Pesticides you can’t wash off….

Today's Post: Friday, 7-31-2009

I’m a lot happier when I can give you good news and new ways to protect your health that work than I am posting bad news and warnings to stay away from things that will harm your health.

But in the last few days, I’ve seen two things that I think fully justify a warning post!

We’ve already posted that there is evidence that GMO foods can trigger allergies if nothing else and are better avoided. Not getting allergies can not only save money treating them, in some cases it can be lifesaving. So, only buying and eating organic foods that are NOT GMO foods is an important public health benefit. They should be banned or extremely highly regulated and fully disclosed if used for that reason alone.

And, we’ve posted that organic vegetables and fruit have been found to have more of the micronutrients that prevent cancer and have other health benefits of such value, it’s worth a small extra cost to buy them when you possibly can instead of buying those “conventionally” grown with pesticides and herbicides.

Since I learned this, I have always paid a bit extra to buy organic broccoli to use for the raw broccoli florets in my lunch I eat to help prevent prostate cancer and the dangerous form of it. Needless to say, if everyone did that, there would be less prostate cancer and likely less breast cancer and other cancers as well. That strikes me as an important public health benefit!

Lastly, we’ve posted that avoiding pesticides and herbicides in your food and those used around your house every time you possibly can is an important way to prevent cancer. (A recent online health article implicated them as a cause for childhood leukemia; and they also may help cause Parkinson’s disease.) Preventing many cancers and cases of Parkinson’s disease strikes me as an important public health benefit.

Now it seems that GMO foods not only contain pesticides IN them where they cannot be removed or washed off, they are even more dangerous than that. They also allow much more herbicides to be used.

So, it’s not only worth it to pay more for organic produce, it will protect your health to pay more for foods that are NOT GMO foods AND to demand that ALL GMO foods be so labeled.

One of the news stories I got this week was a special from Total Health Breakthroughs that came on Wednesday.

Here it is.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com ."

"The Nightmare of GM Foods July 29, 2009

By Melanie Segala
Managing Editor, Total Health Breakthroughs


"You have to know where your food is coming from." These words of warning were spoken by biologist and plant expert, Arpad Puszati at a gathering of concerned citizens in St. Catherine’s, Ontario earlier this year.1

As far back as 1998, Dr. Puszati’s research at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland showed that genetically modified potatoes caused health problems in rats, including a weakened immune system and abnormal growth. For blowing the whistle on Big Agra, he was dismissed from his job.

Eleven years later, as companies like Monsanto successfully silenced their critics, genetically modified organisms have gained a stronghold in taking over the world’s food supply — in spite of the fact that a growing body of evidence shows the alarming health effects that are being seen in people and animals who are consuming GM foods. But unlike years ago, concerned physicians and scientists are now banding together and advising their patients and the general public to avoid GM foods altogether.

The latest professional group to voice their warnings is the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) who is advising physicians to educate their patients and the medical community about the health risks of GM foods — including “infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system.”2

Why are these medical professionals so sure that GM foods are to blame for the growing list of health problems? Because of the reason and method they were manufactured. GM corn and cotton for example, are produced with a built-in pesticide called Bt. When the insect bites the plant, the poison kills it. The problem is that the Bt toxin in GM plants is thousands of times more concentrated and toxic than the spray version — and it cannot be washed off — it’s part of the plant.

And as health professionals for the AAEM have pointed out, there are precious few human studies to document the safety of GM foods. The animal studies however, tell a frightening story.2 Here are just a few examples:

When GM soy was fed to female rats, most of their babies died within three weeks—compared to a 10% death rate among the control group fed natural soy. When male rats were fed GM soy, their testicles turned from a natural pink to dark blue.

In India when grazing animals fed on the remainder of harvested GM cotton plants, all of them died including thousands of sheep. Those that grazed on natural cotton plants remained healthy.

In the US, farmers have reported that thousands of pigs became sterile after eating GM corn.
In Germany, GM corn is thought to have caused the death of both cows and horses.

