNA from another. The result: new organisms that do not occur in nature.
GMOs are often not labeled as such. In many developed nations, GMO products are heavily restricted or banned altogether because they have yet to be proven safe for people's health and the health of the environment. However, in the U.S. there is a dearth of public awareness of the potentially harmful repercussions of GMO products.
To honor Non-GMO Month, the Non-GMO Project is launching the "Non-GMO Project Verified" seal, which will help consumers make knowledgeable food choices. To earn this seal, food manufacturers will be required to follow rigorous standards and undergo extensive testing. To date, nearly 900 products have been verified and more than 580 natural food stores nationwide, including Whole Foods Market, will participate in Non-GMO Month.
In addition to celebrating the new "Non-GMO Project Verified" seal, here are four more reasons why you should celebrate Non-GMO Month this October and empower yourself to make the right decisions for you and your family.
1. Human Health
Currently, seed companies prohibit independent research with their products, leaving very little empirical data available. Therefore, there are many unanswered questions regarding the potential harm of GMO consumption, including side effects, toxicity, allergies and long-term health consequences.
2. Environmental and Animal Health
Genetically engineered crops can cause a variety of destructive problems on the surrounding environment. Farmers who use GMO crops can spray their fields to kill everything growing in the area except the specific GMO food crop. The increased use of pesticides and herbicides often leads to superweeds, which then become resistant to the same pesticides, creating the need for stronger, more toxic pesticides (that can leach into our food and water sources!). We don't have a way of predicting the effect that using GMOs can have on the ecosystem as a whole.
3. Moral and Ethical Concerns
Some people question whether genetically altered crops and species threaten and violate the natural order of an environment. Also, genetic modification may involve the creation of foods that are prohibited by certain groups (e.g., the use of animal genes may conflict with some religions, as well as the diets of vegetarians and vegans).
Some GMO companies offer GMO foods as a solution to world hunger and nutritional deficiencies, arguing that genetically modified products are more readily available. However, none of the GMO products currently on the market offer enhanced nutrition, drought-tolerance or any other consumer benefit. In fact, GMOs may add to food problems in developing countries by increasing dependency on the patented and privatized GMO manufacturers. Traditional farmers in these countries cannot compete with the cheaper prices and higher production rate of GMOs damaging individual and community livelihood.
4. Labeling Concerns
Whether you decide to limit or restrict your consumption of GMO products, the right to know what is in our food is important. Research has shown that many Americans would choose not to have GMO products if aware and given the choice. According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 87 percent of people believe GMO foods should be labeled, regardless of whether they were willing to consume those products.
When shopping for food, it's a valuable practice to stop and ask yourself the basic question: Where does it all come from? It's time for us to be food detectives.
Here are a few ways you may be able to consume fewer GMO products:
Non-GMO Month is being celebrated this October (the official day was Oct. 10). Let's all become more aware of the products and foods that may contain GMOs and, as consumers, make the most informed decisions.
To help you choose the right foods, check out the Non-GMO Project's iPhone App Shopping Guide and the Non-GMO Shopping Guide.
Joshua Rosenthal is the founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, the largest nutrition school in the world, offering online nutrition education.
Follow Joshua Rosenthal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NutritionSchool
Alison Rose Levy: Will the Food Safety Bill Make Food Safe?
Andrew Gunther: Will You Be Eating Genetically Modified Fish Without Knowing It?
Genetically modified organism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Say No To GMOs! - Getting Started
GMOs - Genetically Modified Organisms - GM Foods
Genetically Modified Foods and Organisms --HGP Ethical, Legal, and ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304250404575558071139328364.html
Even the most financially clueless leftie can figure out what happens to the price of Trader Joes nonfat yogurt, Trader Joes Trek Mix granola cereal, and Ben and Jerry's ice cream when sugar production is cut 20% with the ban on GM sugar beets. All those have sugar as the second largest ingredient (look it up).
