When scientists first spliced a gene of a founder fish into the DNA of a vine tomato in an effort to avoid frost damage, many in the food industry marveled at the new age of food production. Many environmentalists and nutritionists shuddered in horror, and for good reason. The world’s food supply took a dangerous turn down the road of science fiction. The problem became headline news when the herbicide, Roundup, was spliced into the DNA of corn. So strong was the toxic effect that EPA (not the FDA) soon ruled that this brand of corn was no longer a food, but a toxic herbicide. A nationwide recall of corn products from Taco shells to corn flakes, ensued. Nutrition and health experts have noted a serious increase in food allergies since the introduction of “frankenfoods.” Equally frightening, some medical experts are suggesting that GMO’d food may be the cause of a growing number of cases of Morgellon’s diseases (see link below). When the body consumes a foreign substance that it deems hazardous, it takes steps to get rid of it (e.g., sneezing, coughing, vomiting, diarrhea, skin) etc.) Other substances of questionable origin are often stored in adipose tissue, leading to long term problems. The human body has had eons to understand its nutrition environment, until recently however. GMO’s are often recognized as unnatural and in many cases, unhealthy. The bottom line is GMO’s are stress to your body’s health. Avoid them at all costs.
Stress Tip for The Day:
It may seem hard to tell what foods are genetically manipulated these days because the big food corporations (e.g., Monsanto) have lobbied hard (and won) to have food labels NOT tell you what’s exactly in them (estimates suggest that as many as 60-70% of grocerystore items are GMO’d. Your best bet for healthy foods are organic foods. Organic foods, while more expensive than conventionally grown foods are not only free of petrochemical fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides and pesticides, they (as much as possible) do not contain genetically (cross species) manipulation. As a side note, unless you are certain of what you’re eating I would avoid all corn and soy products altogether.
Links and Books of Note:
First and foremost, food is an economic and political issue, not a health issue. You may have heard that a 2012 California ballot measure to label all GMO’s was defeated due t mega millions of campaign dollars pumped in from many well know food corporations including…
Here are a few links of interest… enjoy:
Quote of the Day:
“An ecosystem, you can always intervene and change something in it, but
there’s no way of knowing
what all the downstream effects will be or how it might affect the
environment. We have such a miserably poor understanding of how the
genetically modified organism develops from its DNA that I would be surprised if we don’t get
one rude shock after another.”
—Professor Richard Lewontin, Professor of Genetics, Harvard University
Photo of the Day
Last week, on the way home from Poland, I paid a visit to my good friends Bernhard and Anne Kindelbacher in Frankfurt, Germany. Over the weekend they took me to a local farmer’s market. Knowing the inherent danger of frankenfoods, Germany, like all of Europe, does not allow GMO’d food products for sale. We should be so lucky here.
Brian Luke Seaward, Ph.D. is an internationally renowned expert in the fields of stress management, mind-body-spirit healing and stress and human spirituality. He is the author of over 12 books including the bestsellers, Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water, Stressed Is Desserts Spelled Backward, The Art of Calm, Quiet Mind, Fearless Heart and Managing Stress (7e) and the newly released, A Beautiful World: The Earth Song Journals. He can be reached through his website: www.brianlukeseaward.net
© Brian Luke Seaward, Ph.D.
