If this occurs, your intestines will become a pesticide factory, producing the Bt toxin in your own body. Mike Adams, the Health Ranger of NaturalNews.com, recently posted a video that discusses this issue. See How GMO foods alter organ function and pose a very real health threat to humans, particularly from 8:10 to 10:54.
Most of the corn (maize for our British readers) produced in the United States is Bt corn. Bt corn has been genetically engineered to produce its own pesticide. Because the genetic information spliced into the corn came from a bacterium, that information can be shared with other bacteria, including the beneficial bacteria in your intestines.
If this occurs, your intestines will become a pesticide factory, producing the Bt toxin in your own body. Mike Adams, the Health Ranger of NaturalNews.com, recently posted a video that discusses this issue. See How GMO foods alter organ function and pose a very real health threat to humans, particularly from 8:10 to 10:54. The introduction of genetically engineered alfalfa in 2011 changed the list of genetically engineered food crops from the Tainted Eight to the Tainted Nine. (See "Genetically modified alfalfa and Roundup herbicides may create an agricultural disaster" at http://www.naturalnews.com/034264_GM_alfalfa_Roundup.html.) The Tainted Nine are now as follows:
_Previously in this blog, I wrote about the Dirty Dozen fruits and vegetables most likely to be high in pesticide residue. The Dirty Dozen, organized to help you and me remember them better, are as follows:
I also wrote previously about the Clean 15, fruits and vegetables that tend to be low in pesticide residue:
My daughter warned me, "If you watch Food, Inc., you won't want to eat meat again unless it's organic." She was right. In Food Inc. (see www.foodincmovie.com), filmmaker Robert Kenner peels back the curtain that hides America's food industry, including the meat industry. A beef with the meat industry
Food production is no longer dominated by farmers but by a handful of soulless multinational corporations where executives in board rooms a thousand miles from the farms make decisions that affect not only farm workers but the food produced by those workers. Despite the image portrayed by product packaging and marketing campaigns, CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) have replaced small family farms as the primary means of meat production in the United States. Food, Inc. features Barbara Kowalcyk, a food safety advocate whose son Kevin died in 2001, 12 days after eating meat contaminated with E. coli bacteria. Kowalcyk said, "We put faith in our government to protect us, and we're not being protected at a most basic level." Kowalcyk is now fighting to give the USDA the power to shut down plants that repeatedly produce contaminated meats. Allen Trenkle, a ruminant nutrition expert at Iowa State University, explains that cattle were designed to eat grass, not corn, which creates an abnormally acid environment in the rumen and promotes the growth of E. coli. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's dilemma, said, "The industrial food system is always looking for greater efficiency, but each new step in efficiency leads to problems. If you take feedlot cattle off of their corn diet, give them grass for five days, they will shed 80% of the E. coli in their gut. But of course that's not what the industry does. The industry's approach is when it has a systematic problem like that is not to go back and see what's wrong with the system. It's to come up with some high tech fixes to allow the system to survive." Rather than reducing the presence of E. coli, the high tech fix bathes the meat in ammonia to kill the bacteria. Poultry and pork Poultry and pork production have their own set of problems. Chickens are grown in dark, unclean environments with tens of thousands of birds crowded into one hen house, and they're given antibiotics. A woman who formerly raised chickens for Tyson and Purdue said that she became "allergic to all antibiotics" as a result of her work. Food, Inc. shows the Smithfield hog processing plant at Tar Heel, NC, the largest slaughterhouse in the world. 32,000 hogs are slaughtered there per day. The documentary exposes the working conditions at the plant, where many of the employees allegedly are illegal aliens who are afraid to complain about the conditions for fear of being deported. Corn subsidies Food, Inc. exposes the federal farm subsidy program, which enables the food industry to purchase corn below cost of production. That corn finds it way into a multitude of foods via maltodextrin, high fructose corn syrup, and other corn-derived products. As sugar consumption has increased, incidence of obesity and diabetes have increased. According to statistics cited by Food, Inc.:
Genetic engineering Food, Inc. also discusses the use of genetic engineering and the problems that it causes. Until the 1980s, patenting life was unknown. The documentary discusses Monsanto's efforts to control the food supply through genetic engineering and patents and the devastating impact that this has had on small farmers whose crops have been contaminated by Monsanto's patented genes. A viable alternative? Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farms in Shenandoah Valley, VA, provides an example of an alternative to CAFOs: a family farm producing food organically. The FDA tried to shut him down for alleged unsanitary conditions, but he was allowed to continue when laboratory tests showed much less bacterial contamination than what is typical of CAFOs. Conclusion Food, Inc. is an educational, informative documentary that I recommend to all Americans who care about their food and their health. My two main disagreements with Food, Inc. are these:
The call for a new religion overlooks the fact that we already have a religion that, if its teachings were followed, would protect the environment. That religion is called Christianity, though not all who claim to be Christian have followed its teachings. Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, said that the greatest commandments are these:
If we truly loved our neighbors as ourselves, we would not mistreat workers and taint the food supply. The problem in fulfilling the second-greatest commandment is that our human nature pulls us in opposite direction. That's where the object of the greatest commandment comes in. Man was created in God's image but fell from innocence through sin. His Son, Jesus, came, lived a sinless life, and died for our sins. If we accept that sacrifice, we can be reconciled to God and have help from God to love our neighbor as ourselves. Being in a right relationship with God promotes not only good food in this life but good fruit for all eternity. If you happen to live in central North Carolina and are interested in fresh organically grown blueberries, I recommend 'Tween Towns Farm U-Pick Blueberries in Granville County. The crop is bountiful this year, the price is only $1.50 a pound, and you can eat as much as you want for free while you pick. Note that 'Tween Towns Farm no longer provides buckets to pick into or flats to pour the berries into after you pick them. They do still provide a portable toilet next to the blueberry field. In 2011 'Tween Towns Farm is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday during the month of July. The address is at 546 Walnut Grove Rd., Oxford, NC. For hours or other details, call 919-693-8591. Here is a map. Today I updated my links to other websites, adding new links in every category. One of the additions under "Genetically engineered food" is a link to an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Smith, arguably the world's leading expert on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Smith says, "GMOs are not safe and should never have been introduced. In fact, the scientists at the FDA had said over and over again that these products are different and risky and should be tested carefully. They said it could create allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems, but they were ignored in fact by the person in charge of policy, who was a former attorney to Monsanto, Michael Taylor, who was in charge of policy at the FDA, later Monsanto's vice president, and now the U.S. food safety czar. Monsanto, of course, is a big biotech company. So now the concerns by the FDA scientists have been validated. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine says all doctors should prescribe non-GMO diets to everyone, citing animal feeding studies showing reproductive problems, accelerated aging, organ damage, gastrointestinal problems, and other problems." According to Smith, five of the things that can go wrong when food crops are genetically engineered are as follows:
In my previous blot post I listed the "Dirty Dozen" and the "Clean 15"—fruits and vegetables that are most likely and least likely to be tainted with pesticide residue. In this blog post I list the eight foods in the United states that are commonly genetically engineered. Those eight are as follows:
For more information about the Tainted Eight, see The Dirty Secret GMO Companies Dont Want You to Know. For information about the risks of genetically engineered foods, click Links before this blog post and see the genetically engineered food articles.
Some fruits and vegetables are notorious for high levels of pesticide residue. Others tend to be low in pesticide residue.
If you prefer organically grown fruits and vegetables for health reasons but find that the price limits how much you can purchase, you may want to consider spending your money on organic produce where the conventionally grown counterpart tends to be high in pesticide residue. Today's blog contains information about which organically grown produce will give you more bang for your buck in this regard. The Dirty Dozen™ According to the Environmental Work Group (EWG), the following fruits and vegetables tend to be high in pesticide residue:
The Clean 15™ EWG research indicates that the following fruits and vegetables tend to be low in pesticide residue:
For more information For more information, go to www.foodnews.org. I recently interviewed my 101-year-old uncle about health and long life. At age 99 Uncle Art was healthy and alert, driving a car, actively involved in life, and on no medications of any kind. His health and activity have declined since then, and he no longer drives a car. However, his mind is still sharp.
