GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms)
One of our pet peeves is how corporations are messing with our food supply by screwing up what nature has has provided and what we have evolved to eat by inserting the genes of one type of plant or animal into another plant/animal. Genetically Engineered (GE) Foods or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's) are foods or animals that scientists create in labs. They create these foods by taking a gene from one animal or plant that has a desirable trait and shooting it into the the genetic material of the "host" plant or animal. Then they hope they get the desired trait to appear in the "host" plant or animal. The amazing thing is that they are not certain if the trait will work in the host plant or what other type of genetic damage they might do to the "host."
While we know that most of you would avoid this food like the plague, I mean who would want to eat a strawberry with a gene from a fish in it. Well this being America, the big old Biotech firms lobbied congress to make it a law that they do not have to label their food as being GMO. What makes this even more comforting is that one of the biggest companies in this market is Monsanto, the same company that brought us Agent Orange and PCB's.
We find it amazing that a big multi-national can go out and patent a plant and then sue people if the pollen happens to drift over into another field, but that is happening with increasing occurrence. What makes it even worse is that some of the highly scrupulous companies that are selling the seeds of GMO's, modify the plants so they will only flourish by using a certain type of herbicide on the plants. Now not only are they forcing the poor unsuspecting farmer to buy the herbicide to get the plants to grow; thereby ensuring sales for them; but all those additional chemicals are entering the ecosystem.
Below are links to articles either written by us or we have found on the web concerning the dangers of GMO's. We first are listing three of our favorite web sites that are publicizing the dangers of GMO's.
Institute for responsible Technology
Articles:
Here is a review of a movie The World According to Monsanto
Indiana House Bill to Outlaw the Labeling of rBGH