The well-fed leftie's agenda of banning GM crops is driving up food prices. The hungry poor of the world salute them.
But speculators who invested heavily in sugar love it. They will get rich off the antiGM/antiScience agenda of the well-fed lefties.
Insect and weed resistance is a real issue and I don't blame people for mistrusting the process and Monsanto's role. The issue with cotton stems mainly from Roundup overuse and the fact there is less residual activity chemical use in cotton which would have controled the pigweed more effectively. Monsanto and farmers share blame for this and close work between communities and regulators and farmers and agchem companies are needed to avoid this problem. Probably not as far as you would like but that is what is needed. The thing here is there are solutions for this that are adequate and try as they might, this issue will not bring down the GMO industry. As the solutions are brought on to the market, this issue will die away in my opinion.
Finally, I know you said higher yield is marginal. As you know, GMO's are about more than that. They are not perfect all the time but on balance they work. Check out the link below, Brazil has approved more traits and acreage will be growing there and in many many many other countries. Why? b/c they work from a farmers perspective, those arguing against GMO's grasp at the failures that usually end up being isolated and fixable.
http://che
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201010201657dowjonesdjonline000662
The Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF), a California-based pro-pesticide, big agriculture group, has gone on the attack. It makes the bizarre charge that Environmental Working Group's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides has influenced people to eat fewer vegetables. In fact, conventional produce consumption is flat -- but demand for organic fruits and vegetables is booming.
As a California produce consumer and supporter of Environmental Working Group, I do not want my federal tax dollars spent to discourage consumers from buying organic or low-pesticide residue food. If major users and vendors of agricultural chemicals want to try to convince consumers that pesticides aren't a problem, they should do it on their own dime.
The federal Specialty Crops Block Grant was designed to support research, marketing and nutrition programs to help make produce, nuts and flower crops more competitive, accessible and, in the case of research, more sustainable. I want this program used to promote greater consumption of organic, locally-grown, and sustainably produced fruits and vegetables. Awarding a federal grant to large conventional agribusiness for a pro-pesticide public relations campaign undermines the country's growing organic industry and public health.
Your tax dollars shouldn't fund disinformation about pesticides in food!
Sign the Petition here:
http://action.ewg.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1906&utm_source=natorganicsactionfull&utm_medium=email&utm_content=image&utm_campaign=food
Court Overturns Ohio’s Attempt to Prevent Labeling of Hormone-Free Milk:
In June 2008, the Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association filed a lawsuit against Ohio over the labeling regulation, claiming that it stifles free speech, restricts the flow of products in interstate commerce, and is preempted by a longstanding federal organic law. They lost the suit, but filed an appeal—which they have now largely won!
A district appeals court (in a unanimous decision) has overturned Ohio’s effort to prevent the labeling of milk as being free from artificial hormones, ruling that there is indeed a “compositional difference” between milk from cows treated with growth hormone and untreated cows. The court allows Ohio to require a disclaimer on the cartons of those dairies who proclaim to not use the drug. But they told Ohio that they couldn’t require that the disclaimer be on the same panel of the package as the drug-free claim or the same font size.
This decision sets a tremendous precedent that could affect how other foods are labeled, and may have far-reaching consequences for other artificially enhanced or genetically engineered foods. Finally, nearly seventeen years after the FDA issued its first labeling “guidance,” a deception engineered by a former Monsanto employee, the court has sided with the scientific evidence.
http://www.anh-usa.org/breaking-news-court-overturns-ohio%E2%80%99s-attempt-to-prevent-labeling-of-hormone-free-milk/
Monsanto: The Worst Stock of 2010?
Some investment analysts have annointed Monsanto, the 800-pound gorilla of the food biotechnology industry, as the worst stock of the year. Whether or not the company is really doing that badly, it is not having a good year.
For starters, its income fell by half since its last fiscal year.
