Showing posts with label monsanto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monsanto. Show all posts
Posted by
Deanna Lack
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I got an email from Slow Food USA about this coming week being National Farmers' Market week... apparently the USDA and Secretary of Agriculture issued a proclamation that August 4-10 will be National Farmers' Market week.
So I Googled it. There's practically nothing about it. So I went to the pages of all the farmers' markets I could think of on Facebook. There's nothing about it.
What the heck? Why so little publicity? So I took it upon myself to make this little graphic and share it around on Facebook... feel free, if you are a small farmer who goes to markets - no wait. If you are a person who eats food, feel free to share this graphic and if you haven't been to your local market - or if you have! - please go and support your local farmers this week.
In other news, the EPA recently approved an increase on allowable limits for glyphosate (Roundup and its spin-offs) on crops. Hey EPA... you're under a Democratic president, get a clue :( Here's a link with more info on why glyphosate is awful for the environment and awful for you.
Please, if you can afford to, eat organic or certified naturally grown (crops that are not grown with Roundup or other herbicides, artificial fertilizers and pesticides), and especially, support your small local farmer who is farming responsibly. Get to know them. There's nothing like knowing where your food came from.
Posted by
Deanna Lack
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Five Color Swiss Chard from The Bearfoot Shaman on EtsyLike gardeners everywhere, I'm looking out my window the past few days at the snow-covered (even more snow-covered than has been usual for my time in Tennessee) ground and daydreaming of turning some of that land and getting my hands in the dirt and...
ordering seeds.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one obsessing over seed catalogs these days. In my temperate zone it'll be time to start some seeds indoors in about two weeks. So I'm ordering this week and next from my four favorite companies: Seed Savers Exchange, Heirloom Seeds and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and Richter's Herbs.
I'm ordering all heirloom varieties. My husband isn't too keen on technicolor vegetables; he thinks it's weird, and yellow tomato sauce doesn't appeal to him in the least. As I ponder this, it occurs to me: the reason it's weird is because the biodiversity of the crops we eat, and even the crops we grow, has drastically dwindled in this century, till the only tomatoes anyone's ever seen were red.
But heirlooms are a piece of history, and usually not bred for color but superior flavor or other great qualities - what they are NOT bred for is pesticide and herbicide resistance. I feel a special responsibility to preserve heirloom varieties since one of them - the Soldacki tomato - was brought by my grandfather's family from Poland, and he has preserved them throughout his lifetime, but now is unable to garden at almost 88 years old. With industrial farming threatening crop diversity, I think the need is even more pressing.
So my rabid catalog perusing is socially and environmentally responsible. At least that's what I'm telling myself. This is my first year of "real" gardening, so come fall I'll be saving those seeds for next year (and thumbing my nose at Monsanto and their self-aborting seeds, in the process).
Oh, and Etsy has some heirloom varieties as well. There's something really cool about buying from a human being who's preserved the seeds themselves, so check it out.
ordering seeds.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one obsessing over seed catalogs these days. In my temperate zone it'll be time to start some seeds indoors in about two weeks. So I'm ordering this week and next from my four favorite companies: Seed Savers Exchange, Heirloom Seeds and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and Richter's Herbs.
I'm ordering all heirloom varieties. My husband isn't too keen on technicolor vegetables; he thinks it's weird, and yellow tomato sauce doesn't appeal to him in the least. As I ponder this, it occurs to me: the reason it's weird is because the biodiversity of the crops we eat, and even the crops we grow, has drastically dwindled in this century, till the only tomatoes anyone's ever seen were red.
But heirlooms are a piece of history, and usually not bred for color but superior flavor or other great qualities - what they are NOT bred for is pesticide and herbicide resistance. I feel a special responsibility to preserve heirloom varieties since one of them - the Soldacki tomato - was brought by my grandfather's family from Poland, and he has preserved them throughout his lifetime, but now is unable to garden at almost 88 years old. With industrial farming threatening crop diversity, I think the need is even more pressing.
So my rabid catalog perusing is socially and environmentally responsible. At least that's what I'm telling myself. This is my first year of "real" gardening, so come fall I'll be saving those seeds for next year (and thumbing my nose at Monsanto and their self-aborting seeds, in the process).
Oh, and Etsy has some heirloom varieties as well. There's something really cool about buying from a human being who's preserved the seeds themselves, so check it out.
Posted by
Deanna Lack
comments (0)
In the news, the Supreme Court decided this week to hear case Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, regarding the safety of GMO crops - specifically alfalfa, the first perennial crop to be GM, and a crop that bees pollinate, which means the $*#($-up genes can be spread over miles and miles. Lovely! Kudos to the Center for Food Safety for bringing this case. Here's the low-down: http://truefoodnow.org/2010/01/15/supreme-court-to-hear-first-genetically-engineered-crop-case/#more-849
While you're at it, click that icon at the top to go to Non-GMO Project's web site to learn more about a new food seal stating that a product has no GM stuff in it, and take the pledge to look for the seal near you.
