Category Archives: GMOs

A must see movie!! SEED-THE UNTOLD STORY

seed-the-untold-story

Seed-THE UNTOLD STORY
Jean Cocteau Theater
Nov 16-24
7 pm

SEED THE UNTOLD STORY movie is coming to Jean Cocteau on Nov 16-24 . We should all go see this award-winning movie while it is here for a few days. This is right up our alley with building a sustainable, healthy community. Their goal is for SEED to inspire audiences to take action and become a champion of seeds.

SEED: The Untold Story is an eye-opening environmental documentary about the dramatic loss of seed diversity and the movement to restore the future of our food, from the creators of The Real Dirt on Farmer John & Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?

Visit seedthemovie.com/santafe for more info on movie times and movie guests.

From their site: http://www.seedthemovie.com/
‘Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds — worshipped and treasured since the dawn of humankind. This documentary follows passionate seed keepers who are protecting a 12,000 year-old food legacy. In the last century, 94 seed varieties have disappeared. A cadre of 10 agrichemical companies, including Syngenta, Bayer, and Monsanto, controls over two-thirds of the global seed market, reaping unprecedented profits. Farmers and others battle to defend the future of our food.’

Hope to see you there!

Anti-Monsanto Rally in Santa Fe

death eater.-skulljpg

Yesterday there was an anti-Monsanto rally in Santa Fe. The rally started at the Santa Fe Farmer’ Market with speakers and then continued with a protest walk to the State Capitol. The rally was for requiring GMO labeling for our foods (so we can make the choice whether we choose to eat foods with GMO’s in them) and was against the Monsanto Protection Act where no one can sue Monsanto for any damages done by their products. Here are more photos from the rally.

walking skull skull n stilts monstro list let me bee heinrich death eater death eater walking crowd walking crowd walking wi skull crowd at capitol beeman bat let me bee walking skull crowd walking wi skull

GMO Foods in the Grocery Stores-Part 1

Last week I posted about how to tell if your produce is GE, organic or conventional by looking at the PLU labels. This week I want to talk about GE foods and labeling of them. Some might ask, what is the big deal about genetically modified food and the labeling issue that so many people want in the grocery stores? For your information, genetically modified foods are sometimes also called GE (genetically engineered), GM (genetically modified) and GMO (genetically modified organism) and are sometimes used interchangeably.

Well, there are several big deals. For the first one we have to go back to the beginning. No GE crops that are grown for the production of food have ever been tested in long term studies to see if they are harmful to people.  No testing required-no regulation whatever. Why? Because the USDA doesn’t require them? Why? Good question! I wouldn’t be as concerned if the manufacturers of these seeds were required to run tests to make sure their products/produce were safe for humans before putting them on the market. That could prove whether they are actually harmful or not. These corporations are certainly making enough money to do the research required for safety but don’t. I don’t think they care as long as they are not required to care. Here’s my opinion-Profits first! Money for these corporations, money for congress people (not all congress people) who won’t pass laws protecting the consumer, money for USDA to turn their heads. Sad isn’t it but if it isn’t true, than why are we not being protected?

Here is some information on current GE foods in America:

‘Round Up Ready’ corn seeds – What does that mean? Well, it means that the gene that makes ‘Round Up’ work (kill weeds) has been spliced genetically with corn genes. Round Up is the same herbicide you may be using to kill weeds in your gardens. So when a farmer gets ‘Round Up Ready’ seeds, they can spray Round Up on their crops without killing them but it kills the weeds. The crops will not die but the weeds will.  Also the manufacturers of these seeds just happen to sell Round Up as well-hmm!! In the beginning it worked. Now I read recently that a whole slew of ‘super’ weeds have developed (evolved) that Round Up doesn’t work on anymore.

‘Bt corn’ seed (to control corn worms). Bt is an organic pesticide that is being sliced into the corn gene. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re the worm), the worms are starting to become resistant to this. Now, one could argue Bt is an organic pesticide. This is true, but do I want to ingest it in genetically altered food I eat? No.

‘Round Up Ready’ sugar beet seed which has been approved by USDA. Of all the sugar produced in the US, 54% comes from sugar beets and 90% of all sugar beets out there are GE grown. This will greatly increase GE sugar in the American food chain. Great! But there is a way out of this-use sugar cane products-sugar cane is safe-NON-GMO.

‘Round Up Ready’ alfalfa is also fed to our livestock that we eat or drink their milk. Again we don’t ingest it first hand but don’t you want to make that choice?

GE herbicide-resistant soybeans–95% of soybeans grown in the US are GM!

The second part will be on the next post-GMO Foods in the Grocery Stores-Part 2

Here are some interesting articles you might want to read: Read the first one for sure..

** TrueFoodNow.org-they have a great shoppers guide-quite extensive and list BY BRAND AND STORE and you can get an app for your phone while shopping.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food

‘USDA Approves Genetically Engineered Sugar Beets‘

GM soybean

 

Grocery store produce—is it GMO, organic or conventionally produced?

orange conventional

Is this orange conventional, organic or GMO?