That’s bad news, but there’s more. Just in the last few weeks:
* Monsanto’s SmartStax corn which has been bioengineered to contain eight inserted genes turns out to produce yields that are no higher than those from the less expensive GM corn containing only three inserted genes.
* Sales of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide are way down since it went off patent. Farmers prefer to buy the cheaper Chinese generics.
* More and more weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup. To kill them, farmers have to buy other, more toxic herbicides, defeating the whole point of using this herbicide.
* The Justice Department has Monsanto under investigation for possible antitrust violations.
It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for the company.
Maybe Monsanto could take the present crisis as a sign that it’s time to make some real effort to elicit public support. How about petitioning the FDA to allow GM foods to be labeled, for starters?
Are you going to now protest all companies that own patents? You'll be busy, so you better get started. Try IBM first. Or GE. Perhaps Microscoft. 3M. DuPont, Ford, GM, General Mills, Merck, Johnson and Johanson and perhaps 10,000 others.
Since much more farm labor will then be required to remove weeds by hand, I want to force the antiGM people posting on this website to VOLUNTEER their labor to beet farmers.
Time to put your back breaking labor where your antiGM mouths are people. Got that? You want an antiGM world? you are getting it. Get ready to hoe weeds.
I grew up watching migrant labor hoeing beet fields on hot days before GM eliminated that. It's time to put clueless, arrogant antiGM people to work.
I notice you said you have "watched" people work hard. Sort of telling that you would rather plant something that doesn't require you to work hard or hire people but instead dump an untold amount of pesticide to take care of the problem, leaving for tomorrow's farmer the problem of super weeds and pushing the health and environmental burdens of your practices off on other people.
Congratulations. BP is hiring.
You see the antiGMO, anti conventional farming groups got a real reprieve over the past few years with record yields and a major recession, but thats changing corn/soy/wheat are spiking against against 16% unemployed, four years ago Australia had a devastating drought, last year it was Argentina, this year Russian, one of these years you get two major regions and wheat is 10 bucks. How effective is the anti-GMO message going to be, without any actual proof as health issues, as those going hungry start hitting 1.5B?
don't bother with these two, all they want to do is insult and argue like two school children.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april262010/gm-food-as.php
http://www.naturalnews.com/024128_CODEX_food_health.html
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=100983.0
http://www.blacklistednews.com/?news_id=8435
http://www.google.com/search?q=gmo+population+control&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&tbs=vid:1&q=gmo+population+control+monsanto&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=gmo+population+control+monsanto&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=e4ed8477a5f25e66
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=B459FF2B150FDF4651302A60993D9CF3
I'm lookin at the food that's in the grocery store
They say it's safe, everybody eat more.
On second thought, I don't really know if it's made with those GMOs
So I'm lookin for the non-GMO label 'fore I bring it home and put it on my table
I wanna know it's verified so I don't
Harm myself with genetically modified
Uh-Oh
They don't want you to know
All the poison they grow
The corporate profits they show from those GMO OH
Those Frankenseeds that they sow
They're gonna hurt us we know
It's time we told 'em to go, say GMO NO!
I don't want eat poison, I don't want gene mutations at my dinner reservations
it's a food abomination what they doin' to this fast food nation
They take artificial gene combinations
inject them in seed variations
so they can grow their Frankenfood imitations
while the side effects cause medical patients
Keep their profits alive while they
spraying all the food with name brand herbicides
and all the while they're spreadin' their lies
Monsanto destroyin' farmers lives
and the FDA keeps it all going
saying it's safe even though they all know it's just
poison stealing away your life, and that's what you eat with genetically modified.
if you don't believe me listen to Jeffery Smith
He's the man with plan gonna do what he can
To help us all get those GMOs banned
But we need you to lend a hand
take a stand against this food scam
It's a mission for the health condition worldwide
We don't wanna live genetically modified
http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-individuals/jeffrey-smith/
"Yogic Flying and GM Foods:The Wild Theories of Jeffrey Smith"
I watched the video the other day, fun!!
