We Must Insist On Labeling GMO Substances

I contend genetically-altered plants are not foods, but are altered substances. Their DNA has been hacked into and altered with unlike substances that CAN transfer to human tissue when consumed by humans. In the U.S. normal wide-spread testing of many of these, some would say, has been suppressed. For too long the FDA has turned a blind eye. That's why we (the people) can't sit around and hope that fatherly government regulators will "take care of" us, and instead we have to take action proactively ourselves to insure our own food safety.

I question the intentions of companies that alter and market GM substances without any form of labeling them so that consumers can have a choice in knowing what they're eating. (If you're new to this issue, this link might be a good place to begin reading.)

Case in point...soy...one of the highest altered crops. What is one of the most well-known products utilizing soy? (there are innumerable ones...it's in nearly everything processed...read a label and you'll see)

Answer: Baby formula

I'm no fan of baby formula, but I'm using this as an example. NO testing to see if this is safe for human consumption, yet it is THE most consumed food product for babies worldwide not breastfed.

Here's a good talk on this subject...think about it. By simply labeling a product, we have control over our own choices. Why would the U.S. even balk at doing so? Answer: $$$$$

Well, things, they must change... this video by the author of Seeds of Deception...

Everything You HAVE TO KNOW about Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods from Jeffrey Smith on Vimeo.

Health, Purity, and When Does the Maturity Kick In?

I've been feeling overall worse the past few months, and it's my own fault.

Last year during Jack's mom's hospice stays, I succumbed to frequenting the Diet Coke machines for those really cold "good burn" cans of Diet Coke, even though truth be told I'm not crazy about the flavor. But the cold and the burn was soooo good in the middle of all that parade of pureed food (Mima's), hospital smells, and sacks of cold take-out food.

I didn't do so well getting off that little treat once things settled back down and I was back home. It manifested in liters of root beer, Vernor's ginger ale, and more root beer, though we kept the kombucha going and always drink a lot of water. But I really didn't need that many "treats," and they eased their way into my grocery cart a lot more than they should have. (My own fault)

I also tried to get us off breads and empty starches so much, and have done so-so at that. I'm pretty happy most of our breads have been those I've made, but cheap sandwich bread has sneaked back in more and more.

And then recently, I just felt BAD..probably fighting off the creeping crud everyone in town seems to have to a greater degree than we have. I noticed my emotions hitting a bit harder than usual, cravings I don't usually have making their appearance, and my work schedule at night creating an unnatural cycle for my sleeping...which also impacted my eating.

I'm not a Diet person...never will be. But I do believe in objectively meditating on (not in the eastern sense per se) the habits I have from time to time, to examine just where I stand. In short, in the past few months I've begun to feel very unhealthy.

Some things are long term projects and some are short term. Short term, I can make some very important steps to return to better health:
1. Completely avoid aspartame and any other synthetic sweetener, in anything (meaning the diet drinks...I don't use artificial sweetners in anything else) I actually like most drinks unsweet, and if I need a sweet fix, I can use a tad of Xylitol (natural)
2. I've overloaded the proportion of my eating with red meats and taste substitutes. It's hard to be honest about this, but flavorings are chock full of preservatives and I've eaten stuff with those flavor enhancers all up in them. We've also been eating a lot of red meat. For myself, I need it now and then but to beef up (ha, pun!) more on my dark greens for those B vitamin fixes.
3. I've overloaded my body with large portion sizes. This also happened gradually...I'm not a snacker, so it mostly happens at mealtime...which is why I've not gained weight. But I feel like my system is overloaded. It needs some lightness.
4. I've made poor "fast food" choices when it comes to eating at work. I've actually bought and eaten pure old Seven-11 junk food, and last week ate Ramen noodles (yes with those awful preservative-flavor packets) nearly every night...no matter how bad they made me feel!! I was hormonal then, so I won't beat myself up about it, but the solution lies in never buying the stuff in the first place...I know better and know how it makes me feel, but ignored my better wisdom I know not why. Rebellion maybe? Well, it didn't end up making my world better. Better to have one or two fantastic pieces of real chocolate next time than carb-o-gazillion empty starches. Ugh!
5. Dramatically ramp down the fungus-loving foods...processed sugars, and much of the bread. I'll have to always watch the quantity of things like bread since I just like them so much. I have a hunch what with my diabetes and all,the anti-fungal connection is something I need to pay much more attention to, and make the very simple and satisfying substitutions that make my body unfriendly to a proliferation of things like candida, and other "fungus stuff"...meaning all the foods that feed disease rather than defending against it.
6. Ramp UP the probiotics...mature kombucha will be our main thing for this. We love it but have drunk less of it because I havent made as much of it as I was...but that's changing now.
7. Yerba buena. We're going to use it daily in our tea...it just has so many benefits and does so well in the climate, we need to use it! and it's delicious.


