PORK CHOPS with a SIDE OF MOUSE GENES?? Ick!

- (These pigs exist only in quarantine for the moment-but the idea is to have them coming to your dinner plate, soon) Guelph University has taken mouse genes and a gene sequence from E-Coli and transplanted them into the pig.  It is called the Enviropig.

How the world has changed. 100 years ago all food was organic, and 15 years ago our food didn’t have genes from other species in it. Welcome to the new ‘food’.

Yup, you heard me right. Without our knowledge or agreement, the gov’t has allowed animals, crops, and possibly our health to be part of the world’s largest biological experiment in history.

Scientists worked on some pretty interesting combinations.

-spider genes were inserted into a goat, in hopes that the goat milk would contain web protein for use in making bullet-proof vests.

-jellyfish genes lit up pig’s noses in the dark.

-a gene was taken from a fish and forced into a tomato, to increase cold tolerance.(no longer on the market)

-Human genes were inserted into corn to produce spermicide. 

This technology is in its infancy, with an endless amount of variables to go wrong. The illusion the biotech industry would have you believe is that removing a single gene out of a spider and putting the spider gene into a goat is as easy as 'cut' and 'paste' on your computer. It is more like doing heart surgery with a shovel, at least for the 'pasting' end of the process. This technology is where computers were in the 1970’s.

‘It’s safe,’ the industry blithely answers. Didn’t we already hear that line from the tobacco industry? “Trust us, we are the experts”, retorts the food industry. Aren’t they the ones who thought that feeding dead cows to cows was okay, yet brain wasting diseases like mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob resulted? How about the financial industry just before the crash? They were certain,however the experts were again all wrong.

*Currently, GE means Genetically Engineered, GM means Genetically Modified and the term GMO stands for genetically modified organisms.

Who eats GM food? Mainly the Citizens of Canada and the USA.

Is that another reason why both countries have skyrocketing  rates of OBESITY, CANCER, HEART DISEASE,DIABETES and other conditions even in young people ?

There are four major food crops currently in commercial production that have been genetically manipulated: Corn, soy, canola and cottonseed. All are used to make vegetable oil, soy and corn derivatives are used in most processed foods.

· There are no labelling requirements in Canada or the USA for GMO’s.

· 70% of commonly eaten processed foods have GM ingredients from corn, soy, canola and now sugar beet.

· To avoid GE food; avoid corn, soy and canola derivatives. Corn syrup, corn chips, corn oil, soy infant formula, soy milk and canola oil are all examples of commonly consumed items.

· IS THE EXPERIMENTAL FOOD SAFE TO EAT?

Europeans have rejected GM Food, due to safety and environmental concerns. The British government used the taxpayers money to fund an independent animal feeding study.  In Feb 1999, the UK parliament called upon the researcher and scientist Arpad Pusztai to reveal his findings.  The rats that were fed potatoes engineered to produce their own insecticide developed potentially precancerous cell growth in the digestive tract, inhibited development of their brains, livers and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, enlarged pancreases, and intestines and immune system damage.  Asked by the press if he would eat GM food Pusztai said “that given the choice, he would not.” and that he was, “sorry that the public was being used as guinea pigs.”

· The food stores and restaurants in Europe don’t use GM ingredients because after hearing Pusztai, the newly educated people rejected buying genetically altered foods and the food suppliers soon followed suit. If GM food is to be found, it is required by law to be labelled.

EVEN MCDONALD’S IN EUROPE WON’T USE GE ingredients

GM foods could be contributing to serious, widespread health problems, but Health Canada is not monitoring GM foods at all. Canada follows USA policy with no independent study.

· The USA official policy from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is that genetically modified food is essentially the same as regular food, and does not require any special safety testing. But at the same time it is so different that it can be patented for profit. For example, Bt corn has genes from bacteria and virus inserted so it produces its own pesticide within each kernel. The Bt corn itself is classified as a pesticide within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

(HINT-NATURAL THINGS CAN’T BE PATENTED. FOOD AND ANIMALS ARE BEING ALTERED SO PERHAPS THE LARGE MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES CAN PROFIT FROM THEIR PATENTS)

· THE Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims that GM food is safe, but they don’t fund independent testing for safety. The biotech companies aren’t even required to look closely for problems. They can VOLUNTEER to conduct safety testing. That is like giving Charles Manson the freedom to conduct his own psychological evaluation.

 Furthermore, Monsanto‘s history includes producing PCB’s, Agent Orange, Dioxin and Aspartame, and DDT. Hardly a model of healthy products, with a good safety record.

