Why vote YES for proposition 37 letting you know what’s in your food....

Today's Post:  Friday, 8-17-2012

This is actually a very simple issue.  Here’s why you should vote FOR proposition 37.

And, here’s my analysis:

1.  The agri-business industry makes more money by doing things that grow staple foods in volume with lower costs.

Until now, they have not really cared if this causes health issues in the people who eat the food

-- including you.  They still don’t. 

(We know now there are health problems caused by many foods grown this way. I often post on these issues here.  So there are beginning to be health oriented people besides me raising health issues and publicizing this.  But the impetus to look at health impacts does NOT come from agribusiness.)

2.  Since people have been eating genetically modified foods for several years now, such foods are clearly NOT as poisonous as cyanide.

3.  However, despite the claims by the US Food and Drug Administration and surprisingly the American Medical Association that such foods are safe for you to eat over years and years, we don’t really know yet if these foods are completely safe for everyone to eat even for a few months.

In fact, just in the past few weeks, the companies providing the genetically modified seeds have worked extremely hard to prevent such long term and thorough testing before foods are considered safe.  They’ve tried to rig it so even a few month test can be avoided in fact and so even a negative result cannot prevent the genetically modified crops from being grown.  These efforts are in the Congressional Record.

4.  Despite the claims that such foods make people infertile or less so or trigger allergies or will eventually be found to cause other health problems such as cancers, we don’t really know that for sure either.   (I say later why I suspect these people will be proved correct.)

5.  If this proposition is passed, it WILL increase costs for farmers now growing genetically modified foods

They WILL have added labeling costs and need to be able to show their labels are accurate.  And, the sales of foods grown this way will clearly drop somewhat.

6.  The issue here is whether or not the financially oriented agribusiness industry can continue to prevent you from knowing what’s in your foods – OR – if they have to inform you clearly so you can make your own choice.

If  YOU  want to know what’s in your food and think you deserve to know, their arguments against it are irrelevant.

If you do, vote FOR proposition 37.

Given the money at stake, the people stand to lose some are already putting up a fight.

Do you want them to win? 

7.  Here’s why I don’t. 

One of my main areas of expertise is the impact of what you eat on heart health.

Fifty years ago we knew how to increase the shelf life of many foods and make them cost less by adding hydrogenated oils.

Since that became standard practice heart attacks tended to be more common.

More recently, it was found that hydrogenated oils are heart attack starter and are a direct if gradual cause of heart disease.  As I just posted about recently, we also now know that your body doesn’t get rid of them well, so even if you only eat some hydrogenated oils but do so regularly, your heart health will be harmed.

I believe that the kind of genetically modified crops now being grown will eventually show such kinds of problems and want to avoid eating them myself.

Farmers can use less pesticides with money out of pocket to pay for them with genetically modified crops because there already are some added pesticides as part of the food.

Farmers can use a LOT of herbicides on genetically modified crops because their resistance to the herbicides is higher because they have added this resistance as part of the food.

I think in the same way that hydrogenated oils are harmful was found out eventually, the same kind of process will eventually show health problems with genetically modified crops.

So I very much want to know if this stuff is in foods I eat!

I see evidence as I’ve described here that this is a prudent and conservative strategy.

But it will cost agribusiness some money to do it.

That’s the issue.

Please join me in voting YES for proposition 37!