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 This is a thread that I know is totally out of place here on this site and I realize maybe in total 3 people might read what I write here all the way to the end.  But of those 3 people, if I can convince at least 1 person to open their mind and pay attention to what's going on, well then its worth me spending my time here being up on my soap box like this.  So today I want to explore the question of whether, as a population, we should continue the practice of producing and consuming foods from organisms that have been genetically modified by companies like Monsanto, and, as individuals, whether we should continue to demand such products.  In short, the answer is a resounding no.

You say, well Joel, why would I care if Monsanto creates apples that are bigger and juicier than would be otherwise possible through conventional means?  We've been told there is no research to indicate that these foods are unsafe for human consumption.  Fair enough.  The question however is not about producing bigger and juicier apples.  Bigger juicier apples come from heredity, which is what Mendel showed with his rough vs. smooth peas and is something farmers have been engaging in for thousands of years when they select the biggest healthiest bull or fastest horse, for example, for their breeding stock.  Managing heredity is perfectly fine and nobody is arguing that this is wrong.  This is not what GMO is however.  Ok so what's the problem?

Companies like Monsanto have produced seeds for plants such as rice, wheat, and corn where the genome has been spliced and altered such that the resulting plant is immune to glycophosphorolated herbicides, such as Round Up, which they also produce and sell.  They began marketing to farmers back in the 1980's that by planting the Monsanto GMO seeds, producers could then spray down their fields with their Monsanto produced herbicides, resulting in increased yields and subsequently higher return on their investment.  It was revolutionary and became largely ubiquitous in farming.  With the money rolling in, few farmers paid almost no attention to the impact this seed/herbicide combination had on, well, anything.  But the impact it turns out is catastrophic and I'll explain why.

Monsanto claims that their herbicides are not taken up by the plant itself and therefore don't pass through to the population that consumes their corn and other products. They've gone to great length to show that the levels of glocophosphorolates are undetectable in corn, etc.  Interesting as this is, this is not where the majority of the damage is being done.  When a farmer sprays their field down with Round Up, the chemical causes there to be a chelation of heavy metals in the soil, such as manganese and magnesium, which are fundamental in many complex biochemical reactions in the plant, such as photosynthesis.  The corn plant takes up less of these metals, photosynthesis is affected, and plants have a hard time generating the sugars it needs to continue its biologic processes.  The result you can see when you compare one GMO field sprayed with herbicides with another that is non-GMO is that the former appears browner and droopier compared to the latter, which is robust, healthy, and richly green.  You might counter that Americans are too fat anyways, so maybe corn with lower fructose contents aren't necessarily a bad thing, but what also happens is that the plant also isn't generating a nutrient rich nectar that pollenating insects such as the honey bee rely on for survival.  Bees are one of the only insects that overwinters each year, meaning that they collect nectar and produce honey so they can survive the winters and have food stores to make it to the spring.  Thanks to Monsanto, the honeybee colonies are starving to death during the winter because they simply do not have what they need from the plants to survive.

Furthermore, and just as important, herbicides kill all the beneficial lactobicilli bacteria in the soil.  Turns out when plants take up water and other nutrients it needs from the soil it also takes up a reasonable quantity of lactobicilli and transports it into the fruits and pollen it generates.  For millions of years humans and other organisms have consumed lactobicilli from plants and these organisms colonize the beneficial bacteria in our guts.  Recent scientific research is showing that this gut flora plays a significant role in our body's immune response to pathogens and other diseases, and alterations in its gut diversity is responsible for a wide range of physical ailments such as autoimmune diseases, birth defects, asthma, autism, etc.  Once the lactobicilli are killed in the soil, whats left are pathogenic bacteria such as clostridium, shigella, etc. that the plant readily takes up and manifest in its fruit stock instead.

Oh ok Joel you have opened my eyes.  This is a big deal - Monsanto is the devil.  Well you don't know the half of it because the politics of this are absolutely disgusting.  So now for the last decade lawyers for people like Joel Gavin claim that their client has asthma and psoriasis due to Monsanto's involvement in distributing GMO foods and pesticides and, to counter these claims, Monsanto has launched a campaign much like what the tobacco industry did to confuse, intimidate, deny, and provide research in support of their products' safety to avoid litigation.  Its so unbelievable in fact that a few years ago President Obama passed an Executive Order absolving Monsanto of any wrong doing and litigation resulting from use of its GMO products.  Why on Earth would he do that you ask?  Take one damn guess...

So what do i want?  I want you to understand the issue and realize what a devastating impact these people are having on our biosphere.  Advocate on behalf on non-GMO's.  Only buy non-GMO foods whenever possible.  Correct people when they defend the use of these products.  Raise awareness on the topic like I have tried to do today.

Thank you and may God bless you all, 

Joel.