Katherine Roberts, a group member from my collaborative research project for my Writing, Reserach, and Technology class has done a lot of research on organic versus non-organic and their pros and cons. In this reserach type paper, she looks at the harmful effects of GMO's in food.
Say No to GMO's
According to Responsible Technology, “A GMO (genetically modified organism) is the result of a laboratory process of taking genes from one species and inserting them into another in an attempt to obtain a desired trait or characteristic.”
The only safety tests being done prior to the sales of genetically modified foods, have been conducted by the scientists manufacturing these new organisms, employees of the Monsanto corporation. Why is the American population standing for this? The risks far outweigh any advantages.
Animals ingesting these modified foods are now frequently studied by physicians other than Monsanto's. The lab rats ingesting the questionable organisms are becoming violently ill, having organ failure, kidney leakage, and even suffering fatalities. “By reviewing data from 19 animal studies, Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and others reveal that 9% of the measured parameters, including blood and urine biochemistry, organ weights, and microscopic analyses (histopathology), were significantly disrupted in the GM-fed animals. Other organs may be affected too, such as the heart and spleen, or blood cells" (Smith).
Most people have no concept of where their food comes from; they are clueless about how it was grown and nurtured, before it's tossed into their grocery cart. Uneducated citizens are feeding their children processed foods that contain ingredients that withstand harsh weed killers and herbicides, because the plants themselves are grown with such poisons. Children’s bodies are growing in leaps and bounds and they need nutrients and vitamins, not allergen producing and antibiotic reducing foods, enhanced with hormones and pesticides. Why are we one of the few countries accepting this tragically deceptive change in our natural ecological food system?
The Institute For Responsible Technology tells that the following combinations of organisms are currently being grown in test fields:
Another unhealthy substitute is Aspartame. Food processing engineer and scientist, Carol Hoernlein, developed serious health issues after years of shoveling aspartame out of barrels. She no longer works in favor of the corporate food industry, because if she did, she could not report the truth as she does on her founded website MSGTruth .org.
We have given our government control of our rights to know what we are consuming, without knowledge of the ill effects it will have on our future health; we are eating blindly. Products made with genetically engineered foods are not labeled, because if they were, most people wouldn’t consume them.
The only reason American farmers haven't modified wheat, is due to the large sums of money they would lose to exporting. Other countries refuse GMO’s; they are axious to see what the outcome of our self inflicted dietary experiments will be. How will injecting human DNA into our food affect our babies in the years to come. Or how about the bacteria, virus, animal, or insect genes they are merging with the crops and livestock we eat for dinner?
Beef has been approved for hormone injections. We get 60 – 70 % of estrogen from cows milk naturally, and now more is being added. Dr. Schettler says, “What worries some experts is that about 17% of dairy cows are treated with the hormone rBST (or rBGH), which stimulates milk production by increasing circulating levels of another hormone called insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1). Elevated levels of IGF-1 in people are associated with an increased risk of cancer, including breast cancer" (Long).
Although chickens have not yet been approved for modification, manufacturers are finding ways around the laws and perfecting their ability to bend the truth.''Chickens that roam around outside pecking for food grains in manure are not chickens I would want to eat,'' says Randy Day, vice president of Purdue farms (Hamlin). (Umm ok Randy, so I guess all that poop they trudge through and topple over into indoors is sanitary, you moron. HMMM, could that be why you need to grow your chickens “naturally” big? To fight all that “natural” disease?)
"Bacitracin, an antibiotic that is also a growth drug, is part of the feed of many young chickens, including those of Perdue and Bell & Evans. The Agriculture Department, while acknowledging that Bacitracin can be a growth drug, characterizes it as an antibiotic, which processors contend are necessary to eliminate disease”(Hamlin).
Our rights are being violated in more than one area of food production and distribution; we are definitely not being protected. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 5,000 Americans annually die from a food-borne illness. Last year, at the height of a nationwide salmonella outbreak that sickened thousands, spread via tainted peanut butter, the Westco Fruit and Nuts company refused for weeks to recall potentially contaminated products, despite requests from the F.D.A. Instead of the millions spent to treat victims of food-bourne illness yearly, we could invest in prevention. The major incidences lie where quantities of food is produced, not by small producers selling their goods at farmers’ markets” (Pollan, Scholosser).