More kudos to Whole Foods Market, whose blog brought me all this good info. Sure wish I had one of those glorious places near me.
While you're at it, click that icon at the top to go to Non-GMO Project's web site to learn more about a new food seal stating that a product has no GM stuff in it, and take the pledge to look for the seal near you.
More kudos to Whole Foods Market, whose blog brought me all this good info. Sure wish I had one of those glorious places near me.
Posted by
Deanna Lack
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Fact. A new International Journal of biological sciences studied the effects of genetically modified (GM) corn on rats. They linked it to organ damage. Here's your Huffington Post link, and here's the text of the actual study.
Fact. The only study on the effects of GM foods done prior to this was a 90-day study done by Monsanto (the company that has patents on most GM seeds) for FDA approval (that wasn't skewed, I'm sure). Most chronic conditions will not show up in 90 days. The above study concludes: "These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown."
Fact. These genetically modified seeds, now in use for a decade, are being used to grow 95% of soy crops and 80% of corn crops in the US, and a host of other crops grown in large quantities. In fact, if a farmer wanted to find non-GM seeds, they might have difficulty even finding them. Consider: how many of the products you consume use US corn oil, corn syrup, soybean oil, soy and corn flour? Most things you eat, I'm guessing. And a lot of that produce is probably GM, too, but, here's the real problem.
Fact. There is currently no legislation demanding that a product be identified as having been grown from GM seeds, or containing crop products grown from GM seeds. Therefore, even if you wanted to completely eliminate GM products from your diet and your home, you would be unable to do so, UNLESS you buy absolutely everything organic, as anything with the organic label is not permitted by law to be genetically modified.
GM crops can cross-pollinate with crops that aren't, so even if some people chose to grow non-GM crops, the neighbor's field might "infect" theirs. Worse, Monsanto crops now carry a "terminator" gene that kills embryonic seed, so that the farmer can't save seed for the next year - that's right, the crop is rendered incapable of reproducing - so they have to buy more seed from Monsanto the next year. What happens when THAT spreads by cross-pollination? And I haven't even gone into the fact that most of the above genetic modification is done so that crops can be mass-sprayed with herbicides. That's an entirely different rant.
I think you should vote with your dollars - buy organic, for now - and also write your congressman, because I think this is a huge threat to health and safety. GM products MUST be labeled as such.
I'm on a crusade here. If this disturbs you, pass the info on, please.
More links, more info.
Can that Terminator gene really cross-pollinate?
If so, is that a threat to world food supply?
And finally, a documentary on what Monsanto is doing for YOU.
Fact. The only study on the effects of GM foods done prior to this was a 90-day study done by Monsanto (the company that has patents on most GM seeds) for FDA approval (that wasn't skewed, I'm sure). Most chronic conditions will not show up in 90 days. The above study concludes: "These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown."
Fact. These genetically modified seeds, now in use for a decade, are being used to grow 95% of soy crops and 80% of corn crops in the US, and a host of other crops grown in large quantities. In fact, if a farmer wanted to find non-GM seeds, they might have difficulty even finding them. Consider: how many of the products you consume use US corn oil, corn syrup, soybean oil, soy and corn flour? Most things you eat, I'm guessing. And a lot of that produce is probably GM, too, but, here's the real problem.
Fact. There is currently no legislation demanding that a product be identified as having been grown from GM seeds, or containing crop products grown from GM seeds. Therefore, even if you wanted to completely eliminate GM products from your diet and your home, you would be unable to do so, UNLESS you buy absolutely everything organic, as anything with the organic label is not permitted by law to be genetically modified.
GM crops can cross-pollinate with crops that aren't, so even if some people chose to grow non-GM crops, the neighbor's field might "infect" theirs. Worse, Monsanto crops now carry a "terminator" gene that kills embryonic seed, so that the farmer can't save seed for the next year - that's right, the crop is rendered incapable of reproducing - so they have to buy more seed from Monsanto the next year. What happens when THAT spreads by cross-pollination? And I haven't even gone into the fact that most of the above genetic modification is done so that crops can be mass-sprayed with herbicides. That's an entirely different rant.
I think you should vote with your dollars - buy organic, for now - and also write your congressman, because I think this is a huge threat to health and safety. GM products MUST be labeled as such.
I'm on a crusade here. If this disturbs you, pass the info on, please.
More links, more info.
Can that Terminator gene really cross-pollinate?
If so, is that a threat to world food supply?
And finally, a documentary on what Monsanto is doing for YOU.
Watch The World According to Monsanto in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
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