By Alan Caruba
If you say “genetically modified food” to most people they will swear to you they would never eat it, but Americans have been eating biotech crops for years and they are not dying in the streets.
They are, in fact, getting fatter from eating too much of the abundance of foods that fill our supermarkets. Want to lose weight? Eat less, exercise more. We have a lot of fat kids in America because too many sit on their bottoms for hours every day either watching television or playing with the various wonders of technology they prefer rather than getting out and playing basketball, baseball, soccer, riding a bike, or any other activity that isn’t restricted to using their thumbs to “text” one another.
Every so often I am driven to a state of rage over the stupidity of people who are utterly clueless regarding biotech crops, but who insist that eating “organic” foods grown with no protection against insect and weed predation is safe. I most certainly do not want to eat anything that involves using manure to aid its growth.
The latest example of gross stupidity comes, of course, from California which has Proposition 37 on its November ballot. Its official name is the “Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.” It would require labeling of anything involving GM foods. No foods would be allowed to be marketed as “natural”, “naturally made”, “naturally grown” or “all natural.”
Meanwhile, one third of all the corn grown in America has been genetically modified even as the federal government insanely demands that billions of bushels be turned into fuel substitute—ethanol—that corrodes auto engines and decreases the mileage gasoline provides.
The modifications that have been developed over the years ensure larger crop yields because they are able to resist drought, their natural pesticides have been enhanced to fend off the countless species of insects that would destroy them or permit the use of herbicides that kill the weeds that would choke their growth if not eliminated without having any effect on the crops they protect.
Why is it that humans are always thrilled to learn that some new pharmaceutical discovery will cure a disease that would otherwise kill them, but the blood drains from their face if you tell them that the food they eat has been produced from genetically modified seeds?
The fact is that biotech food crops have survived rigorous regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that demonstrates they are any different from foods that are not grown from GM seeds. Despite the claims that there have been “studies” that “suggest”, “indicate”, or otherwise infer a health problem, the bottom line is that there is zero proof of this.
Last year I wrote a five-part series on Bisphenol A, a chemical in use safely for decades and that continues to protect plastic and other containers of food against spoilage and has the added advantage of keeping plastic bottles from breaking. Thousands of studies attest to its safety, but the Internet is filled with articles claiming it is a threat to health.
In this modern age of miracles, the result of real science, there are way too many people who regard every chemical as a hazard when, in fact, our bodies use and process chemicals, mostly from what we eat and drink, every day of our lives. Potatoes and other vegetables contain minute amounts of cyanide, but no one dies from it because you would have to eat several truckloads of potatoes at one sitting to ingest a lethal quantity.
The million Californians that signed the petition to put Prop. 37 on the ballot are idiots. That goes for the more than forty other nations that currently require such labeling. Europe has led the charge against biotech foods. Indeed, were it not for the development of biotech foods, known as the Green Revolution, there would be vastly more famine worldwide.
The Californians are like so many others that are subjected to the idiotic propaganda about “industrial” foods. It is another way of saying that two percent of the U.S. population feeds all the rest of us and has enough crops left over to export and thus enhance our economy. Modern farming is one of the great wonders of the world, permitting few people to use extraordinary machines to plant and harvest crops on a level unknown before the advent of the last century.
Every time there is an outbreak of e-coli or salmonella, people do get sick. As often as not it is because the food was not stored properly, was subject to rodent predation, or like “organic” crops picked up the disease from the manner in which they are grown. About one in every 39,000,000 Americans becomes ill, about eight a day, suffering food poisoning. There’s one death for every 125,000,000 million
There are 310,000,000 million Americans eating a billion meals a day. If there was a real threat from biotech foods or animal products from livestock protected against illness by antibiotics, we would know it.
As if California doesn’t have enough problems and doesn’t cost its citizens more to live and work there than any other State, a vote for Prop 37 will just work one more hardship on everyone involved in the food chain that keeps these dopes well fed.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
Comment
Comment by Jim McNabb on September 9, 2012 at 5:48pm I'm sorry Alan, I agree with you on most things, but on the subject of GMO food products you are grossly ignorant on this subject. If fact, we have no idea of how these GMO products are affecting our health. No studies have been done to prove their safety. Even if you thinks these are the best things since sliced bread, surely you do not approve of how Monsanto has been going after farmers who are being forced into paying fees to Monsanto even though they are not planting GMO seed. What a disgrace. The Supreme Court should rule that genetics are not protected by patent laws. That would stop Monsanto in its tracks.
