Archive for the ‘GMO’ Category

Newer Entries »

Why are GMO Foods NOT Labeled?

Monday, March 21st, 2011

by Catherine Haug, March 19, 2011

This is a question we should all be asking our president and his agencies who are responsible for allowing GMO crops/foods to be approved (FDA, USDA). If we don’t get an answer there, we should all ask our legislators to demand an answer, and then to change the laws so that GMO products are labeled.

As free Americans, isn’t it our right to know what we are getting when we purchase foods that may be GMO? As Montanans, isn’t it our right to a clean and healthful environment (as stated in our constitution), which includes a right to know when GMO crops are being raised in our local area?

If GMO foods are safe, why the refusal to label them? Perhaps because they fear:

  • No one would buy them;
  • There would be a cost to keep track of GMO up the food chain or processing chain (which cows ate GMO feed? which cuts of beef came from GMO-fed cows? which boxed food products contain GMO, etc.);
  • An angry backlash against those who engineered the GMO foods;
  • More money would be spent on research to determine the health and environmental effects of GMO.

If you aren’t as angry as I am over the current state of affairs concerning GMO, read this article from the New York Times Opinion page (Feb 15, 2011) by Mark Bittman:

Why Aren’t G.M.O. Foods Labeled?

See also my post Health Hazards of GMO Foods & Crops.

Posted in Agriculture, GMO, Health | Comments Closed

GMO Alfalfa, Sugar Beets deregulated by USDA; updated

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

by Catherine Haug, February 2, 2011; updated February 17, 2010

Recap of developments: January 28, 2011, the USDA approved and deregulated GMO alfalfa. February 4, 2011 the USDA approved another planting of GMO sugar beets, despite a federal judge’s ruling against the crop in 2010.

Now, according to a Feb 16, 2011 article on Natural News, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) plans to sue the USDA and Monsanto over GMO alfalfa just as it successfully sued over GMO sugar beets last year.

What is GMO/GE? What does this have to do with Organics and Sustainability? Read on for more on all of these topics. (more…)

Posted in Agriculture, Ecology, GMO, Livestock | Comments Closed

GMO Chicken: Will that be coming soon to a store near you?

Friday, January 21st, 2011

by Catherine Haug, Jan 14, 2010

Researchers in England have successfully produced a live GMO chicken with that will not pass on avian flu (bird flu). It is hoped this modification will stop outbreaks of bird flu from spreading within poultry flocks such as those that caused the slaughter of over 7000 birds a year ago. And it also has the potential to stop new strains of the virus from passing on to humans. (See PhysOrg.com (2) or Time.com (5) for more detail on the research).

At this stage in the research, the bird, once exposed to bird flu virus, will get sick and die; it just won’t spread the disease. But if the bird is butchered for consumption before exposure, it still contains the GMO genetic material. The same is true of the eggs, and chicks raised from those eggs. Do we want this in our food supply?

It’s probably a few years from being introduced in our food supply, but now is the time to start planning ahead if you want to avoid this GMO chicken in your diet.

(more…)

Posted in Agriculture, Food-Nutrition-Health, GMO, Shop Local | Comments Closed

Patenting of Isolated DNA Material

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

by Catherine Haug

According to a news report from the New York Times (“U.S. Says Genes Should Not be Eligible for Patents,” by Andrew Pollack, Oct 29, 2010):

“Reversing a longstanding policy, the federal government said on Friday that human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because they are part of nature. The new position could have a huge impact on medicine and on the biotechnology industry.

The new position was declared in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Department of Justice late Friday in a case involving two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer.” (1,2)

This ruling directly affects current and future “development of diagnostic tests, drugs and the emerging field of personalized medicine, in which drugs are tailored for individual patients based on their genes.”(1)

So I wonder, what does this mean for Genetically Engineered (GMO) crops, and foods? (more…)

Posted in GMO, Health | Comments Closed

Reading Food Labels

Friday, October 15th, 2010

by Catherine Haug

A teacher I know insists that her students get in the habit of reading food labels. After just a few labels, they all swear they’ll stop eating. “Don’t stop eating altogether, just stop eating THAT,” she tells them.

Do you read labels? Do you know how to interpret them? (more…)

Posted in Food-Nutrition-Health, GMO | Comments Closed

The Third Generation & Health

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

by Catherine Haug

In my post The Diet of Traditional Peoples: the Work of Weston Price & Frances Pottenger (May 21, 2009), I made a point about Dr. Pottenger’s 1930s research: he found that by the third generation on the wrong kind of diet, his cats had serious problems with their health including infertility and skeletal deformities. While it can be dangerous to extrapolate from cats to humans, Dr. Pottenger’s conclusions were born out by Dr. Price’s study of humans consuming a traditional (non-modern) diet vs those on a modern diet.

Now researchers in Russia have found that GM (Genetically Modified) soy products (grown from Monsanto’s seeds) also produce health issues in third generation hamsters fed a GMO diet. These health issues include sterility and infant mortality. (more…)

Posted in Agriculture, Food-Nutrition-Health, GMO, Health | Comments Closed

Newer Entries »