. . . or at least going to someone we know and trust for it.
Industrial food and water is harming us in a number of ways.
First, because of genetically modified crops. Countries across Europe, Africa, and Asia are drastically scaling back on and restricting GM ‘food’, but the United States continues to be a dumping ground.
Here are 10 reasons why those countries are right to reject GM food and why the South and everyone else should join them. From Dr Mercola:
The Organic Prepper4 recently highlighted 10 GM myths that Monsanto wants you to believe … but which are actually far from the truth.
Myth #1: No one has ever proven that GMOs are harmful to people
The truth is that studies of GM food have shown tumors, premature death, organ failure, gastric lesions, liver damage, kidney damage, allergic reactions, and more.
Myth #2: GM crops are the only way to solve world hunger
The reality is that GM farming practices are not sustainable, which virtually guarantees future crop collapses and subsequent famine. Nor are farmers able to save their seeds due to patent infringement and poor fertility in the seeds. Sustainable agricultural practices are the answer to world hunger.
Myth #3: GM crops need less pesticide spraying
The truth is that after the first couple of years, the use of pesticides and herbicides on GM crops has increased dramatically.
Myth #4: GM technology is comparable to the cross-breeding that our ancestors did to create hardier versions of heritage crops
Cross pollination of different varieties of the same plant (what our ancestors did) is low-tech and can occur naturally. Genetic modification of seeds is done in a lab and often crosses different biological kingdoms, such as crossing a bacteria with a plant the unintended adverse effects of which may be incalculably large and impossible to ascertain before they are released into the biosphere.
Myth #5: If the FDA and the USDA allow them, they must be safe
Monsanto has close ties with the US government, such that, despite the obvious conflict of interest, Monsanto executives have been given policy-making positions in Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations.
Myth #6: There is no nutritional difference between GM food and non-GM food
A 2012 nutritional analysis of GM versus non-GM corn showed shocking differences in nutritional content. Non-GM corn contains 437 times more calcium, 56 times more magnesium, and 7 times more manganese than GM corn. GM corn was also found to contain 13 ppm of glyphosate, a pesticide so toxic that it may be carcinogenic in the parts-per-trillion range, compared to zero in non-GM corn.
Myth #7: GMOs are impossible to avoid
GM ingredients are found in more than 70 percent of processed foods, but you can largely avoid them by avoiding these processed foods. By switching to whole foods like vegetables, fruits, grass-fed meats and other basic staples, you can control the GM foods in your diet.
Myth #8: Monsanto has our best interests in mind
Monsanto has spent over half a million dollars on hiring a firm to help ‘protect the Monsanto brand name’ from activists. There is speculation that they have placed trolls on anti-GM Web sites, hidden posts from social media, and even possibly hacked researchers computers days before they were set to release a damaging study. There’s even speculation that the US government is spying on anti-Monsanto activists.
Myth #9: GMOs are not harmful to the environment
On the Hawaiian island of Molokai, where a nearly 2,000-acre test facility for Monsanto sits, air and water quality are horrendous and there are reports of deaths, infertility, uncontrolled cross-pollination, bloody skin rashes, asthma and pesticide contamination in the groundwater.
Myth #10: GMOs are here to stay
Biotech wants you to believe that GM crops are here to stay, but a war is being waged against GMOs, and the resistance is gaining significant ground. By sharing information like this, we can fight back against biotech and the poisons they’re releasing into our environment.
Second, because of dangerous additives to food and drink on the store shelves. Here is just one example, salad dressing, again from Dr Mercola:
If you read the ingredient list, typical processed ranch and blue cheese dressings are unnatural concoctions bearing little resemblance to food. Your digestive tract may not even recognize this as food, but instead react to it like a foreign invader, to be attacked like any other bodily threat. Consider this list of ingredients in Dean’s Ranch Dip:
Soybean Pasteurized “blend” of skim milk, reduced minerals whey, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, salt, dehydrated onion, sour cream flavor (cream, nonfat milk, whey, whey protein concentrate, cultured nonfat buttermilk (skim milk, cultures), maltodextrin, salt, autolyzed yeast extract, natural flavors, monosodium glutamate, sodium citrate, sour cream cultures, lactic acid, food starch-modified, gelatin, dextrose, dehydrated garlic, vinegar powder (maltodextrin, corn starch-modified, white distilled vinegar), monosodium glutamate, citric acid, sodium hexametaphosphate, locust bean gum, lecithin, spices, potassium sorbate, guar gum, whey, whey protein concentrate, carrageenan, acetic acid, propylene glycol alginate, artificial colors (FD &C Yellow No. 5 (Tartrazine) and FD & C Yellow No. 6)
As you can see, soybeans are at the forefront, which we’ve already discussed. And yes, monosodium glutamate is listed TWICE… and once is bad enough!
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer hidden in thousands of foods you and your family regularly eat, and it’s one of the worst food additives ever created. MSG is an excitotoxin, which means it overexcites your cells to the point of damage or death, potentially causing brain damage and triggering learning disabilities. Common adverse effects linked to regular MSG consumption include: obesity, eye damage, headaches, fatigue and disorientation, depression, rapid heartbeat, tingling and numbness.
