This month I took my 91-year-old mother to visit a cousin we hadn’t seen for 40 years. Wow – the last time I saw her I had just started my first job at Celestial Seasonings and I was traveling the West coast in a Volkswagen bus gaily painted with thunderbolts striking teacups and roosters crowing at dawn. It was way before anyone ever thought about Genetically Modified Organisms, but now it was all I could think about while on my way to her home in rural Illinois!
Naïve Californian that I am, I can’t express my amazement at how massive the acreage is of GMO corn and GMO soybeans in this country’s “bread basket”. Talk about mono-cropping and destroying nature’s diversity! Miles and miles whizzed by and all the eye could see was row upon row of GMO plants grown for … yes … animal feed and high fructose corn syrup!
Now there’s a new study that reveals that the known carcinogen, formaldehyde, builds up in GMO soybeans. Plus, it shows a massive decrease in GMO soy’s glutathione, the antioxidant responsible for keeping our cells detoxified. Yikes!
The DARK Act
Did you know that the US Congress passed the DARK act just a few weeks ago? Dubbed the “Deny Americans the Right to Know” Act, it will prevent states from requiring labeling of GMOs. Now the fight for our right to know what’s in our food has shifted to the Senate and I encourage all of you to write your senators to vote against it!
What do Russia, China, the European Union and 60+ other countries have in common? They require the labeling of GMOs! What would this mean to food companies in the US? Just a few lines added to the ingredient deck on their label. No cost whatsoever!
Not long ago, food companies didn’t have to put allergen statements on their labels. Now you can read clear statements like “Contains peanuts and other tree nuts” right after the ingredient list. No company resisted this or complained about the cost to tell Americans clearly about the allergens in their foods. So, what’s the big deal about GMOs?
It all sounded so reasonable when General Mills wrote to me after I complained to them about donating millions of dollars to pass the DARK act. They said that they believed that we should simply have a certification for non-GMO foods just like we have for organic foods.
Except that guess who has to pay for that certification? You!
Certifications cost consumers money because food manufacturers have to pass on the cost of massive amounts of paperwork, time and expense. All of which makes natural food products more expensive than conventional food products and leaves most Americans in the DARK…
The FDA is using outdated science to test GMOs
Back to that study about formaldehyde building up in GMO soybeans – the FDA approves genetically modified foods if their nutrients don’t differ substantially from the same plant that is non-genetically modified. However, as the chief scientist of the study, Dr. Ayyadurai states, “This is not a pro- or anti-GMO question. But, are we following the scientific method to ensure the safety of our food supply? Right now, the answer is ‘no’.” He goes on to explain that the FDA is using 1970’s era science to test differences between GMO and non-GMO plants while ignoring today’s scientific advances which can test for many more compounds like carcinogens!
So yes, when I visited my cousin in the 1970’s driving that colorful VW van and spreading Celestial’s herbal teas to natural food stores up and down the West coast, science hadn’t yet created GMOs. 1970’s science could only test for known nutrients on a macro basis. It couldn’t look into a plant’s biology with a 2015 systems biology approach and see the disruption that is caused by GMOs. So why is the FDA relying on 1970’s technology to determine if GMO foods are safe for Americans today?
I’ll leave you to form your own opinion on that. But my thoughts as I passed mile after mile of GMO plants ran like this: no wonder Monsanto’s strategy is to own America’s cropland and force farmers to buy their GMO seeds. That’s a lot of acres out there!
Buy certified organic foods and beverages (which are already regulated to be non-GMO) and write your Senators .
Read more about the new science showing the buildup of toxic formaldehyde in GMO soybeans here .
