I did try to keep myself from writing this article, but it just seemed the harder I tried to forget about it, the more it pushed other ideas out of my head. As if to tell me to write this article. So I wrote it. Well, on to GMOs (or Genetically Modified Organisms), and I must admit watching a documentary recently entitled "Forks over Knives" is what inspired me, if you will, to write this. The base of my irritation with GMOs sticks hard to the idea that I am close to powerless when it comes to growing corn without it becoming contaminated with the increasing number of GMO crop. Not only is it difficult to grow certain crops without contamination, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to go without ever eating GMO. The words “produced with genetic engineering”, seems to be popping up everywhere, in everything. I was munching on a bag of potato chips the other day and decided to turn it over for the hell of it, and lo and behold: produced with genetic engineering. No more Lays Wavy chips for me. I’m not sure about anyone else, but if the bugs don’t even want to eat the crop or die doing it (I know some pesticides are responsible), then I don’t want to eat it either! To avoid my exposure to GMO plants and to keep my own heirloom seeds unchanged, I had to somehow come with an idea cheaper than a greenhouse. So why not hydroponics in the shed? This had me shaking my head yes. It was a good idea, now I just had to do my homework and set it into motion.
The idea of altering plant DNA to maximize yield for profit boils my blood. My question on this whole GMO fight Monsanto is putting up, is: Why pay 8.1 million dollars to keep only two states from labeling GMOs if they aren’t hazardous to health? Why silence the voices of the people and keep people from knowing what they are putting in their bodies if it is so good? Also, why put so much effort into discrediting a scientist who studied GMOs and rose to the conclusion that GMOs are hazardous to health? I think this raises a large red flag. Or how about settling with the fact that GMO corn is resistant to herbicides? Something that could survive both chemicals designed to kill bugs and weeds should not be consumed by people or animals. I was unsettled at how much I was failing at keeping my diet GMO free. Even my chickens were consuming GMO feed and then producing eggs, which I consume. So thinking about it, GMOs were used to produce that egg. Another area of my mini farm that I had to start making adjustments. After my hydroponic system was set in motion, I could focus on the chickens.
While it isn’t just chickens or our plants, think about a place you fish. Is it stocked with fish by fish hatcheries? If so, it could have been grown on GMO pellets. GMOs everywhere! Carrying on to the next few problems that GMOs and pesticides cause. First, let's talk about the number of bug species that are now resistant on some level to pesticides; worldwide there are more than 500 species of insects showing resistance. And in some cases, some insects grow an insatiable appetite instead of reprograming not to eat. So they just ravage their way through crops. Nothing good has risen from the continued use of both pesticides and GMO crops. Our human bodies are not set up to be eating things like this. Our last attempt to adjust the food we eat, by way of processed foods, has yet to do us any good. In fact, these kinds of foods are the same ones responsible for the obesity and diabetes epidemic. I feel as though "We the People" are the rats to the big corporations, who are constantly coming up with more and more disastrous ways to the Earth and ourselves, for the sake of profit. And the latest experiment: GMOs. If we have learned nothing from the past, which it seems some haven’t, it is that it doesn’t look good for us when too big of corporations spend millions on lobbying to keep us unaware, instead of putting that money forth to fight hunger or something else. I wonder if they eat it?
