“The long-term study of GMO foods is going on in real time and in real life. Not in a lab.”-Ziggy Marley

The question of whether we “should” be consuming genetically modified foods (GMO’s) or even consuming animals fed GMO foods is a pressing concern these days.

The majority of people go about their daily lives totally oblivious that they are consuming GMO ingredients.

Do YOU know what genetically modified foods are? Do YOU know if they are safe? If NOT, then this article will educate you about these critical topics.

The reason this issue is of extreme importance is because we must make the right choice soon, before it’s too late. Unless we act promptly, being GMO FREE will be close to impossible and organic foods will become highly scarce.

What Are Genetically Modified Foods (GMO Foods)?

GMO is the use of “biotechnology” to take a gene from one organism (plant, bacteria, or animal) and put it into another organism. Usually, this gene is inserted using a virus or bacteria to penetrate the cell walls of the organism. There are many other approaches for inserting a foreign gene into an organism, but from my research, these two seem to be used quite frequently.  This is an unnatural breading approach that most of the time could NOT occur in Nature.

This is being done for a variety of reasons, claims such as:

• Herbicide resistance… so that crops can be sprayed with a certain herbicide and NOT die. (Round Up Ready)
• Increase pest resistance to prevent pests from destroying their crops. (Make the crop a pesticide that kills bugs when they consume it.)
• GM growth hormones (rBGH) to boost the production of milk or eggs in animals.
• Increase disease resistance from viruses, bacteria or fungi.

Some of these reasons sound good in theory, but personally, I think it’s a bunch of… ahem… bull-sh!! myself lol 😉  Of course, I’m NOT the only one who believes this. A lot of people say these experimental foods have the potential to create massive problems in the near future. This article is basically bringing some of these concerns to the forefront in an attempt to educate people about this critical subject.

Are Genetically Modified Foods Safe?

I believe the most important place to start is how these products could affect our health. Time has shown, that the food industry as well as the government, are NOT always concerned with how their products and decisions affect “the people’s” health.

For example, look at the obesity and health problems caused by the fast food industry. Look at the evidence that is coming to the surface about the effects of using pesticides and artificial fertilizers on our health. How about ingredients such as: Aspartame, MSG, High Fructose Corn Syrup, BHA, BHT, BPA, Potassium Bromate and Food Colorings.

Time and again, products are labeled as safe, then retracted multiple years later, after independent studies find out the products are actually harmful.

Who says these things are safe? You guessed it… the FDA and the companies selling it to you.   Sadly this still remains true even though independent studies show these products have possible dangers to consumers’ health.

Just with that little bit of information, do you think it’s a good idea to be eating products that are sprayed with Roundup? Do you think it is a good idea to eat a plant that contains a pesticide inside of it that kills bugs? Shouldn’t this be a concern?

There is NO long-term evidence that validates genetically modified foods are NOT a danger to us to consume. Frankly, the companies that own these GMO seeds will NOT allow independent safety studies on their products without their approval. Therefore, very little safety experiments get to be performed.

The only long term study I found actually stated that they are a danger to our health… –> 2 Year Long-Term Toxicity Study of GMO’s.  Even Consumer Reports are questioning the safety of Genetic Modified Organisms in our food… –> Consumer Reports –  What You Must Know About GMO’s.

One of the first genetically modified foods approved by the FDA was artificial growth hormones (rBGH), which was created by Monsanto. It is injected into cows to make them produce more milk. Growing evidence is showing that these growth hormones can be a major cause of breast cancer, prostate cancer and other types of cancers. For more info on the harmful effects of rBGH check out the following link: –> Health Problems with rbgh.

It is also shown that these injections decrease the lifespan of the cow, deplete the cow of its nutrients and vitamins, cause deformations in their offspring, cause infections which result in puss and blood in the milk and cause the cow to develop hoof diseases. That sure sounds safe to me haha!

People often rely on the FDA’s approval to figure out if something is okay to consume. However, the FDA continues to say that there is NO significant difference between milk from rBGH injected cows and cows NOT injected with it. This comes as NO surprise since people who used to work for Monsanto have ended up infiltrating the FDA. They did this to make sure these GMO’s were approved with NO further safety testing. That just goes to show you that you can’t always rely on the FDA when they say that a product is “safe” to consume.

Furthermore, the companies that are using these GMO foods do NOT want their products to be labeled as containing them.

There are a couple reasons for this:

1. They fear people do NOT want to buy their GMO foods.
2. If foods are NOT labeled as being genetically modified, then it takes away liabilities from the corporations when these foods start destroying people’s health.

Think about it, let’s say you were eating a product that contained GMO corn sprayed with roundup and it was NOT labeled as such.  After a while, you started getting really sick and  developing problems. It would be hard to “prove” GMO’s were the cause. However, if it was labeled as being GMO corn, than doctors could start to put together conclusive evidence that it’s genetically engineered products causing these problems.