 In the rush for the USA  and Canada to become the world leaders in the emerging field of  agricultural bio-technology, our governments brushed aside their own scientist’s concerns, and declared out of thin air, GE food to be “substantially equivalent to regular food.”

And while the Constitution of the USA had previously not allowed for the patenting of LIFE this safeguard was waived as well. The issue of patenting LIFE has never been voted on by the people or the Congress of the USA, nor theCanadian House of Commons. But now LIFE itself can be bought and sold, and patented for profit, like any other commodity. Now it is a patenting, and life-bending ‘Free-for-All,’ with all the companies racing to be the first to line-up at the patent office in the USA to “stake their claim”.

‘It is the new gold rush’. The rush is to buy and sell genes, and create new life forms.

· Once created and released to the environment, these new life forms can never be recalled. There is cross pollination between GE crops and conventional crops, organic crops and wild relatives.

· PROTECT OUR FARMERS /PROTECT YOURSELF if you care about what you eat, about having choice, control, and information about your food

HOW DO GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS AFFECT FARMERS OF ORGANIC REGULAR / FOOD?

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO STOP THE WIND? Because our farmers certainly don’t. Millions of acres of land are planted with genetically modified CORN, CANOLA, SOY and SUGAR BEET and their seeds don’t stay put. Wind carries the seeds and pollen from GM plants to both conventional and organic fields, and there they grow. Ask Percy Schmeiser of Bruno Saskatchewan. He is a conventional farmer who did not use Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready seeds. So he was surprised when he did a little spraying around the telephone poles. The plants did not die. Round-UP is supposed to kill all plants except those genetically modified to resist it.

Monsanto was at his door in a heartbeat to sue him for using their patented technology without a license. Extremely unjust...but highly legal. His lawyer advised him to destroy all of his own seed, which he had harvested for over 30 years, and used to re-seed his fields each year.

· Farmers are being forced to destroy home-grown seeds, developed and suited to our land over decades of traditional breeding methods. Farmers are being quickly and quietly being stripped of the right to collect and replant their own free seeds. They must buy seeds both conventional and gene modified seeds from the biotech corporations, which is a form of seed-slavery.

*Monsanto spent 8 Billion USD buying up seed companies and patenting the seeds. They are estimated to own 11,000 patents. They also own the pesticide companies that match the seeds.

The biotech industry says ‘it wants to feed the world,’ but actually takes natural seeds that can be replanted out of the hands of farmers, and replaces them with seeds that are patented, and must be purchased each year. Saving seeds has been done for millennia and is the basis for the global food system. Patenting seeds creates a form of Seed Slavery.

 Monsanto owns terminator technology, which are seeds engineered to be sterile after first harvest. This technology is not yet on the market, but is clearly designed to stop farmers from saving seeds.

WHY DO SOME FARMERS CHOOSE TO PLANT GENE ALTERED CROPS?

They understood it to be a safe, effective way to increase yields and believed that they would need to use less of the costly chemical pesticide (as the genetically altered crops produce their own pesticide from within.)

However, according to The Organic and Non-Gmo Report, this is back-firing, and Super Weeds and crop failure are not uncommon. Furthermore, the insects are adapting and the GE crops are losing their punch. Meanwhile, The Washington Post is reporting “things didn’t work the way they were supposed to” in a story that raises disturbing questions about the environmental and human health impacts of genetically modified crops and the failure of the US gov’t to regulate them. http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12133-are-regulators-dropping-the-ball-on-biocrops

Personal Action Plan:  It’s your food...take responsibility, and take it back!

1) Watch ‘The Future of Food’ documentary for FREE http://www.thefutureoffood.com

2    Join CBAN (Canadian Biotechnology Action Network) online to send your vote to the Minister of Agriculture and sign up for e-mail information. Site is full of info. BEST IS A PERSONAL LETTER TO YOUR MP!!!

3)    Support Bill 474 which is our chance to put GM crops on hold instead of fast forward. Almost every Conservative Party member voted down this bill last time around.  So your response is urgent. Call your MP to demand they support Bill 474-to stop even more GE crops like wheat and alfalfa being genetically modified. It will kill our export markets!  See how your MP voted http://cban.ca/474

5)    Ask health food stores, health professionals nationwide to stock educational DVD’s like The Future of food, The World According to Monsanto, and Food Inc., King Corn so they are widely seen. Or order them yourself, like I did

6)  Vote with your wallet.  Don’t buy GM food-and tell your grocery store why. Read the Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey Smith.