At the end of
the day, fifty years after I first saw this chemical and my father read the
back of the label and then set it aside, we finally have the core truth. The claims regarding biodegradability and
leaving clean soil is an outright lie.
Worse was to come and now we have worst.
Conjecture: The global collapse in the populations of amphibians
over the past fifty years is caused by this product. They absorb the toxins through their skin
making them extremely vulnerable throughout their life cycle.
Conjecture: The steady decline of semen count among men is caused
by residuals entering our diet.
Amphibian vulnerability conforms to the vulnerability of semen.
Conjecture: For the same reason, the fetus is
potentially impacted in cases of high exposure.
This is now emphatically confirmed in Argentina at least and in fact
elsewhere when we bother to check the numbers.
It kills babies. At least the
cigarette industry merely clipped ten years of your life when you were already
retiring.
Lastly we do
not need to be using this chemical at all.
We now know that the advancing science of organic agriculture has caught
up to industrial agriculture and matches productivity with amble room for
growth.
Roundup will
turn out to be one of the worst environmental disasters in human history and
will need decades of effort to reverse the damage done. The other one is our chemical fertilizer
business which also needs to be corralled and recalibrated with vigorous application
of biochar technology.
Extreme”
Levels of Roundup Detected in Food—Are You Eating This Toxic Contaminant?
May 20, 2014
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/05/20/extreme-levels-roundup-detected-food-eating-toxic-contaminant/
In
2009, a French court found Monsanto
guilty of lying; falsely advertising its Roundup herbicide
as “biodegradable,” “environmentally friendly” and claiming it “left the soil
clean.”
We’re now starting to understand just how
false such statements are. For example, last summer, a groundbreaking study
revealed a previously unknown mechanism of harm from glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.
The research showed that glyphosate
residues, found in most processed foods in the Western diet courtesy of GE sugar
beets, corn, and soy, “enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne
chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body
functions and induce disease.”
More recently, a Norwegian study published
in Food Technology1 found
that genetically engineered (GE) soy contains high levels of glyphosate,
along with a poorer nutritional profile, leading the researchers to question
its quality and safety.
Evidence also suggests glyphosate may be a
key player in Argentina’s growing health problems, where birth defects and
cancer rates have skyrocketed among GE corn and soya farming communities.
If
You Eat Processed Food, You’re Eating Glyphosate
While nearly one billion pounds of
glyphosate is doused on both conventional and GE crops worldwide each year, GE
crops receive the heaviest amounts. It’s important to realize that processed
foods undoubtedly expose you to this toxic contamination, courtesy of the soy
and vegetable oil used.2
Ditto for meats from animals raised in
confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), as soy is a staple of conventional
livestock feed. As noted in the featured article by Rodale News:3
“That herbicide-laced soy winds up in
thousands of nonorganic packaged foods and in animal feed for livestock like
pigs, cows, chickens, and turkeys.
Why is this happening? Genetically
engineered crops are manipulated in a way that could never occur in nature so
plants like corn, soy, canola, cotton, and sugar beets can withstand high doses
of glyphosate-containing herbicides that would normally kill them. The
result? Roundup in food that people and farm animals eat.”
Beware:
Glyphosate Is a Systemic Contaminant
It’s quite crucial to understand that
glyphosate contamination is systemic, meaning it is present in every cell
of the plant, from root to tip. It’s not just an issue of topical
contamination, as with many other agricultural chemicals sprayed on crops.
Normally, you need to thoroughly wash your
produce to remove topical residues, but you simply cannot remove glyphosate
from your produce. And neither can food and animal feed manufacturers who use
GE ingredients in their products.
This is a major reason for avoiding
processed foods, over and beyond the fact that processed foods are less healthy
for you from a nutritional standpoint.
Making matters worse, while evidence is
piling up showing the hazards of glyphosate on human health, farmers are
ramping up their usage of the chemical due to the proliferation of resistant
weeds, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently raised the
allowable levels of glyphosate in food by significant amounts.4, 5
Allowable levels in oilseed crops such as
soy were doubled, from 20 ppm to 40 ppm just lasts summer. It also raised the
levels of permissible glyphosate contamination in other foods—many of which
were raised to 15-25 times previous levels.
GE
Soy Is NOT ‘Substantially Equivalent’ to Non-GE Soy, Researchers Say
The Norwegian study in question investigated
contamination levels and nutritional contents of three varieties of Iowa-grown
soybeans:6 Roundup
Ready soybeans; non-GE, conventional soybeans grown using Roundup herbicide;
and organic soybeans, grown without agricultural chemicals.
On average GE soy contained 11.9 parts
per million (ppm) of glyphosate. The highest residue level found was 20.1
ppm. Meanwhile, no residues of either kind were found in the conventional
non-GE and organic varieties. (Similar results were found in a 2012 nutritional analysis of GE corn, which was found to contain 13 ppm of
glyphosate, compared to none in non-GMO corn.)