If their products are so valuable to the customers, than they would demand that their brand name be labeled on the item. It would be like the Intel processor company NOT wanting their name shown on the computers their products were in. But it’s totally opposite, the Biotech companies want it to be a complete secret that it’s in there… WHY?

If their products were proven to be harmful, the people running these types of corporations are already limited from the negative consequences of their products. Therefore, very little repercussions would fall on them personally.

What we should start doing is increasing the personal liabilities of the people in charge of these corporate enterprises. This would help minimize the likeliness of these companies selling products they KNOW are harmful. By NOT labeling these foods, we are taking even MORE liabilities away from these businesses, allowing them to do whatever they want NO matter what harm it causes to their customers.

When you eat foods that were designed in a laboratory with NO longterm test results… you’re being treated as a guinea pig.

5 to 20 years down the road when people start to develop problems, then they might have a concern for the safety of these products. Sadly by that time it might already be too late.

I am NOT totally against genetically modified organisms. In fact, I believe that the science could potentially be an important technology in the future for all types of different areas.

However, we should NOT be exposed to gmo’s in our food supply when there is NO absolute certainty that they are NOT harmful or poisonous. Furthermore, I have limited trust in these corporations when all they care about is profit and have very little ramifications for the harm these products could create. GMO companies mostly care about profit NOT customers’ health and that combo leads to BAD outcomes to the customers.

Taking Away Natural Farmer’s Rights

These new GMO products have so much resistance to pests and herbicides that they start to appear more like “unwanted weeds” than produce. What is going to stop them from spreading across the world? Certainly NOT the use of Round Up!

Another serious concern is that these few huge chemical companies will be taking over the world’s food supply. Since they own the right to these genetically engineered plants and seeds, they in fact will own the world’s food supply. This is very easy to accomplish if they keep being able to sue all the small local farmer’s that do NOT want to use their seeds.

Having a few companies own all the rights to these foods creates huge problems. There will be a lack of variety in the food market. The only thing you will be able to buy is GMO foods. Whether or NOT they’re good or bad for you; that will be your ONLY choice.

The lack of variety in the food industry also causes much problems. If a disease comes and wipes out that specific produce, then we are left with nothing. However, if there are multiple species of the same type of produce, there is less concern for one disease wiping it completely out of existence.  Remember the Irish Potato Famine, the plant disease that wiped out tons of potato’s in the past?

It seems to me these companies are more concerned with controlling the market place than they are with creating nutritious food products. Food is something everyone needs to survive, so they know if they control it then they will control much of the world.

This totally goes against the laws about monopolies controlling the market place for specific items. However, none of the government agencies seems to be concerned about these huge companies wiping out all the important farmers that we have relied on for healthy foods for thousands of years. This information starts to make you ponder if the government is partnered with these companies as well. If they can control the food supply of the world, then they can control the world.

How can a chemical company create better and more nutritious food than a farmer? They have NO farming experience. This makes little sense to me. We must be careful, for tampering this much with nature could eventually bring about our demise.

Eliminating Organic Foods

Over the last several years organic foods has been deemed as more nutritional and the healthy way to go.

Studies have shown that organic produce contains more vitamins, nutrients, and less nitrates than produce that was grown with artificial pesticides and fertilizers.

Studies have also shown that the use of these pesticides can create problems when consumed by humans: such as cancers, stomach problems and other ailments.

As more and more crops keep becoming genetically modified, organic foods start to become more limited. Companies, such as Monsanto, keep taking out the small organic farmers, leaving us with a shortage of access to these products. Now is the time to promote organic foods the most. Demand organic foods and the suppliers will be forced to listen. The following link can help you learn: –> how to eat healthy on a budget.

Biotech Companies Threatening Human Rights

I feel the actions of these corporate enterprises are taking away human rights. The growing lack of ability to be able to choose what we want to eat, is taking away our free will.

If I want to avoid eating GMO’s, I should have that right. If I do NOT want to be a test subject, I SHOULD have that right. I SHOULD have the right to know what is in my food that I PAY for with my hard earned money. At a very minimum these genetically modified ingredients SHOULD HAVE to be labeled.

Some of these GMO foods contain genes that cause plants to make its own pesticides (Bt-Corn). They claim since the plant is a pesticide, we won’t have to use so much external pesticide sprays. This seems like a bad approach, to make our food toxic so bugs can’t eat them. They also claim that these toxins are NOT harmful to people. However, how can this be conclusive when long-term studies tend to be absent?

We’ve seen this approach many times before with corporations claiming their products were safe, then later finding out they were wrong. For example, what about tobacco or plastics?

