What's in your Food?

I wrote awhile back about my attempt to find milk without bovine growth hormone -- rbgh, as it's called.  I succeeded.  For a bit, I had to switch to WalMart milk, but later we noticed that our Aldi milk is also rbgh-free, and it's cheaper. I'm voting for healthier milk, with my debit card :)

I watched this excellent video on GMOs -- genetically modified organisms in our food supply. Did you know that the large agri-business corporations modify grains like corn, soy and alfalfa with proteins at the DNA level? Food allergies are always a result of a reaction to proteins.

This has been going on since about 1994.

In the past 10-15 years, food allergies (many to corn and milk) have increased by 265% in the US, according to the Center for Disease Control, assessing hospital admissions for food allergy reactions.

No human or animal trials have been done to prove the safety of GMOs.

Only 29 countries out of the world's 195 grow GMO crops. Many nations have laws against them; most of Europe does not allow them.

80% of our processed food in the U.S. has GMOs in it, according to the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

(My blog is cropping this video, and cutting out the fellow. For a full-screen, double click and it will take you to Youtube to view it.)


The amazing thing to me is that the GMO producers are fighting so hard to ensure that these products are NOT labeled. They don't want the American public to know what's in their food.  They claim that it's not harmful, even though no studies have been done to prove this.  They say that their products are not substantially different from what's been fed to Americans before, yet they insist on patents for them, licensing, and tough penalties if you transgress this patent on a grain that's really the same as the ones your grandfather used. Can you smell a rat?

What I like about this video is that these folks are not extreme.  They are the first to say that science, and even genetic engineering in food, is a good thing, if it's done properly.  But done in secret, without accountability or disclosure, to the harm of the consumer?  No, that's not okay. These corporations won't release their seeds for use in any test that might be harmful to their profitability.

I also appreciate her concern for American farmers who are trapped in the middle. This woman has done her research and her leg-work.

Hopefully, public awareness on this issue will drive the industry to correct itself.  But the public can't vote with its pocketbook, and correct the industry through good ole capitalistic means, unless the public knows.  How can you vote with your purchase, when the purchases aren't labeled?

Here's Robyn O'Brien's book website.

Here's Mark Bittman's NY Times article, to which they were referring.

Here's the poll itself, with comments. Over 96% want the foods labeled.

Here's a post on the MSNBC poll.