A friend ask me the other day if there is produce out in the supermarkets that are GMO’s. I did some research and I found out that those tags we see on the fruits and vegetables in the produce section of your grocery store actually give us more information than the price. The tags are called PLU numbers-PLU stands for ‘Price Look Up’. So I went to all the grocery stores here in Santa Fe and did some detective work! I snooped around the produce section with my iphone taking pictures of the tags on the produce looking for GMO produce. Luckily no one from the stores asked me what the hell I was doing! The good news is that I didn’t find any GMO produce (fruits/veggies) here in Santa Fe in the supermarkets. Now that doesn’t mean there aren’t any GMO foods in the grocery store (I’ll talk about that in a later post), just not any fresh produce (veggies/fruits) that are on the shelves right now. Notice I said right now because there are a few items in the produce section that could show up as GMOs in the future—namely corn and some papayas. I  only saw them now as conventionally grown.

So here is the info you’ll need to tell if your fruit or veggie is a GMO. All the stores but Trader Joes use similar PLU tags on their produce. TJ’s has their own tagging system so this info won’t apply to them.

banana 4011

If your tag is a 4-digit number, then it is CONVENTIONALLY GROWN which means the grower could use chemical pesticides and fertilizers on it but it is not a GMO so the orange at the top of the post and the banana above are examples of conventionally grown produce.

tomatoes94664

If your tag is a 5-digit number, and it starts with a 9, then it is ORGANICALLY GROWN and if it is organically grown than it is not a GMO. In fact ALL organic foods are not GMO’s.

Now if your tag is a 5-digit number, and it starts with an 8, then it is a GMO. Like I said above, I couldn’t find any produce in Santa Fe with a 5 digit number starting with an 8 to take a picture of. Well, that’s a relief!

When I go to the grocery store I can never remember which number the GMO starts with while I’m there so I made up this little diddy to help me remember:

If it’s 8, than it’s not great. If it’s 9, then you’ll be fine!

Just label it-GMO products

I am not very political but as an organic gardener and consumer, I feel this is important. I just received an email from an organization, Just Label It asking me to sign a petition being sent to the FDA to make food corps label their food IF it has GMOs in them. We are not just talking about labeling the fruits and vegetables we buy in the store (fruits and vegetables are non GMO in the US right now) but to label ALL products that have GMO products in them. If you are interested in signing it, go here. I did.

There is also a group, TRUE FOOD NETWORK, that has a GMO shoppers guide that you can download on your computer or get a free phone app to use when you are in the grocery store. I was amazed at what foods and which companies do and don’t have GMO products in them. I’m only promoting this because 1. it’s interesting and 2. we should want to know.

Genetically engineered foods are required to be labeled in 15 European Union nations, Russia, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries around the world. I think we should also have the right to know if our foods have been genetically engineered. I’m not talking about making a judgement about whether it is good or bad, but just label it and let us decide for ourselves. After all if I wanted to know if a product has artificial sugar in it all I’d have to do would be to look at the label. I want the same done for any GMO food products sold here in the US.

When asked why Europe has been so successful at generally keeping out GMO foods, it has been said that the Europeans are closer to their food sources. They don’t have the big grocery stores which tend to remove the consumer from the process. They go shopping at the local markets in the streets to get their foods and don’t use as many processed foods as we do and as such are much closer in knowing where it comes from.

Now the number one way to go around this is buy everything ORGANIC but not everyone CAN (too expensive) or will so I appreciate True Food Network getting the information together to educate us. Of course what do you expect from me- an ORGANIC  gardener?

P.S.  Remember that Minnesota ruling I wrote about where I mentioned an organic California farm also won a ruling against its non organic neighboring farms for contamination of its organic crops? Well, the organic farm is Del Cabo-you know, the one that sells those small cherry tomatoes in Trader Joes and other stores. Now it becomes more personal. I see the Del Cabo brand everywhere in the grocery stores. So the next time I see the organic variety of Del Cabo tomatoes in the store (they also have non-organic) I will be reminded of the fight some of the big organic farmers (as well as the little organic farmer) are going through to give us organic produce. It all becomes more personal when you know what’s going on.

Ok, I’ll get off my box now…

Organic farmers win in court case against GMO farmers

Some GMO crops are called Franken Foods

Just read about a court decision against GMO farmers whose crops contaminate organic farmers crops. Let’s hope this will continue within the judicial system throughout the country for other organic farmers whose crops get contaminated by GMO farmers.

‘The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large organic farm surrounded by chemical-laden conventional farms can seek damages for lost crops, as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing of pesticides and herbicides on its property instead of the organic farmer getting sued by the GMO farmers and corporations.’ To read the story: the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large organic farm surrounded by chemical-laden conventional farms can seek damages for lost crops, as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing of pesticides and herbicides on its property.

Read the whole story here: http://www.naturalnews.com/033216_GMO_contamination_lawsuits.html#ixzz1jf7zs2Yq