Thankfully, our modest pantry and freezer stock of staples has been a lifesaver..it really makes those trips to the store so much less expensive and it just doesn't take much to eat right...except eating right!! :)

I don't spend time beating myself up, and I've been thinking of what my body seems to be crying out for. I was delighted today on payday to be able to get a few things from the health food store to that end...

1. Women's Hormone-supportive herbal tea blend. I think that will ease a lot of the triggers I'm feeling as far as cravings
2. An affordable 10-day Stress Cleansing kit (herbs to address stress and cortisol, gentle cleansing herbs to get my system reset from the overload of yuck
3. Acai berry capsules -- for support, wide range of benefits, and I want to try it to see how it does with my body as I cleanse

I'm going to do a gentle cleanse, drink the hormone-support tea each day, and take the acai berry for additional support, while eating only small meals that are fish or lean chicken, dark greens and salads, water with lemon, plain water, or kombucha. I think that may help me to get back on my feet and understand how to fine tune my health a bit.

It's time for the mature part of me to put some constructive limits on the throw-all-care-to-the-wind part of me. Ultimately, I need to lose all my weight and see if I can ditch this diabetes once and for all. THAT would put a lot of things right in my world :)

I'm very aware of the purity of foods, too, and this is a longer term target area...namely GMO foods. It's said that 70% of foods are full of GMOs and are unlabeled to that effect. That makes me furious, frankly. So I'm becoming aware of the foods most often genetically modified (not meaning hybrids but meaning DNA tampering by the likes of Monsanto)....these are corn, soy, sugar, and canola...and I'm not sure what else yet. But soy and corn (think HFCS and other sweeteners) are in SO many foods...for instance, try buying a salad dressing that doesn't have soy or canola in it...nearly impossible. And think of what your food ATE...meaning cows, chickens, etc...was their primary diet corn, soy, things with hormones/chemicals/pesticides? They are what they eat...and we are what we eat when we eat them.

The other purity issue is preservatives. Since we're not buying much in the way of processed foods ( yeah, I know...Ramen noodles, in the trash you go!), this is not as much an issue, but it's still sneaky. To purchase a package of chicken breasts, you have to read the fine print...what was injected into them? Ah, a solution....?? (what sort of a solution, blehh) Was it packaged in plastic? Sprayed with something to preserve its color, freshness, keep from spoiling? Chemicals.

We have not been able to eliminate chemicals entirely...yet. We don't buy solely organic. I don't care what anyone says, we can't afford it. Yet. We're working towards that. First, to simplify our spoiled tastes and our habit of instant gratification, and our habit of overeating. This week's shopping trip brought home a couple small cabbages, some lettuces, celery, some grape tomatoes, one small pack asparagus, a pack of chicken breasts, 9 lemons, and a lot of clean drinking water (we have sulfur stinky water here).

That'll do us well...we have beans, turkey, staples like basmati rice & such, a couple calabazas and that Musquee Aux Provence we haven't cut into yet, along with the last quantity cooking I did a couple days ago (spaghetti sauce w/lots of herbs & a bit of rigatoni) to round things out.

I'm VERY happy to be working from a pantry-based list rather than a store-based one! I'm also really happy about fasting from heavy meals and going to salads and a lot of water and support herbs to get back on track.

Vitamin D? It's time to get outside and soak up some sun puttering among the seedlings! And then get some more much-needed sleep....ah, gotta love shabbat and that "enforced" day of rest, wooo! :)

Hope you have a lovely night and weekend!