Sadly in the past… tobacco was actually marketed as being beneficial for use. It often was promoted for relief of asthma, hay fever, head colds, canker sours and bronchial irritations. Now tobacco is “known” to include great dangers to those who partake in it. However, it took a great deal of battling with the billion dollar tobacco companies who were doing everything possible to suppress the dangers for decades.

When will we ever learn? Hopefully soon before it is too late.

Destruction of Our Environment

With all the damage we have already caused our environment, don’t you think it is time we take care of our planet? We have polluted it with fossil fuels, garbage, damaged the streams, rivers, and oceans with oil spills, and cut down most of the major forests that supply oxygen and purify the air.

This is the time in history where we can stand up to these corporations before they get too strong. We can put “Mother Earth” first for a change and NOT allow another harmful blow to her. This has to be done with the voice of many standing up for what is right. Promote healthy organic foods… Do NOT allow lies from greedy companies and government agencies to be mistaken as truth.

These GMO crops have the potential to drastically change our environment even further. By changing the genes in these plants, we might end up destroying the food chain as we know it. For example, the gene inserted in corn to make it toxic to pests could spread to other plant life destroying massive amounts of insects and bugs. Pollen carried by the wind can cause this and can travel a far distance on a windy day.

The more we make insects and bugs endangered, the higher the chance this can cause a chain reaction on our planet. Many things feed on bugs, such as birds, chickens and many other mammals. If they can’t eat, then they will die causing the animals that eat them NOT to have a food source and so on.

Another issue is that some of these GMO foods are being inserted with an antibiotic resistance marker gene. These genes might end up being passed to the bacteria that we use antibiotics for to prevent diseases and infections. If these genes are passed to the bacteria that cause certain diseases, then antibiotics might have very little effect on them. In a society where antibiotics are already starting to have a lessened effect, can we really take a chance on them NOT working at all? These experiments might just end up creating a super disease that we can NOT cure.

Lastly, the use of Round Up with Monsanto’s seeds could have devastating effects on our environment. It’s NO secret that these chemicals are bad for our health, but as they increase with use, it ‘s a concern for our environment as well. Using Round Up every year on our soils can destroy, contaminate and rob the soil of its nutrient composites.

Food is only as nutritious as the soil where it was grown in. This is due to the fact that the plants are absorbing the nutrients from the soil. Glyphosate (Round Up ) keeps plants from absorbing minerals in the soil. It is everywhere these days… in our drinking water, mother’s breast milk, in baby fetuses , as well as in our lakes, streams, ponds and even inside of us.

The use of this nasty herbicide increases every year due to Round Up Ready GMO crops that cause super weeds in their fields. It is also becoming more apparent that glyphosate may have negative consequences with our good bacteria in the body.

It’s All About the Money

You may be pondering to yourself, why someone would act in such evil ways to their fellow people, animals, and the environment?

This path leads you to the major problems with corporations and the greed that consumes them. Corporations are all about making money.

Lucky for those who operate them, they can do so with very little consequences falling onto them personally.

Whether their billion dollar products cause harm or health problems is irrelevant. They just try and suppress this information until it’s impossible to keep it hidden.

The GMO companies are doing similar approaches as the tobacco companies did in the past. It took decades to show conclusive results that tobacco was very harmful to people who smoked it. By that time many people were dependent on using it and they already made their billions.

GMO’s are the first time in history where companies can own and patent a living thing. There has never been a time, when you could own sole rights to a certain type of corn, soy, or any other living thing. This could easily cause a monopoly in the food supply and large amounts of cash for those who own the seeds and chemicals. Meanwhile causing those who consume it to become broke with medical bills and a decreased lifespan.

How to Be GMO Free – Time to Say NO to GMO’s

If you are living in America you might NOT realize how difficult it is to be GMO Free. Genetically engineered foods has infiltrated the majority of the products in the grocery store. This is so true, that even whole foods: such as meats and fish, have most likely been contaminated from the animals eating generically modified feeds.

Wondering what you can do to avoid these GMO products? Or what you can do to help? You can find all these answers out in part two of this article series… –> Shocking List of GMO Foods.

Videos About GMO Foods

If this article as sparked your interest I recommend watching a couple videos related to this subject. The first video is a short few minute video explaining the myths and truths of GMO’s.  The second video is a full documentary on genetically modified foods and whether they should be in our food supply.  Enjoy!!!

Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) – Myths and Truths

A short video displaying the myths and truths about GMO’s.

 

Seeds Of Death – Unveiling the Lies of GMOs

Here is a longer documentary about the impact of genetically modified foods.

Knowledge is Power

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. The best way to make change happen is by sharing knowledge. Sadly NOT many people know the harmful effects of GMO’s on their health, the animals health and on our environment’s well being.

Cheers to your health,

Cory Cook