Such revelations have serious implications
for Americans who eat an average of 193 pounds of genetically engineered foods
each year.7 In an
article for The Ecologist,8 two of
the researchers point out that these levels are actually double, or more, of
what Monsanto itself has referred to as “extreme levels:”
“All of the individual samples of GM-soy
contained residues of both glyphosate and AMPA, on average 9.0 mg/kg. This
amount is greater than is typical for many vitamins.
Monsanto (manufacturer of glyphosate) has
claimed that residues of glyphosate in GM soy are lower than in conventional
soybeans, where glyphosate residues have been measured up to 16-17 mg/kg
(Monsanto 1999).
These residues, found in non-GM plants,
likely must have been due to the practice of spraying before harvest (for
desiccation).
Another claim of Monsanto’s has been that
residue levels of up to 5.6 mg/kg in GM-soy represent ‘…extreme levels, and far
higher than those typically found.’ (Monsanto 1999).” [Emphasis mine]
The researchers also found nutritional
differences between the three types of soy. Compared to conventionally grown
non-GE and GE soy, organic soybeans contained higher levels of protein and
zinc, and lower levels of omega-6. According to the authors:9“This study rejects that GM soy is
‘substantially equivalent’ to non-GM soybeans.”
Toxicity
of Roundup Has Been Vastly Underestimated
The Norwegian researchers also point out
that the potential toxicity of Roundup has likely been vastly underestimated,
as toxicity cannot be attributed solely to the active ingredient, glyphosate.
“When regulatory agencies assess pesticides
for safety they invariably test only the claimed active ingredient.
Nevertheless, these do not necessarily represent realistic conditions since in
practice it is the full, formulated herbicide (there are many Roundup
formulations) that is used in the field. Thus, it is relevant to consider, not
only the active ingredient, in this case glyphosate and its breakdown
product AMPA, but also the other compounds present in the herbicide formulation
since these enhance toxicity,” they write.10
So, when you see “inert” or “inactive
ingredients” listed on the label of a pesticide or herbicide, please understand
that all this means is that those ingredients will not harm pests or
weeds. This is how federal law classifies “inert” pesticide ingredients.11 It does
NOT mean that those ingredients are not harmful to YOU, your children, or your
pets.
Indeed, one 2012 study12 revealed
that inert ingredients such as solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other
added substances are anything but “inactive.” They can, and oftentimes do,
contribute to a product’s toxicity in a synergistic manner—even if
non-toxic in isolation. Certain adjuvants in glyphosate-based herbicides
were also found to be “active principles of human cell toxicity,” adding to the
hazards inherent with glyphosate. It’s well worth noting that, according to the
researchers, this cell damage and/or cell death can occur at the residual
levels found on Roundup-treated crops, as well as lawns and gardens where
Roundup is applied for weed control.
They also suspect that Roundup might
cause miscarriages and abnormal fetal development by interfering with hormone
production13 –
problems that have skyrocketed in Argentina, following the introduction of GE
soy. A toxic combination of Roundup and fertilizers has also been blamed for tens of
thousands of deaths among farmers in Sri Lanka, India, and Central America’s
Pacific coastline (El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica).
Birth
Malformation Skyrocketing in Agricultural Centers of Argentina
As noted in the featured BBC radio report14 above, Argentina has become one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of
GE soy and corn, and along with it, the country has experienced an explosion of
miscarriages, fertility problems, and abnormal fetal development. In the
province of Chaco, birth defects have quadrupled in the decade following the
introduction of GE crops.15
“[T]here is unease across the nation’s vast
GM belt, especially about health. In the northern province of Chaco, the
minister of Public Health wants an independent commission to investigate cases
of cancer and the incidence of children born with disabilities,” BBC
reports.16“Pressly
interviews the University of Buenos Aires Dr. Andres Carrasco, who published
a study in 2010 showing that glyphosate can cause birth defects in animal
embryos.
Pressly asks Carrasco — what should have
happened after you published your paper? ‘Very easy,’ Carrasco says. ‘The
governments in Argentina — they should call for a moratorium.’ ‘But you then
call the whole of the model into question — what does that mean for Argentina’s
economy?’ Pressly asks. ‘What about if we are poisoning our people?’ Carrasco
asks.”
More than 18 million hectares in Argentina
are covered by GE soy, on which more than 300 million liters of pesticides are
sprayed. In the village of Malvinas Argentinas, which is surrounded by soy
plantations, the rate of miscarriage is 100 times the national average,
courtesy of glyphosate. According to Dr. Medardo Vasquez, a neonatal
specialist at the Children’s Hospital in Cordoba, featured in the documentary
film People and Power — Argentina: The Bad Seeds:
“I see new-born infants, many of whom are
malformed. I have to tell parents that their children are dying because of
these agricultural methods. In some
areas in Argentina the primary cause of death for children less than one year
old is malformations.”