Shabbat shalom from our family to yours :)

Monsanto's 125,000 Suicide Farmers

It's being termed GM (genetically modified) Genocide, and the UK's Prince Charles has been advocating against it. Test case, India...where farmers are taking their own lives after the real impact of their growing GM crops has come to light...gruesomely.

Excerpt from full article, here:

(farmer named in article), like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead.

Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds.

But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiralling debts - and no income.

So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops.

The crisis, branded the 'GM Genocide' by campaigners, was highlighted recently when Prince Charles claimed that the issue of GM had become a 'global moral question' - and the time had come to end its unstoppable march.

Genetically Modified Food Fight

You'd think I could escape this issue in my daily life, but can I?

When I speak of genetically-modified foods, I am not speaking of the age-old practice of creating hybrids. Rather, I am speaking of the hacking of DNA and insertion of unrelated DNA by biotech scientists. The reasons behind the latter are vast, and all have to do with profit margins, despite any claims to the contrary.

That's just to clarify, in a nutshell.

Can we afford to ignore this issue, or be half-hearted about it? After all, our society is issue-weary, I believe. We've been inundated with the enormity of global crises, natural disasters, famines, grass-roots efforts struggling to survive, Davids of emergency causes dwarfed by the money and litigation of corporate and legislative Goliaths. We're often tired and discouraged as we sit in the shadow of mountains that seem to be immovable.

Well, that's a perception I think the Goliaths want to perpetuate. Often, it's the niggling little irritants, us, that are the squeaky wheel that brings attention to and some consistency to these very important milestone issues...we're in the midst of making history, not at the backside of something unchangeable.

The GMO/GE foods issue has invaded my daily life now, whether I like it or not. I just had a contraband (oh the poor diet) handful of Fritos. Did I eat GM corn, and if I did, where is the testing to show what the risks are? More protected than my rights to know are the rights of BigAg to market these without any truth in labeling standard that would allow ME to decide FOR MYSELF about consuming genetically altered products. Allowing the government to be my "parent" in this way is too Big Brother for me. No, in a free society, I get to decide for myself, and I get to demand transparency in access to knowing my food's ingredients.

I believe this movement perpetuates itself through misinformation, and by perpetuating societal assumptions. We are so quick to be influenced.

We watch very little TV, and are really ignorant of the latest shows...we get no TV reception here, and don't pay for any. When I was in hospice during the my late MIL's illness, I did watch TV for the first time in literally years. My interest in it soon flagged, so accustomed I have become to less noise. Most of the TV "noise" I noticed was in the form of advertisements, and I began to count the number of pharmaceutical ads and such...they predominated. Two such ads most recently featured were promoting High Fructose Corn syrup, and the ads mocked opposition to high fructose corn syrup as an additive in our foods. It was interesting what information the ad excluded, their sole pitch being that "HF corn syrup, in moderation, is no worse for you than sugar." I remember the actor in one of the ads responding to her friend's hesitancy in eating a food with HF corn syrup asking him what his objection to it was. His reply about his health concerns was incoherent, and her response to him was "What, (you object) because it's corn??" It made him seem like he's a dork who doesn't like his vegetables.

Well, in the comparison of high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar, these days neither can escape sobering GM realities. BOTH are mass-produced, mass-utilized as food sweeteners, and among the highest percentage crops altered genetically. And neither are labeled, so you never know if you're getting genetically modified crops in your foods, or not. Read any label and you'll soon find it's hard to find much of anything at the store without high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar as an ingredient.

What further mystifies me is how ignorant a lot of science-related professionals themselves are regarding this issue, and why they so strongly resist objecting to the potential and real health concerns. Whenever this happens, I think it points to nepotism or some unhealthy inter-dependence among healthcare industry and the pharmaceutical/bio-research industries and government monetary "national interests" protecting potential overseas trade. That's an entirely different subject...

