Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The Kindness Chronicles - The truth that LIES before your eyes: Monsanto & the FDA

When I was a little girl I played with Barbies. I didn't so much dress them up and have them go shopping as much as I had my G.I. Joe's and Transformer toys storm their mansions and take their convertibles. I clearly never really cared for Barbie. She was cool and she did have a lot of nice clothes, but she was annoyingly perfect and therefore boring. Boringly, plasticy, boring.

I look at that the same way I look at the food industry and Genetically Modified Organism's, or GMO's.
GMO's vs. real food is the same idea as Ken and Barbie vs. real people. One is manufactured, one is genuine. Ken and Barbie are perfect because they were designed out of a mold that every other Ken and Barbie doll will also be made with. They will always be plastic, always be fake. You cannot live a healthy, fulfilled, and of course sane life if all you do is hang out with your plastic friends. You need real, living, breathing people to make you whole. To make you tick and feel and live your very best life.

GMO foods are the Ken and Barbies of the world. They are foods that are genetically modified to grow a certain way, look a certain way, be repellent to insects so they always appear...perfect. Perfect foods make consumers like us happy, therefore, we buy them over foods that are banged up a little bit or that are not quite as round and shiny, better know as organic or just "real" foods. Take an apple, for instance. The organic one might have a bruise on it. It might not be squeaky clean shiny. In fact, it might even taste completely different that what you're used to, but that's because it's a real apple from a real tree. Organic products aren't as shiny and unblemished as GMO's, but that's because they're real like you and me. Real foods are in no way manufactured or altered from their original DNA. This is important.

Now let's look closer at GMO's.

Let's think about what we know for a fact: Processed foods are bad for you. The chemicals and additives and junk they add in has been proven, time and time again, to cause various types of disease in our bodies. However, we know this. There are labels on them. There are warnings everywhere. We know that what we're eating is bad and if we eat it, then fine, we've made the conscious choice to do so. But what about our fruit and veggies and rice and...? Without labeling we don't know what we're eating. We have no idea if that apple on the right or the other one on the left is a real apple or a GMO apple. We aren't given the choice to decide if we want to eat something that was engineered or something that is all natural. The only way we know this is with organic foods. Outside of them,  no one in power of doing so, is willing to label them. Why? Because there is a huge risk at losing a lot of money if they did so. Not to mention that the amount of GMO foods out there is astronomical. Panic would most likely ensue, sales would drop, people would basically freak out.

I've heard the debate that GMO's are good, especially in the case of starving children and impoverished countries, and I get it. I feel terrible for those poor people and the hunger pains they have, especially when we have so much more than we need. Food is food and we should give it to them, right? What if we just gave them real food instead? I don't see why that can't be accomplished. Yes, it's easier to grow manufactured food. Yes, it's more cost effective for those companies involved. Yes, they make more money in the long run. Yes, they control our food supply...wait a minute. I see a pattern here. I think....I think GMO foods really benefit the companies that make them. Yes! Yes, that's it. It's all about the moolah and the power, and the people that make these have both of those. So who cares if it's not all natural? Who cares if we give those poor, starving kids kind of, sort of, real-ish food instead of actual real food? As long as someone makes money, and they have great marketing campaigns to show how kind and generous they are that then make you feel bad about being negative towards GMO's, then why not?

Here's a few reasons why:

Did you know that cattle that are fed all natural diets PREVENT food poisoning and other illnesses while those fed unnatural diets and GMO grains CAUSE food borne illnesses and disease?

Fact.  Animals, like people, fed a diet natural to their systems then support natural health in turn for us. (I will do a whole post on grass fed vs. grain fed later, as it is one heck of a topic all on it's own, but none the less important here as well)

Did you know that the company in charge of all of this, Monsanto, regularly employs executives from the FDA and vice versa, thus ensuring they get what they want passed and completed all the time?

Also a fact. This is public information, most of us just don't know anything about it. It is unethical to have someone who created the GMO seed then get a job at another company where they are in charge of approving of that same seed being distributed to consumers. It's like having a judge be the jury and the prosecutor of someones case. It's all one sided, completely unfair.

Did you know that Monsanto has actually made it more difficult for farmers to grow their own crops? That they've sued some, shut others down completely, and even created the terminator seed which prevents future crops from growing? 


All sad but true. Monsanto created the suicide or terminator seed. This means that the seed is only good for one harvest, then it dies out to never be used again. In traditional farming the farmer would save all of the seeds from his best crop to then use in the next harvest and on and on. Now they can't. Not if they're being forced to use these seeds by Monsanto, who by the way, patented plants. That's right. They patented something that is living - this should never, ever, ever be something anyone can do. That now means that if they can patent a plant and make it their own, they might just be able to patent other living things as well. Think about it. It's not a pretty picture. This screams too much power. On top of all of this, if a Monsanto seed "accidentally" blows into a farmers field and grows and Monsanto tests their crops and finds out it's theirs, they sue the farmer. Oh yeah, it happens.