MSG can be found in nearly all processed foods because it hides under other names, such as flavorings, seasonings, soy protein, stocks and broths, malt extract, carrageenan, and corn starch, to name just a few.
Food dyes are another type of additive to watch out for. Every year, food manufacturers pour 15 million pounds of artificial food dyes into US foods. According to a Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) report, some of the most commonly used food dyes may be linked to multiple forms of cancer, along with hyperactivity and behavioral problems in children.
As of July 2010, most foods in the EU that contain artificial food dyes come with warning labels, and the British government has also asked that food manufacturers remove most artificial colors from foods. In the US, however, a similar measure has not been taken.
So what’s the solution? Make your own salad dressing. That way, you have complete control over what goes into it.
Third, most tap, and some bottled, water contains numerous toxic compounds. Once more from the good Doctor:
As concerning as trihalomethanes are, they are just the tip of the iceberg—there are hundreds of other chemicals finding their way into your water supply. The EPA regulates only nine pollutants generated by chlorine or chloramine treatment—four trihalomethanes and five haloacetic acids. These nine regulated chemicals represent less than two percent of the more than 600 unwanted chemicals created by the interaction of water treatment disinfectants and pollutants in source water.
The legal limits for the nine regulated chemicals are not what either the agency or many independent scientists believe is truly safe. Rather, the regulations represent political compromises that take into account the costs and feasibility of treatment.
When you add up the total chemicals contaminating public drinking water, the number is beyond staggering. According to William Marks, author of Water Voices from Around the World, there are more than 116,000 human-made chemicals now detected in public water systems!
Examples of these compounds and their effects:
Chlorine is the only disinfectant that has been extensively studied, but now many water treatment plants are using another disinfectant called chloramine, the health effects of which are largely unknown. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine and ammonia.3 More than one in five Americans are drinking tap water treated with chloramine.
Chloramine stays in the water system longer than chlorine and is difficult to remove—it can’t be removed by boiling, distilling, or by standing uncovered. Its vapors can accumulate in indoor air and concentrate in an enclosed area, such as your shower stall, bathroom, kitchen, or apartment.
Chloramines combine with organic matter in water supplies to create iodoacids and nitrosamines, which are extremely toxic. According to David Sedlak of UC Berkeley:4
“Nitrosamines are the compounds that people warned you about when they told you shouldn’t be eating those nitrite-cured hot dogs… They’re about a thousand times more carcinogenic than the disinfection byproducts that we’d been worried about with regular old chlorine.”
There are three principal types of chlorination byproducts, known to produce dangerous health effects:
· Trihalomethanes (THMs): Found to cause cancer in laboratory animals, and trigger the production of free radicals in your body; chloroform is an example of a trihalomethane; THMs are associated with bladder cancer, gestational and developmental problems
· Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs): Lead to central nervous system depression and drowsiness, and can irritate your skin and mucous membranes
· Haloacetic Acids (HAAs): May cause liver disease in test animals at very high levels, and is a class B2 probable human carcinogen associated with neurological problems, growth retardation, low birth weight, and sperm toxicity
. . .
· MTBE (Methyl-tert-butyl Ether): A chemical added to fuel to raise octane number; a potential human carcinogen at high doses
· Atrazine: According to the documentary FLOW, this US herbicide, banned in the European Union, is the most common water contaminant in the US. Atrazine is an endocrine disruptor known to feminize animals, and is linked with numerous reproductive problems, breast and prostate cancer, and impaired immune function in humans
· Pharmaceutical Drugs: A 2008 report found a multitude of drugs in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans, including pain relievers, cancer drugs, antidepressants, oral contraceptives, blood pressure and cholesterol drugs
· Glyphosate(Roundup): This toxic herbicide is carcinogenic in minute amounts and is linked to more than 20 adverse health effects, including cancer, birth defects and infertility; unfortunately, glyphosate is turning up in the bloodstreams of people all over the world
· Hexavalent Chromium (Chromium-6): Otherwise known as the “Erin Brockovich chemical,” hexavalent chromium is classified as another “probable carcinogen;” EWG found it in the drinking water of 89 percent of the cities sampled
Fourth, factory farm meat is full of deadly bacteria.
(NaturalNews) There is a reason why the conventional poultry industry in the U.S. has been fairly successful in recent years at lowering detected levels of salmonella in chicken. But it has nothing to do with factory birds being raised in cleaner and more humane living environments. To the contrary, a new investigative report by The Washington Post (WP) reveals that many chicken slaughterhouses are merely treating their filthy chickens with an ever-expanding volume and variety of toxic chemicals to mask the presence of more virulent salmonella strains from federal regulators.
As disconcerting as all this is, it does offer an opportunity for us to return to a better way of living, one that our grandparents and those before them knew and enjoyed, one that is more suitable for children of Adam, one that allows us to enjoy the natural world which God created from love (and through His creation, in a limited yet not insignificant way, we may enjoy communion with our Creator), one that calls us to stretch our imaginations, exert our bodies, and learn and hone skills in ways that office and assembly line work never will satisfy.