Comment by Vern Shotwell on August 23, 2012 at 10:05pm You saw my link to Royce just below, didn't you?
I documented that the Monsanto cafeteria report is a false presentation!
Wasn't done by Monsanto, in a pharmaceutical operation and not in this country. And not Monsanto authorized.
Sheesh! Read and learn. Or not, as you choose.
But don't make false statements when the correction is provided to you. Follow the links.
Provide something verifiable.
"Cancer rates grow, along w/ Autism, Celiac, and countless others" indeed. Prove something or quit attacking!
Comment by Gary on August 23, 2012 at 8:51pm You can start with the simple fact that Monsanto doesn't allow GMO foods in their own cafeteria's, as has been posted previously. There are years of study and research being beatin down and kept silenced than you and I will likely ever know.
Gary,
Do you have any links to documentation that GM food is a causative factor?
I think none of us is 'lacking in concern' - what we're lacking is hard evidence.
Comment by Gary on August 23, 2012 at 7:17pm Vern, the point is the US should be out in front of this cause, instead of ignoring and burying it's head and ignoring an obvious problem. As Cancer rates grow, along w/ Autism, Celiac, and countless others. Something is causing it Vern? Got any idea's? Not gonna find it where your head is now. The US has forever been a leader in causes of rightious convictions. This should be one we lead, rather than follow, and hide our flaws and cover up for the guilty. There are obvious connections between our food chain and the increase in disease over the last 3 generations. Ignore it if you are that lacking in concern, but it is a history lesson of the future, most assuredly.
Comment by Vern Shotwell on August 23, 2012 at 3:40pm Wow, Gary! I didn't know that "....40 countries already require labeling on GMO added products. Europe has been out in front."!
Of course, Europe is kind of wacky these days. Have you seen "EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration"? Yep, Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict. England too. I'd sure follow Europe. Read the linked article!
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Royce : "Monsanto doesn't allow GMO in their own cafeterias."? Well I do find this article...in England.
"..there is a notice in the cafeteria of the Monsanto pharmaceutical factory,Buckinghamshire, advising customers “as far as practicable, GM soya and maize (has been removed) from all food products served in our restaurant..."
The notice was posted by the Sutcliffe Catering Group. (Not Monsanto)
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England has a right to have people who oppose progress! And so does the U.S.
I only oppose my paying for it. It's a matter of principle!
Comment by Royce Moore on August 23, 2012 at 2:34pm What sold me on no GMO's , was finding out that Monsanto doesn't allow GMO in their own company cafeterias. Label IT.
Comment by Gary on August 22, 2012 at 6:53pm Here are some more facts you should be aware of. More than 40 countries already require labeling on GMO added products. Europe has been out in front of the U.S. on GMO regs as well as Celiac disease. One of the side effects of GMOs laced foods is that it's impossible to trace any food allergies or other ill effects suffered by humans or animals.
General Mills (owners of Small Planet Foods and Lara Bar) are joining Monsanto in funding opposition to Prop 37. They don't want any GMO label requirements. Monsanto has donated $4.2 million to help fight Prop 37; General Mills has donated $519,401 to help ensure no GMO labeling requirements go into effect. These two companies and others are outspending the good guys 8 to 1.
I am a Tea Party conservative folks, but am equally aware that companies do, sometimes, put profit and greed in front of other peoples well being. Having been in the "food Industry" at several differnt levels and view points gives me a little deepr perspective than some, grow your own, or at least know where they come from.
If it's China......think twice before consuming.
Comment by Vern Shotwell on August 22, 2012 at 6:05pm Ha!
I'd like to last a bit longer....and I doubt it'll be these things that do me in. About as likely to fry from Global Warming. But who knows, really?
Comment by Jeff Waller on August 22, 2012 at 5:06pm What the hell? Do you want to live forever?
I think it's the preservatives that do us in. But, I have to die sometime anyway, and I really, really don't care when, as long as it's not before January 20th, 2013, as I want to see Romney's inaugural address.
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