Did you know, and I am quoting Wikipedia directly here, that Monsanto is an "Agricultural biotechnology corporation...that is the worlds leading producer of herbicide glyphosate, marketed as 'Roundup' and is also the leading producer of genetically engineered seeds providing the technology in 90% of the genetically engineered seeds in the US?"

Just seeing the word biotechnology makes me think they really shouldn't be dealing in the food supply industry, period. Plus, 90% of all genetically engineered seeds? Come on now! Power, power, power and way too much of it. Heck, I might go missing after I make this post, thanks to these people and all their power. Alert the authorities if no posts are made in the next several weeks...

I am not a conspiracy theory girl. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is all fact and it is all public information, just very well hidden and for good reason. They don't want us being informed because informed citizens are armed citizens that fight back.

No one knows what these genetically engineered seeds can do to people. How much testing do you think was done on this and for how long to get a true response from a person's body? I'm guessing very, very little or none even. All I know is that I wouldn't go drink a container of Roundup if I was thirsty, so why would I want to eat something that has roundup in it's chemical makeup? I wouldn't. I don't think any of us would make that decision if given the choice. And choice is what this is all about right now.

Plain and simple, Monsanto is bad news all the way around and the FDA is supporting them. The only way we can stop them is to stay informed and support our local farmers. Google your hearts out, there is Monsanto info everywhere.

Even in Wikipedia it states "According to an anonymous 2001 document[27] obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, Monsanto has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as being a "potentially responsible party" for 56 contaminated sites (Superfund sites) in the United States. Monsanto has been sued, and has settled, multiple times for damaging the health of its employees or residents near its Superfund sites through pollution and poisoning." 

It goes on to explain the terminator seed controversy as well as labeling debates, legal issues, dumping illegal toxins in the UK, and so on. There are so many bad things about this company that I don't see how anyone could see anything good about it. The only argument they have is the food-for-starving-countries one and that is only because they hired people who are good at marketing. Let's not poison other countries, Monsanto. Let's leave them alone and we'll get them real food some other way. In fact, most other countries want nothing, nothing at all, to do with Monsanto and their practices. Also a fact.

For more information please see the Internet as you will be busy for hours and possibly days. Also, a GREAT movie to watch is The Future of Food. This will explain almost everything.

Keep yourselves informed. It's the only way to win the battle and ultimately our health. Support your local farmers. They're our only hope and we need them just as much as they need us right now.

I want to know what you think about this insanity. Holler at me.


Related Post
The Kindness Chronicles

4 comments:

Susan H said...

Shocking. Eye-opening. Thank you for the post, and the reminder to go organic!!

Chantelle Says said...

Glad it was helpful!

Anonymous said...

So I am playing this game called Fall Out New Vegas. this is going to get more ridiculous so just hang in there. Video games are great because they allow its players to imagine a world that doesnt exist, but could exist given certain factors. Fall Out is all about the world after the nuclear bombs have hit. The new world is a pure desert wasteland with irradiated food and water. IT is still a surviveable land, but clean water and food is few and far between. It seems like this has nothing to do with GMO vs Organic food, but hold on. What would happen to the state of our world if all we had was GMOs? the world would still be surviveable. We would live day to day eating what the power mongers gave to us. We would either have to join with Monsanto or starve. Just like in the video game, you have to join with a certain power faction to survive. In the end it is all about power. PRetty soon we will have no choice but to eat GMO's and we might even have to go to war. The fact that one company controls all living plants scares the crap out of me, but as I see it, it is not going to be pretty in the future. Too few people ever know what they are eating esp. because we go out to eat too much. Surely the state of our world will be different if we no longer have real food, but we will have to eat or die. Join or go to war. This is kind of pushing it, but truly possible. What you are doing Melia is fighting a war right now, luckily without guns, but nonetheless, it is a battle. Hopefully health will remain or become more important to human beings, but sadly, humans never compensate for the worst until it happens. Will we even notice the change in the world when it happens? Or will we keep living in ignorance like we already do? Thanks for the post and thanks for listening. ~Lyd :D

Chantelle Says said...

Ha, Lyd! I love the "this is going to get more ridiculous" part and I always enjoy your comments. Justin has that game, so I know what you're talking about. If we all had GMO's and only GMO's yes, we would survive but our quality of life would suffer greatly...much like it does now. 90% of the diseases we have now never existed before and, in my humble opinion, it has almost everything to do with what we put in and on our bodies. So yeah, I am kind of fighting a battle, but the truth is I am loving every minute of it and if even one person learns the truth and makes even the tiniest of a change, then I win...then we all do.