"To what do you attribute your long life and good health?", I asked my uncle. "Common sense and plain luck," he replied. "I was told what not to do, and I didn't disobey my folks. Don't touch a hot stove. Make sure your food is not too hot before you taste it." "Do you have any other examples of things that have contributed to your long life and good health?" He listed several:
He also said that heredity may play a role in longevity. Many of his mother's male ancestors were long-lived. Uncle Art's daughter said she felt that a positive attitude and good genetics played major roles in her dad's long life and good health. She said that a recent test showed that her dad's lungs were 97% efficient, an efficiency many younger men would love to have. She also noted that his doctor attributed his long life to not taking drugs. "Many people take a combination of over-the-counter drugs and have various side effects and interactions," she explained. Unusual for Uncle Art, the day I interviewed him he had shingles and was in the midst of a seven-day regimen taking a daily dose of a medicine prescribed by his doctor. But he's still hanging in there. Not bad for a man of 101 years. More than 40 years ago I read a booklet titled The Seven Laws of Radiant Health. It contained seven principles of healthful living that I found helpful. I have learned more about health since then and am still learning. My modified version of the list of seven principles is as follows: Healthful Food and Clean Water Positive Mental Attitude Avoid Bodily Injury Cleanliness and dress Sunshine and Fresh Air Sleep and Rest Exercise Healthful food and clean water "You are what you eat" is an aphorism that illustrates a truth about our physical bodies: Every cell is composed of chemical elements derived from material that we ingested. The statement that man was formed "from the dust of the ground" matches quite well with where the elements in the physical body come from. This is not to say that every atom in our bodies comes from what we eat. They can also come from substances inhaled into the lungs or absorbed through the skin. Nevertheless it is generally true that we are what we eat. Our bodies come from the earth, and we rely on planet earth for our physical sustenance. Miniature civilizations Each of the approximately 100 trillion cells in the adult human body is like a miniature civilization complete with factories, power plants, and a transportation system. (The video Unlocking the Mystery of Life (www.unlockingthemysteryoflife.com) uses computer animation to give a glimpse into that miniature civilization.) Since the raw materials come from the food we eat, our physical lives are tied inextricably to the earth that we live on. What we put into our mouths affects the functioning of our cells. If we eat a wholesome, balanced diet, our cells tend to function well. Wellness reigns in the miniature kingdom. If we eat junk food on an ongoing basis, negative consequences result. Positive mental attitude Your state of mind can effect your health. A positive mental attitude promotes good health. A negative attitude promotes bad health. Scientists at UCLA have even identified a mechanism whereby stress can affect the body's immune system. See "UCLA study identifies mechanism behind mind-body connection" at www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/uoc--usi071508.php. Wise King Solomon wrote a number of proverbs about the mind-body connection:
Avoid bodily injury Avoiding bodily injury can have a powerful impact on health. For example, falling off a roof or being involved in a motor vehicle collision can have a devastating impact. Environmental pollution--everything from sulfur dioxide in the air to DDT and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) in the soil to mercury in ocean water and fish--also can harm the human body. Some of the negative influences on our health are not so obvious. Some may be controversial, but they are what they are. See the following topics in the Links section of this website:
Cleanliness and dress In connection with health, cleanliness refers to basic personal hygiene. During the Dark Ages, Europe neglected basic sanitation and hygiene and was overwhelmed by leprosy and Black Death. This is discussed in the book None of These Diseases by S. I. Macmillan, M.D. Dress as a health factor refers to avoiding clothing that is overly tight, restricting the body's blood flow. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11 World English Bible). Sunshine and fresh air Sunshine, so long as it is not overdone to produce sunburn, can contribute toward good health. Sunshine is a source of Vitamin D. Fresh, clean air contributes toward good health. We human beings need air to live. Our bodies consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide just as green plants consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Sleep and rest The human body needs sleep and rest to rejuvenate itself. According to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (www.nigms.nih.gov/publications/factsheet_circadianrhythms.htm), living creatures have a circadian rhythm that involves physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness in an organism’s environment. Exercise "Use it or lose it" is a common expression. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/sgr/ataglan.htm):
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AuthorI was a technical writer for more than 30 years. I am interested in health and environmental issues. Archives
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