From our friends at Health Book Summaries
Dear Reader,
Genetically modified (GM) foods are “plants or animals whose genes have been changed in the laboratory by scientists.” Recently, GM salmon have taken the spotlight in today’s health and consumer news. The FDA will soon decide whether or not to approve GM salmon as food. If approved, the GM salmon will be the first GM animal officially authorized for human consumption in the United States. In a freaky twist of nature, scientists have been able to engineer the salmon’s genes to continually produce growth hormone, which allows them to grow to full size in fewer than 250 days. In nature, it takes around 400 days for an Atlantic salmon to grow. Read on to learn more about this untested science and what it means for our food supply.
1. The terms "genetically modified organism" (GMO) and "genetically modified foods" (GM foods) refer to plants or animals whose genes have been changed in the laboratory by scientists. All living organisms have genes written in their DNA. They are the chemical instructions for building and maintaining life. By modifying the genes, scientists can alter the characteristics of an organism. In agriculture, genetic engineering allows simple genetic traits to be transferred to crop plants from wild relatives, other distantly related plants, or virtually any other organism. Manipulating the genetics of foods is not new.
- Michael Murray, N.D. and Joseph Pizzorno, N.D., The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods
2. We have entered an era of genetically modified foods, which are just that — genetically mutated foods that are not necessarily better for you. The health implications not only to humans but also to the environment is a hotly contested debate; the introduction of genetically altered food could have serious consequences, such as allergic reactions and increased resistance to certain antibiotics. Two of the prime targets for genetic engineering — soy and corn — are America's cash crops.
- Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith, The Detox Strategy: Vibrant Health in 5 Easy Steps
3. Genetically modified (GM) foods may look and feel the same as conventional foods, but they are drastically (and possibly harmfully) different. These types of foods have been altered by taking the genetic material (DNA) from one species and transferring it into another in order to obtain a desired trait. The FDA does not require any safety testing or any labeling of GM foods, and introducing new genes into a fruit or vegetable may very well be creating unknown results such as new toxins, new bacteria, new allergens, and new diseases."
- M.D. David Brownstein, The Guide to Healthy Eating
4. Apart from the fact that corn contains a high amount of sugar and often a lot of mold, most corn you buy in the United States is genetically modified (GMO). GMO corn was lauded by farmers and biotech firms for its ability to be disease- and pest-resistant and more bountiful. Genetically modified organisms are different from hybridized plants, which are naturally occurring. An example of hybridization is one breed of dog mating with another. An example of a GMO would be mating an eggplant and a dog in a Petri dish, which is, obviously, not naturally occurring. GMOs are not good for us.
- Frank Lipman, Mollie Doyle, Spent: Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Feel Great Again
5. Organically grown soybeans are grown without pesticides and are not from genetically modified seeds. This is an important issue for soy foods in particular, as genetically modified soy crops have increasingly dominated in the agriculture business. Fortunately, there are farmers and manufacturers who are committed to raising and producing organic soy products. The optimal use of soy would be to start early in life and eat a diverse array of soy foods with a total dietary intake of 50 to 150 mg of soy isoflavones per day.
- Tori Hudson, N.D., Women's Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine: Alternative Therapies and Integrative Medicine for Total Health and Wellness
6. If manufacturers are so sure there is nothing wrong with genetically modified foods, pesticides and cloned meats, they should have no problems labeling them as such. After all, cancer will kill one in every two men and one in every three women now alive, reports Samuel Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition. Like our ancestors, we act in ways that will bemuse future societies. The military-industrial complex lubricates the mass-agriculture system with fossil fuels. Tons of heavy metals and other hazardous, even radioactive, waste is sprayed on American agricultural soil.
- Adam Leith Gollne, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession
7. The typical North American diet used to be higher in beta-sitosterol, but with increased consumption of processed foods and genetically modified foods, our diet has become relatively deficient. I have no doubt that this deficiency has contributed to the rise in both heart disease and cancer. I recommend supplementing your diet with beta-sitosterol, particularly if you are a woman with breast tenderness, fibrocystic breast disease, or high cholesterol.
- Phuli Cohan, The Natural Hormone Makeover: 10 Steps to Rejuvenate Your Health and Rediscover Your Inner Glow
8. About 90 percent of all soy is genetically modified (GMO). Soy is also one of the top seven allergens, and is widely known to cause immediate hypersensitivity reactions. While in the last forty years soy has occupied an important place in the transition from an unhealthy meat-based diet to vegetarian and vegan cuisine, it is time for us to upgrade our food choice to one having more benefits, and fewer negative possibilities. In 1986, Stuart Berger, MD, placed soy among the seven top allergens — one of the "sinister seven.” At the time, most experts listed soy around tenth or eleventh.