Not only does the government refuse to label our food, but the senate won’t pass the bill that will enable to FDA, who is charge of monitoring "80% of our food," to protect us from unnecessary illness to contaminated food. If they were able to inspect places of production before food was distributed, innocent victims-- mainly children, elderly, and people with weakened immunities would remain alive .
“The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn't. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it's doing are as different as night and day.”- Herbert Lay, M.D., former FDA Commissioner.
As consumers, it is so important that we become educated because the information we are being fed, is often non- organic. These powerful corporations and government officials are interchangeable; they have formed strong, interwoven alliances. The best way to protect ourselves and our families is to become informed, so that we are not mindlessly shopping, and consuming potentially dangerous foods.
When I started doing research for this purpose, my focus was on foods sprayed with pesticides being unhealthy. I was completely ignorant to the hidden dangers of GMO's; I am not the only one. We need spread the word in order to educate our friends, families, and communities. It seems overwhelming at first, but with knowledge, it becomes manageable.
Andrew Kimbrell from the center for food safety says, “Most Whole foods are not genetically engineered. The ones that are – corn, cotton, canola, and soy. 60% of processed foods are genetically modified foods, not 60 % of food” (Kroschel). Monsanto, Dupont, Bear, Dowell, and Syngenta are some of the corporations that modify food. They are not agriculture companies, they are chemical companies designing food substitutes we ingest.
Here is a great resource I came across to bring me some peace of mind. This informative GMO free shopping guide take the guessing out of grocery shoppin. It should not be this way, we have the right to know.If we stop purchasing products that have been modified, and begin protesting at local levels for product labeling, we can work towards healthy change.
In the beginning I was against pesticides, and leaned toward eating organic. After conducting this research, I am not only against foods sprayed with chemicals, but mortified to find that our seeds are constructed with these GMO poisons.
This method of making meaning in response to my recent knowledge has led to even stronger post reflection opinions .
The only safety tests being done prior to the sales of genetically modified foods, have been conducted by the scientists manufacturing these new organisms, employees of the Monsanto corporation. Why is the American population standing for this? The risks far outweigh any advantages.
Animals ingesting these modified foods are now frequently studied by physicians other than Monsanto's. The lab rats ingesting the questionable organisms are becoming violently ill, having organ failure, kidney leakage, and even suffering fatalities. “By reviewing data from 19 animal studies, Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and others reveal that 9% of the measured parameters, including blood and urine biochemistry, organ weights, and microscopic analyses (histopathology), were significantly disrupted in the GM-fed animals. Other organs may be affected too, such as the heart and spleen, or blood cells" (Smith).
Most people have no concept of where their food comes from; they are clueless about how it was grown and nurtured, before it's tossed into their grocery cart. Uneducated citizens are feeding their children processed foods that contain ingredients that withstand harsh weed killers and herbicides, because the plants themselves are grown with such poisons. Children’s bodies are growing in leaps and bounds and they need nutrients and vitamins, not allergen producing and antibiotic reducing foods, enhanced with hormones and pesticides. Why are we one of the few countries accepting this tragically deceptive change in our natural ecological food system?
The Institute For Responsible Technology tells that the following combinations of organisms are currently being grown in test fields:
- Corn engineered with human genes (Dow)
- Sugarcane engineered with human genes (Hawaii Agriculture Research Center)
- Corn engineered with jellyfish genes (Stanford University)
- Tobacco engineered with lettuce genes (University of Hawaii)
- Rice engineered with human genes (Applied Phytologics)
- Corn engineered with hepatitis virus genes (Prodigene)
Another unhealthy substitute is Aspartame. Food processing engineer and scientist, Carol Hoernlein, developed serious health issues after years of shoveling aspartame out of barrels. She no longer works in favor of the corporate food industry, because if she did, she could not report the truth as she does on her founded website MSGTruth .org.
