Well, it seems that there is a whole lot of controversial mud slinging going on right now. Well, let's just call it what it is, childish bickering and whining. There are people on both sides of the issue, some are standing fast and defending the group MomsAcrossAmerica as well as my old friend (NOT REALLY) and favorite purveyor of high priced get well supplements, Dr. Mercola; against those that want to arrest and prosecute them for quoting a report that shows that GM corn is lacking in minerals when compared to non-GM corn. The first such report to show this was done by a private firm expressly for a seed company. the report was termed confidential and basically was for internal use only and not for public release.
Now here's the thing. Whoever actually grew the GM corn was contractually prohibited from testing the corn for nutrient content by the absolutely unbreakable contract that the farmer signed when he was forced to grow that particular Genetically Modified corn. Forced is not such a harsh word, try to remember that Monsanto and a couple other gene tech companies have bought nearly all of the seed producing companies and so the ONLY seed available to farmers to purchase has been, for many years, GM corn. And to buy the corn, a contract must be signed. A contract that does not allow the farmer to in any way shape of form, test the crops he grows. And of course the farmer can't save the seed to replant the next crop, he can't buy chemicals such as fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide or fungicides, except from the manufacturer of the GM corn. Pretty slick monopoly. Personally, I can't see me ever signing a contract to do that, but I haven't ever been in a situation where if I wanted to make money doing what I do, and there was only one alternative, then the choice was make money or go broke.
Anyway, most people probably won't take the time to go on the Internet and look up all of the hundreds of blogs, webpages, fb posts and other crap about whether or not the Moms group or Dr. Mercola had the right to reprint the article, or whether or not the facts in the article were even true or not. Believe me, it isn't worth it. A whole lot of self important fools that are not very nice and extremely crude at times and most of which have extremely poor grammar. So, don't waste the hour that I did trying to find this one article about the differences. (GM corn Vs NonGM corn) Some Brits have a bunch to say about the chemical makeup of corns grown on adjacent fields. One GM, one non-GM. Of course the testing was done with standard gas chromatography and showed what I thought were results that mimicked very similar results done back in the early seventies when tests were done on Organic corn versus conventionally grown corn. Organic far surpassed non organic in mineral content. The same would hold true with corn grown on land that was sprayed with toxins regularly and the fragile bio infrastructure of the soil denuded of life. So I for one am not surprised. What is surprising is that the GM corn tested had 200 ppm of formaldehyde present along with the barely legal limit of glyphosate. Formaldehyde? Yup, a toxin that is extremely destructive to the Central Nervous System in humans. And of course although that is widely known, and even though the EPA, the FDA and the USDA have limits of how much of this stuff we as humans should ingest on any given day; is still allowed in our food supply in the form of Aspartame. And it seems, in GM crops. The British researchers postulate that the formaldehyde is coming from the breakdown of the glyphosate residues on the crops. (more on that here)
Really?
Who would have guessed that having a diet cola, eating yogurt, and snacking on corn chips would give you enough formaldehyde to permanently damage your central nervous system enough to mimic ALS, MS, and a whole host of disorders. Well, I did. But then most people don't. The standard rebuttal is, "I'm just getting old." or "The kid's fine, so he has a hard time concentrating, he's a kid!" And pretty much a whole host of concepts that people use to sweep the problem under the table, until the pile is so huge it takes over your life.
The most important policy that our government has before it at this time is the labeling of Genetically Modified foods. That is just the uppermost tiniest tip of the iceberg, because after that is the need to reform campaign financing, ridding the planet of the toxic GM plants while we still have a slight chance of doing so, stopping the use of toxic pesticides and herbicides, removing toxins from vaccines for human use (it is possible) and well, a whole host of things that will make the world a better place to continue to live. As opposed to the slow deadly path of death, corruption and despair of which we are heading.
So, such a fun note to leave you with on this sunny August day. Well, okay, one more. Did you know that most supermarkets in the country today devote more shelf space to liquor and tobacco than to fresh food?
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