- Gabriel Cousens, There Is a Cure for Diabetes:The Tree of Life 21-Day+ Program
9. I would avoid any product that contains genetically modified (GMO) corn, because there are still questions regarding the long-term health effects of genetically altered foods on the human body have not been thoroughly tested. Sugars are also sneaked into tons of different foods, especially foods marketed to kids. Again, study the labels carefully before buying.
- Deirdre Imus, Growing Up Green: Baby and Child Care: Volume 2 in the Bestselling Green This! Series (Green This!)
10. Stress increases our nutritional needs, but, sadly, today's standard diet of refined, enriched, preserved, irradiated, genetically modified, pasteurized, homogenized, hydrogenated, and otherwise processed foods doesn't begin to meet our increased nutritional needs. Today's foods are less nutritious than their counterparts of yesteryear, owing largely to methods employed by modern agribusiness to increase agricultural yield and shelf life — at the expense of nutrient content and consumer health.
- Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith, The Detox Strategy: Vibrant Health in 5 Easy Steps
11. Stop eating unfermented soy and genetically modified corn. While soy and corn are less detrimental and Spent-causing than sugar or gluten, they do add to the body's burden and can throw us out of rhythm. For the last twenty years, soy has been touted as the ultimate replacement for animal protein, fish, and dairy products. The thinking goes that Asian societies are healthier because they eat large amounts of soy. But the truth is that Asian cultures consume soy foods in small amounts (about 2 teaspoons a day) as a condiment and not as a replacement for animal foods.
- Frank Lipman, Mollie Doyle, Spent: Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Feel Great Again
12. Since plants cannot be patented unless genetically modified, drug manufacturers will not research and promote as medicinal any natural foods or herbs, even though they generally result in far less harm and are far less toxic than laboratory drugs. There is simply no huge profit markup in natural healing. Yet diet is most certainly key when all of the research is examined. Dr. Campbell reached the conclusion that "nutrition [is] far more important in controlling cancer promotion than the dose of the initiating carcinogen."
- Susan E. Schenck, The Live Food Factor: The Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet
13. We are eating hybridized and genetically modified (GMO) foods full of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, and additives that were unknown to our immune systems just a generation or two ago. The result? Our immune system becomes unable to recognize friend or foe — to distinguish between foreign molecular invaders we truly need to protect against and the foods we eat or, in some cases, our own cells. In Third World countries where hygiene is poor and infections are common, allergy and autoimmunity are rare.
- Mark Hyman MD, The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First
14. Since the body becomes what we feed it, genetically modified foods and produce will have a negative influence on one's cellular structure.
- Ron Garner, Conscious Health: A Complete Guide to Wellness Through Natural Means
15. The FDA's letter to Monsanto regarding its MON810 Bt corn is typical: 'Based on the safety and nutritional assessment you have conducted, it is our understanding that Monsanto has concluded that corn products derived from this new variety are not materially different in composition, safety, and other relevant parameters from corn currently on the market, and that the genetically modified corn does not raise issues that would require premarket review or approval by FDA...."
- Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods
16. Laura Krause, like other American farmers who choose not to grow genetically modified corn, are now paying the price for the unwanted consequences of a technology they did not ask for. They are discovering that their economic fate is tied, through the complex connections of the agricultural commodities market, to the efforts of those French farmers to remove Monsanto's fingerprints from their soil, and from the sentiments of European consumers who don't want them in their supermarkets.
- Mark Schapiro, Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power
17. If a farmer with a one-hectare plot plants a single row with genetically modified seed, it will overtake the natural corn in only seven years.
- Michael Murray, N.D. and Joseph Pizzorno, N.D., The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods
18. Cows given genetically modified growth hormones make more milk, but have painful swollen udders, have ulcers, joint pain, miscarriages, deformed calves, infertility, and much shorter life spans. Their milk contains blood, pus, tranquilizers, antibiotics, and an insulin growth factor that can cause a fourfold increase in prostate cancer and sevenfold rise in breast cancer. This is the milk used in our school lunch programs and served to our children. This is the milk that you buy every day. This is the milk used in all cheeses, yogurts, butter, and cream.
- Kevin Trudeau, More Natural Cures Revealed: Previously Censored Brand Name Products That Cure Disease
19. In 1994, the Flavr Savr* tomato (engineered to resist rotting) was the first genetically modified food reviewed and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for human consumption. FDA-employed scientists warned that altered products such as the Flavr Savr® could create toxins in food and trigger allergies. Shockingly, the FDA approved the "Frankenstein" tomato anyway with claims, "... the Flavr Savr passed muster so well that the rigor of its testing will not have to be repeated for other bioengineered foods."
- Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, ND, DACBN, Health Begins in the Colon
20. The introduction of genetically modified foods (GMO) tampers with the essence of life in an experiment with an unknown outcome and no real way to undue the damage. The FDA purposely does not require labeling of GMO food, since no one who understands the issue would ever purchase it. This makes it all the more difficult to locate healthful food.
- Byron J. Richards, The Leptin Diet: How Fit Is Your Fat?
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