We have given our government control of our rights to know what we are consuming, without knowledge of the ill effects it will have on our future health; we are eating blindly. Products made with genetically engineered foods are not labeled, because if they were, most people wouldn’t consume them.
The only reason American farmers haven't modified wheat, is due to the large sums of money they would lose to exporting. Other countries refuse GMO’s; they are axious to see what the outcome of our self inflicted dietary experiments will be. How will injecting human DNA into our food affect our babies in the years to come. Or how about the bacteria, virus, animal, or insect genes they are merging with the crops and livestock we eat for dinner?
Beef has been approved for hormone injections. We get 60 – 70 % of estrogen from cows milk naturally, and now more is being added. Dr. Schettler says, “What worries some experts is that about 17% of dairy cows are treated with the hormone rBST (or rBGH), which stimulates milk production by increasing circulating levels of another hormone called insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1). Elevated levels of IGF-1 in people are associated with an increased risk of cancer, including breast cancer" (Long).
Although chickens have not yet been approved for modification, manufacturers are finding ways around the laws and perfecting their ability to bend the truth.''Chickens that roam around outside pecking for food grains in manure are not chickens I would want to eat,'' says Randy Day, vice president of Purdue farms (Hamlin). (Umm ok Randy, so I guess all that poop they trudge through and topple over into indoors is sanitary, you moron. HMMM, could that be why you need to grow your chickens “naturally” big? To fight all that “natural” disease?)
"Bacitracin, an antibiotic that is also a growth drug, is part of the feed of many young chickens, including those of Perdue and Bell & Evans. The Agriculture Department, while acknowledging that Bacitracin can be a growth drug, characterizes it as an antibiotic, which processors contend are necessary to eliminate disease”(Hamlin).
Our rights are being violated in more than one area of food production and distribution; we are definitely not being protected. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 5,000 Americans annually die from a food-borne illness. Last year, at the height of a nationwide salmonella outbreak that sickened thousands, spread via tainted peanut butter, the Westco Fruit and Nuts company refused for weeks to recall potentially contaminated products, despite requests from the F.D.A. Instead of the millions spent to treat victims of food-bourne illness yearly, we could invest in prevention. The major incidences lie where quantities of food is produced, not by small producers selling their goods at farmers’ markets” (Pollan, Scholosser).
Not only does the government refuse to label our food, but the senate won’t pass the bill that will enable to FDA, who is charge of monitoring "80% of our food," to protect us from unnecessary illness to contaminated food. If they were able to inspect places of production before food was distributed, innocent victims-- mainly children, elderly, and people with weakened immunities would remain alive .
“The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn't. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it's doing are as different as night and day.”- Herbert Lay, M.D., former FDA Commissioner.
As consumers, it is so important that we become educated because the information we are being fed, is often non- organic. These powerful corporations and government officials are interchangeable; they have formed strong, interwoven alliances. The best way to protect ourselves and our families is to become informed, so that we are not mindlessly shopping, and consuming potentially dangerous foods.
When I started doing research for this purpose, my focus was on foods sprayed with pesticides being unhealthy. I was completely ignorant to the hidden dangers of GMO's; I am not the only one. We need spread the word in order to educate our friends, families, and communities. It seems overwhelming at first, but with knowledge, it becomes manageable.
Andrew Kimbrell from the center for food safety says, “Most Whole foods are not genetically engineered. The ones that are – corn, cotton, canola, and soy. 60% of processed foods are genetically modified foods, not 60 % of food” (Kroschel). Monsanto, Dupont, Bear, Dowell, and Syngenta are some of the corporations that modify food. They are not agriculture companies, they are chemical companies designing food substitutes we ingest.
Here is a great resource I came across to bring me some peace of mind. This informative GMO free shopping guide take the guessing out of grocery shoppin. It should not be this way, we have the right to know.If we stop purchasing products that have been modified, and begin protesting at local levels for product labeling, we can work towards healthy change.
In the beginning I was against pesticides, and leaned toward eating organic. After conducting this research, I am not only against foods sprayed with chemicals, but mortified to find that our seeds are constructed with these GMO poisons.
This method of making meaning in response to my recent knowledge has led to even stronger post reflection opinions .
