GENETIC MODIFIED FOODS NOW FILL YOUR GROCERY CARTS

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DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE EATING?

You are what you eat.  But, do you really know what you are eating?  As you eat cooked tomatoes, you assume the tomato was a natural normal tomato. Every day, you are filling your grocery cart with potatoes, corn, soy, squash, canola, cottonseed oil, milk, and many other foods that have been genetically modified without your knowledge or consent.  After current  field-testing, expect to find soon genetic modified melons, peanuts, rice, soybean, sugar cane, sweet potato, wheat, and even tobacco.

You have no idea that the chemical and genetic engineering industries had used a radical new technology to artificially mutate the DNA in your tomatoes and many other foods.   You simply assume it is safe.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS (GMA)

With an ever-growing population and the problems of world hunger, there has been a high demand for an increased food supply and a better food supply. 

Genetic engineering is a lab test used to change the DNA of living organism in a way nature could not.  This manipulation creates organisms genetically modified, or GMAs.  The emphasis is on plants that can stand a lot of herbicides so larger crops can be obtained.  Essential nutrients may be inactivated intentionally to remove undesirable substances.

Millions of acres are planted with genetically engineered soybean, corn, potatoes, canola, and tomatoes.  Cows are given bovine growth hormone to make them produce more milk.  Even the animal feed now has genetically engineered animal products.

Scientists have altered foods by inserting into them genes from bacteria and viruses. Many more such products containing foreign DNA from insects and fish.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS

Genetic engineering can be done with plants, animals, or microorganisms. Historically, farmers bred plants and animals for desired traits for thousands of years.

Selective breeding over time created these wide variations. To make the related characteristics more common or more pronounced, nature produced the desired gene by mating animals or plants with that gene.

The chemical industry claims that these practices come as a normal, natural extension of time-tested reproductive crossbreeding and hybridization techniques.   Genetic engineering allows scientists to speed this process up by moving desired genes from one plant into another -- or even from an animal to a plant.   GE foods can be tastier, more nutritious, and last longer on the shelves.  They can grow faster, with less fertilizers, and less pesticides.

The source of the DNA may come from other plant and animal species, and  is not limited to related wild plants, microorganisms, or even lab synthesized genes. Transfer of new genes is more direct and does not require many generations of breeding.  While traditional methods of gene transfer may result in the transfer of closely linked or unwanted genes, genetic methods allow for a more discrete transfer of a single valuable gene.  New genes  can be made, using molecular biology techniques, which can not be found in wild plants used for traditional breeding.

A NEW INDUSTRY IS BORN

Beginning back in 1994, the chemical/genetic engineering industry began to sell genetically engineered tomatoes and milk laced with genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH).  The multi-national chemical companies, the USDA and the FDA, now by chemical/genetic engineering are recombining the DNA of vastly different species to create new organisms that have never before existed on earth.

THE PURPOSE OF GE FOODS

The chemical industries have genetically altered foods for the following specific traits: to increase profits by artificially increasing product shelf life; to increase profits by increasing the compatibility of plants with the chemical industry's own pesticides and herbicides; and to increase profits by creating seeds that cost more but save producers money because the vegetables or plants create their own pesticide internally.

LONG TERM EFFECTS

 Genetic structure of animals and plants that have nourished us for centuries may be changed permanently.  We may create new viruses, bacteria, and insects that we have never been exposed to.  These foreign genes can be carried by insects and pollen to make unknown species and change our ecology.  New living bacteria and viruses will mutate and reproduce, transferring their genetic mistakes irreversibly.

DANGERS

Plants make a lot of compounds that are toxic to us and alter the quality of our foods.  Genetic engineering can raise the levels of these toxins.  These plants or animals may have harmful genetic changes, become less resistant to some pests, and the original plant may become extinct.

Genetically altered supplements and foods now cause allergies, crippling diseases, and deaths.  A gene from one food that is inserted into another food may cause an allergic reaction.  For instance, if peanut genes were inserted into tomatoes, would you react to the tomatoes if you had a peanut allergy?

Foods altered through genetic engineering often contain proteins and other components that have never before been part of your human diet. These proteins now come from bacteria and viruses and, in the future, proteins may come from insects, scorpions and even people. There is no way to predict whether those foods are safe to eat. The only way to tell is to test them rigorously. Yet our government does not require such testing.

The small risk that any one given product will produce unanticipated effects translates into virtual certainty of harm when many new genetically engineered foods have become part of the diet of large populations over extended periods of time.

NEED FOR MANDATORY LABELING

The genetic engineering industry sells these products untested and unlabeled.   Everything now is discovered by trial and error.  If the products were labeled, health officials could also better trace the source of problems that could develop, and you would have the choice to accept the risk of GE foods.

The U.S. and many other governments have approved these synthetic foods.  The chemical industry wants to quickly recoup their billions of dollars in accumulated genetic research and investment costs.

The bio-tech industry and the USDA now are attempting to lower U.S. organic standards relative to the rest of the world, and to allow genetically altered foods into the organic market as a new category known as "synthetic organic."  Currently, organic foods often have a non-Gmo seal ensuring that the food does not contain any GE ingredients

CAN YOU TRUST THESE COMPANIES?

Monsanto made Agent Orange in Vietnam that was tainted with dioxin.  It made PCB latter banned in 1976, because of cancer risk and children development.  It makes Aspartame (Nutra-Sweet) and pushed it as a food additive, despite its known cancer risk.  It added rBGH-bovine growth hormone,-- widely implicated in making cows sick and increasing cancer risk, to consumer's milk. .

Now Monsanto and other chemical companies want to genetically engineer the entire global food supply.  Can we trust these companies, without regulation, with our food supply?

CONCLUSION

Monsanto, Dupont, Calgene, and Novartis have become major players in the new global genetically engineered food business.  Their genetic engineering industry are now releasing untested genetically engineered foods on the world population, claiming they intend to solve problems of world hunger.  They have lobbied for regulatory loopholes that allow them to rush their experimental foods to market.  You can  protect yourself and your family by shopping to avoid these foods, but how we can stop the proliferation of these experimental foods?

The genetic engineering industry in the future, might want to make strange, bizarre food products combining vastly different species.  They might create radical new species in the laboratory that could never exist in nature.  They appear to have minimal ability to see long-range consequences.

New technology should not be applied directly to human life until it has proven itself beyond doubt through the test of time to be safe, useful, and beneficial.  True science does not make the human race into experimental animals, into guinea pigs

In reality, we as global consumers have the right to know what we are eating. We have the right to decide whether we want to eat these foods. You have the right to decide whether your children should eat these foods.

What do you think? Let us know how we are doing.  Visit www.drneedles.com for more commentaries on controversial medical subjects.  Your comments are always appreciated.