Its on Naturalnews.com
We are standing back and saying absolutely nothing as the manipulators remove the fragrance from flowers. Carnations and roses, to name just two, no longer have their beautiful fragrances.
A couple of years ago when I was in a flower shop, a CSR, who was approximately thirty years old, to whom I was talking, was astounded to learn that carnations had a fragrance.
That is shocking, and we need to do something about it. Next time you are in a flower shop, if the flowers no longer have a fragrance, refuse to buy them, and tell the owner/managers why.
Most agree that there is sufficient evidence for health concern and more science is needed to determine these foods are safe. Health effects on the growth and development of children is particularly concerning. Due to deregulation, former chemical now Agricultural giants like Monsanto, have been allowed to police themselves. Monsanto produced agent orange, DDT, and currently produces RoundUp--and they produce much of the food we eat.
For people who would like to join us in the effort to inform consumers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's) in our food supply here are a few of the organizations you might contact.
GLOBAL
Greenpeace International Genetic Engineering Campaign
Physicians and Scientists For Responsible Application of Science and Technology
Bioscience Resource Project
EcoNexus
Institute of Science in Society (ISIS)
Friends of the Earth International
Ban Terminator
Biosafety Information Center
GLOBAL
Greenpeace International Genetic Engineering Campaign
Physicians and Scientists For Responsible Application of Science and Technology
Bioscience Resource Project
EcoNexus
Institute of Science in Society (ISIS)
Friends of the Earth International
Ban Terminator
Biosafety Information Center
But then again the antiGMers/antiScience people are wealthy to somewhat wealthy people who have no problem paying huge prices at WholePaycheck Foods. They don't worry about where their next meal is coming from or what price the food is as long as it's leftie purist approved food.
Ever seen the cars at WholePaycheck Foods? Rich Yuupppiiieeeee cars, but most will deny even that too. Is it just pure coincidence that WholePaycheck Foods are located in Yuppie/wealthy areas? There are no stores in poorer areas.
Where does the big money go after the dot com, real estate & derivative markets crash?
Well, everybody's gotta eat right?
EUROPE
Joint International GMOpposition
Icelandic Information Campaign
GMO Free Zones in Poland
Informationsdienst Gentechnik
Aktion GEN-Klage
Ban GM Food (UK)
Soil Associations GM Campaign (UK)
GM-Free Scotland
GMO-Free Europe
Dutch GMO Free Citizens
Campaign for a GM Free Sweden
AFRICA
African Center for Biosafety
BioWatch
South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering
Farmers’ Legal Action Group
Environmental Rights Action
ASIA
Citizens Biotechnology Information Center-Japan
Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Union-Japan
SEARICE - Phillipines
BIOTHAI - Thailand
AUSTRALIA - PACIFICO
MADGE (Mothers Are Demystifying Genetic Engineering)
Network of Concerned Farmers
Biological Farmers of Australia
GE Free New Zealand
Sustainability Council of New Zealand
GE Free Northland
You antiScience types become more hilarious by the minute
Union of Concerned Scientists
Institute for Responsible Technology
Center for Food Safety
Non-GMO Report
GE Food Alert
GM Watch
The Campaign to Label Genetically Modified Foods
Genetic Engineering Action
Millions Against Monsanto
GMO Truth Alliance
Californians for GE-Free Agriculture
True Food Network
Physicians for Social Responsibility
GMO Free Vermont
GMO Free Maine
The Council of Canadians
LATIN AMERICA
Biodiversidad en America Latina
Grupo de Reflexion Rural
Brasil Livre de Transgenicos
La Red Por Una America Latina Libre de Transgenicos
So as grain prices continue to rise, I am finding it more and more amusing to see the GMO-bashing without any REALISTIC solutions offered on here. Rich people with full tummies are a funny lot.