There is only one human study so far that demonstrates what GM foods might be doing to us — and it is chilling indeed. The modified gene that is inserted into GM soy transfers into the DNA of our intestinal bacteria and is still functional. This means our own gut flora could continue to produce the pesticide long after we have eaten the food — perhaps forever.2

Could GM foods be the cause of skyrocketing numbers of obesity, diabetes, autism, and even cancer? According to researchers, it may be, but we may never know for sure. The link to GM foods can’t be traced and the onset of the disease may take several years.

But that doesn’t mean we should take any chances, or wait for the results to come in. If Big Agra has its way, any damning evidence that links GM foods to chronic diseases will be stifled and the epidemic of immune and degenerative diseases will continue to rise.

What you can do is stay away from all processed food unless it clearly states on the package that it is organic or made from non-GMO ingredients. According to the Institute for Responsible Technology and the Center for Food Safety, you should also steer clear of soy or corn derivatives, cottonseed and canola oils, and GM sugar beets. These two organizations provide a downloadable Non-GMO Shopping Guide for consumers to refer to help with their food choices.

Let’s not be lab rats for the benefit of Big Agra. Together we can take a stand and just say no to the foods that are not fit for human or animal consumption.

References

1. Scientist Issues Genetic Food Warning, January 19, 2009, The St. Catherines Standard (Canada).

Doctors Warn: Avoid Genetically Modified Food, http://www.responsibletechnology.org/utility/showArticle/?objectID=2989. ; "

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This story has very important implications.

Even at Whole Foods, the jars containing what is labeled as mayonnaise contain mostly soy oil and canola oil instead of organic extra virgin olive oil. So do those in mainstream grocery stores. Unless these state the soy or canola oil is from non GMO foods, you may be better off NOT buying mayo or making your own. This is also true of most commercially made salad dressings.

But of even more importance, are these two ways GMO corn and GMO soy are used.

Since GMO foods are made to make mass growing of those foods cost less, virtually all the corn used to make high fructose corn syrup which is used because, so far, it costs less than sugar, is almost certainly all GMO corn. So not only is it a good idea to avoid foods and drinks that contain high fructose corn syrup because they make it too easy to over consume sugars and often contain mercury (30% as tested recently using name brands from store shelves), it now looks likely high fructose corn syrup probably contains low levels of this built-in pesticide.

Second, we’ve known for a few years now that the fat from meat animals fed grains is too high in saturated fat and omega 6 oils, it also tends to contain the bioconcentrated pesticides and herbicides from the feed the animals eat and is a far LARGER source of them in the human diet than produce that has been grown using pesticides and herbicides.

Now, in the same way, fat from grain fed animals that are fed GMO grain, & probably nearly 100 % of them are, contains this built in pesticide that cannot be removed.

THAT makes eating mostly wild caught fish, nuts, beef fed only grass and the leanest, lowest fat versions of grain fed meat and poultry and dairy really important.

That will not only help protect you from heart disease and cardiovascular disease, it now looks likely to be even more important as a cancer preventive measure.

And, if you are planning to be a parent, if you want to succeed at it all fertility wise and you want your children to be healthy it also looks to be extremely important to do that.

So, with THAT background knowledge, I was ASTOUNDED to find a story in the online health news this week that apparently got a wide audience that had this title.

“Organic food is no healthier, study finds”

Reuters online news released that story last Wednesday, 7-29 also.

“Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.”

The researchers claimed that the studies they looked at, while showing some added benefits for organic foods, “….but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance," as one researcher put it.

I suppose if they only looked at vitamins and minerals instead of micronutrients and found something like zero to 5% more in organic produce they might have been able to believe what they wrote if they saw that as not influencing disease very much.

But since organic foods both have less herbicide and pesticide residue and more cancer preventing micronutrients, they well reduce the incidence of cancer by well over 5%.

And, if the organic produce was also non GMO produce which is likely, the cancer prevention of the organic produce and the prevention of other diseases and health problems thus avoided may well save MORE money than the higher costs of the organic produce.

Since for me and my family, I’d prefer to avoid unnecessary cancer and other health problems, when I possibly can, I’ll buy organic produce. And, I’ll make an even stronger effort to avoid GMO foods.

Lastly, given the current high costs of medical care and the economic harm those unnecessarily high costs are causing, the study and the headline for it, are totally wrong!

Organic, non GMO foods ARE worth spending extra money on. And it IS of very HIGH public health relevance and importance.