I went to the doctor yesterday, for a very basic visit. When I entered the office, I noticed they were promoting a high protein diet program for their overweight patients...the samples were on view in the waiting room, along with a lot of promising literature. The program incorporates high protein drinks/soups/etc along with basic healthy eating, minus a lot of carbs and fat. Being overweight myself, I waited to ask the doctor more about it. The nurse gave me literature on it to read while waiting for the doc, and I looked it over. They've had many patients who've lost weight on the program, so it seems to work. I've been down this road before, though, and I know there's no magic bullet. In the past, I've done dietary things I've lived to regret, one of the foremost being trusting the "experts" during the Fen-Phen days. Those "experts" approved me for the use of Phen-Fen even though I have a heart murmur. I temporarily had stunning results, but never truly knew what I was putting in my body (the testing had not been long-term) and was left with regrets late for being so hasty to compromise my health overall for the promise of instant results. That, and so many other guniea pig situations related to not only weight loss but also infertility treatments, etc in the past has made me a very cautious and slow-to-jump consumer presently. I consider my reluctance wisdom gained at a high price, not shortsightedness.

My doc visit went well....until...

the end, when the doc was wrapping things up. She was congenial, worked with me, helped me update things that needed updating. Then I asked the Forbidden Question...."what's in the protein supplements?"

She said I could pick up an ingredient list at the front desk. I asked if the primary protein in the supplements was soy, and she said yes.

I have a condition that soy aggravates due to its effect on estrogen, and I mentioned this to her. Her face began to contort. "Well, I think most of that is just a lot of hype," she said. "I think the point is to lose weight and a lot of people like to make more of the estrogen connection and soy than they should."

OK, that's not exactly giving me scientific reasons why, but then I made the major mistake, and asked,

"my additional concern is that soy is one of the highest percentage genetically-modified foods, and I'm cautious about wanting to consume things that are genetically-modified."

At this point, it was like I had kicked her. Her lightning reaction was to become downright sarcastic and almost hostile. She went from congenial to actually sneering! She stood up, looked at me like "YOU aren't the doctor, and YOU know nothing at all about your body," and said "Yes, soy is mostly GM these days. I guess you also have a problem with roses? Roses are genetically-modified. It's completely natural."

And she looked at me with disdain. I said, "I am meaning something different...I understand roses are hybrids and hybrids occur both naturally and through man-made means. But by GM I'm meaning products whose DNA were hacked into and unrelated DNA inserted into by means nature can never accomplish." She snorted and walked out of the room, and I heard her in the other room going off about it to one of the nurses.

Whew, helpful to hostile in mere seconds! It didn't upset me that she supports GM foods, though I would have reason to disagree -- it upset me that she believes DNA-bio-hacking is the same thing as cross pollinating a red rose with a white one, and produces plants as natural as roses. It also bothers me she is giving misinformation to a patient who is wanting to be cautious for health reasons, rather than the other way around...if I were in there asking about the viability of a product KNOWN to have some risks, she'd run an arsenal of tests, look at my health history and genetic predispositions, and make a cautious decision based on benefits vs risks, acknowledging that there ARE risks.

Whew :)

This issue is not going away.

And I'm still going to opt for REAL food vs. engineered anything. I'm tired of our being unwitting guinea pigs for others' gain. You can always find a statistic to back up anything. 50 years ago, doctors were promoting cigarettes as a healthy thing to smoke. I'm not about regulating people's choices of what they eat, or smoke...it's a free country. I AM about giving them all the facts so they can make informed choices.

Here's some of the latest on the GM issue -- from the Organic Consumers site:

The Food and Drug Administration released a "draft guidance" document on September 18th that outlines the regulatory approval process for Genetically Engineered (GE) animals. To date, the process has not been transparent, and maintains that GE animals, like their plant counterparts, do not need to be labeled. Food derived from GE animals will not be labeled and represents a huge risk for human health and the environment.

Full article at http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14724.cfm

If we think this is an issue that's harmless, here's a reminder that there is a lot of money and lobbying behind this issue that is striving to silence the folks who openly question and ask for the facts: http://www.gmwatch.eu/archives/5-Interview-about-attacks-on-GM-Watch.html

Gently and consistently, we must insist on honesty in labeling and on protection of our rights to decide for ourselves, as citizens, whether we want GMOs. We can NOT hand this decision over to the government to decide for us, because if we do, they will.

And they'll continue to convince us that GM soy is as "natural" as growing a pink rose.