When Food Is Poison…
What the biotech industry, spearheaded by
Monsanto, has managed to do is turn food into poison… quite literally, and in
more ways than one. Glyphosate, which we now know systemically contaminates
the plant and cannot be washed off, has a number of devastating biological
effects, including the following:
Nutritional deficiencies, as glyphosate immobilizes certain
nutrients and alters the nutritional composition of the treated crop
Disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic
amino acids (these are essential amino acids not produced in your body that must
be supplied via your diet)
Increased toxin exposure (this includes high
levels of glyphosate and formaldehyde in the food itself)
Impairment of sulfate transport and sulfur
metabolism; sulfate deficiency
Systemic toxicity—a side effect of extreme
disruption of microbial function throughout your body; beneficial microbes in
particular, allowing for overgrowth of pathogens
Gut dysbiosis (imbalances in gut bacteria,
inflammation, leaky gut, and food allergies such as gluten intolerance)
Enhancement of damaging effects of other
food-borne chemical residues and environmental toxins as a result of glyphosate
shutting down the function of detoxifying enzymes
Creation of ammonia (a byproduct created
when certain microbes break down glyphosate), which can lead to brain
inflammation associated with autism and Alzheimer’s disease
Some researchers now believe glyphosate may
very well be one of the most important factors in the development of
a wide variety of modern diseases and conditions, including but not limited to:
Autism
Gastrointestinal diseases such as
inflammatory bowel
disease,
chronic diarrhea,
colitis, and
Crohn’s disease
Obesity
Allergies
Cardiovascular disease
Depression
Cancer Infertility
Alzheimer’s disease
Parkinson’s disease
Multiple sclerosis
ALS
and
more
How
to Protect Yourself and Your Family from This Systemic Poison
If this isn’t reason enough to become an
avid label reader to avoid corn, soy, or sugar beet ingredients, I don’t know
what is. Ideally, you’d be best off opting for products bearing the USDA 100% organic label when buying processed foods in order
to avoid exposure to agricultural chemicals, which certainly are not limited to
Roundup. Don’t make the mistake of confusing the“natural” label with organic standards, however. The “natural” label
is not based on any standards and is frequently misused by sellers of
GE products.
Growers and manufacturers of organic
products bearing the USDA seal, on the other hand, have to meet the strictest
standards of any of the currently available organic labels. My personal
recommendation is to forgo processed fare altogether. Pick up a good cookbook,
and start cooking from scratch using whole organic ingredients instead. This
really is the key to optimal health. Meats need to be grass-fed or pastured to make
sure the animals were not fed GE corn or soy feed. You’d also be wise to stop
using Roundup around your home, where children and pets can come into contact
with it simply by walking across the area.
Biological
Farming Is the Way Out of This Mess
Last year, I interviewed Dr. Elaine Ingham, an internationally recognized expert on
the benefits of sustainable soil science. According to Dr. Ingham and other
soil experts, a key component of successful agriculture lies in having the
appropriate microbial life in the soil. This includes beneficial species of
bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and earthworms—all of which contribute to plant
growth in a number of different ways. The real nutrition plants
require is actually derived from these beneficial microorganisms in the soil,
which take the mineral material in the soil and convert it into a
plant-available form. Without these microbes plants are unable to achieve their
maximum genetic potential, which is one of the reasons I am not a fan of
hydroponics as it that is really growing with chemicals and no microbes.
Chemical agriculture is an invention that
has now been proven unsustainable, and we must make the appropriate changes if
we want our descendants to survive on this planet—the situation is
becoming that dire. Chemical technology companies have infiltrated
and taken over agriculture, and it’s an extremely profitable business. But it’s
quite literally making our food toxic; not to mention the fact that
agricultural chemicals are also rendering water supplies undrinkable and
unsuitable for marine life.
Supporting your local organic farmer is
therefore critical both for the environment and your family’s health. Another
alternative is to start growing some of your own. Sprouts are an excellent place to start if you’re new to gardening.
Adding them to your salad, for example, can significantly boost the nutritional
content of your meal. I also encourage you to support any and all state GE
labeling initiatives. The chemical biotechnology industry has profited
through secrecy long enough; it’s time for them to label their wares. Researchers
are saying GE foods are NOT equivalent to non-GE foods; scientific testing
bears that out, and we have a right to know what’s what when shopping.
Vote
with Your Pocketbook, Every Day
The food companies on the left of this
graphic spent tens of millions of dollars in the last two labeling campaigns—in
California and Washington State–to prevent you from knowing what’s in your
food. You can even the score by switching to the brands on the right; all of
whom stood behind the I-522 Right to Know campaign. Voting with your
pocketbook, at every meal, matters. It makes a huge difference. By boycotting
GMA member Traitor Brands, you can help level the playing field, and help take
back control of our food supply.
I encourage you to continue educating yourself
about genetically engineered foods, and to share what you’ve learned with
family and friends. Remember, unless a food is certified organic, you can
assume it contains GMO ingredients if it contains sugar from sugar beets, soy,
or corn, or any of their
derivatives.
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