Bring on the Fight Back Friday Carnival — I am pissed off and pumped up! Don’t worry, Food Renegade (ers). I’ll behave

This is some very important real world GMO news and I am sorry if someone else has already brought this stuff to the fore, but I just read this and find it beyond flabbergasting.

We have been reading a fair bit in the news about the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) who has issued warnings in the past several weeks urging the public to avoid genetically modified foods (common sense? hallelujah) and has also called for a moratorium on GMOs until long-term, independent studies can prove their safety. “The group has also called for required labeling of foods that contain GMOs, a move that has been strongly opposed by the Food and Drug Administration and Big Biotech which cooperatively purport that consumers should not have the right to know whether or not the foods they buy come from traditionally bred or genetically engineered sources.”

I have been against GMOs since the very beginning, there is no good that can come from splicing mackerel genes with a beefsteak tomato. And I am so very very happy that someone besides the left-wing foodies are coming out about this, although I’m sure anyone someone can accuse the AAEM as being full of “tree-huggers” if they wanted to be persnikety.

In any case you can read the whole article here at NaturalNews but there are a few key in-particulars that I wanted to call your attention to, and some other info in response… I promise it will all make sense by the end, well. Hopefully.

Here is a part I’d like you to pay close attention to:

Probably the worst finding in the AAEM report is the fact that GMOs can live and reproduce in the intestinal flora of the body long after being eaten. The genes present in the genetically modified organisms transfer into the DNA of intestinal bacteria, the good bacteria that digests food and maintains bodily health. This reprogramming can cause the intestinal flora to begin reproducing Bt pesticides, for example, rather than producing the living bacteria it is supposed to. The permanent, deadly implications of these alterations are mind boggling since intestinal flora is crucial for life.

If you were ever uncertain about say, the environmental impacts of GMOs, which are ginormous (but that’s another post), then at least take your own inner ecology into consideration, for heaven’s sake! A farmer who fed his pigs Bt engineered corn (which is still permitted for feeding of livestock) saw the birthrate of his pigs plummet 80%… in 2007 Bt corn was having such a strong and suspiciously major ecological impact that it was a suspect in the killing off of honey bees state-wide in Michigan (read the the whole story here).

What is Bt you may ask?

Bt, or bacillus thuringiensis, has been used in some form or another for almost half a century as a specific pesticide against various insects. For some years, it has been one of the most effective pesticides organic growers can use, which is even scarier to me personally. Yes, it does exist in some degree in minute amounts in soil but now it’s being bred right into the sucker… and of course, we all should know by now that just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good or safe. Arsenic comes to mind or DDt was promoted pretty highly as even being “good for you.” So beware, oh and Bt is also the close relative of anthrax. No Spray Zone also writes that:

“when Bt pesticides are formulated, a number of “inert” ingredients are added as preservatives, enhancers, and flow and wetting agents. These inerts are never revealed by manufacturers or tested for safety, and some may be toxic. For instance, Foray 48B, a common moth insecticide, probably contains the chemical BIT (1,2-benzisothiazolin-3-one) that was recently prohibited for environmental releases in the EU.”

Now. Onto the second part of my point. Why do we want to maintain good, pure, undamaged intestinal flora? And for this I have to turn to David Wolfe once again, specifically from an interview on “Changing Our Biological Terrains through Food” during Kevin Gianni’s Rawktathon.

There’s something you need to know about your body. Well I’m sure there are lots of things but one is a discovery that we’ve known about for a long time in the field of nutrition but Wolfe says:

We are actually a combination of many organisms living with us symbiotically, which means most of the cells in our body are not actually our cells; it’s bacteria. We have a 100 times more bacteria living on us and outside of us and in us than we have cells in our body, of our own cells. So, who are we really? Well, we’re a symbiotic organism. We live with bacteria that are friendly to us. We (are) also living with bacteria and other organisms that are unfriendly to us.

There’s this whole thing we call the biome, which is your biological home. That’s your gardens, everything that’s inside you and outside of you, and getting that sorted out. When you get that sorted out, that’s when what we call the self-composting button gets shut off because you’ve driven off all the bad guys. Then all of a sudden, you’re healthy. Really healthy. This biome idea has to be developed and nourished in a certain type of way to actually get the bad guys off of you. To change your biological terrain is easier said than done. I see it every day; people who have very severe digestive problems, skin disorders – their biome, their biological home, is disrupted to a very severe degree. They’ve got critters living in there that make the friendly bacteria go, “We’re not dealing with it.” Your own immune cells go, “Well, we’ve got about three weapons here instead of 300. We can’t do anything about this.”

So, that’s part of it: how that’s related to, not only nutrition, but also mineralization. It turns out that, if at a very young age you’re eating wild foods that (are) mineral-rich, your biome is constructed in such a way that you’re very impervious to outside attack. And your immune system is able to understand what’s foreign and what’s domestic much easier. So, we don’t fall into auto-immune conditions or any of that.

He goes on to say that probiotics (more articles here), including probiotic (read: fermented) foods can help keep the biome in balance.

if you douse yourself with oregano oil or grapefruit seed extract or even “bomb” your body with garlic, what’s really happening is that you’re just dropping a neutron bomb into your biological home. It’s not going to change the terrain. It’s not going to change what’s causing the problem or drive out the real bad guys, except it will blow them down for a week. Then they’ll re-assert themselves. Now, if you use it strategically, where you’re changing your terrain, you’re changing your terrain. You’re changing your terrain by using the right kinds of probiotics and the best kinds of nutrition.

Which, he writes should include : “a full spectrum of raw foods, super foods, herbs and everything else that really works for you.” I would include anything that has antiviral properties, like saturated fats, inlcuding coconut for example. Another important realization is that when your natural flora and beneficial bacteria load becomes compromised, that’s when you see stuff like candida going rampant (or thrush) which some say are actually precancerous conditions. Cancer is a fungus, by the way. So for me at least, the fact that the GMOs  are actually intereacting and transforming-converting-confinscating-exploiting your own body… well, maybe paying that extra 30 to (gulp!) 90 cents more per organic bell pepper could be really really worth it. Maybe it’s high-time you started getting involved and creating relationships with your local farmer’s markets. Or become a farmer, and plant your own. When you do go shopping around, ask around: sometimes farmers are already doing things the 100% organic way, but cannot yet afford the USDA Certification. And finally, really take advantage of your favorite naturally fermented foods: raw yogurt, kefir, saurkraut, kimchi, pickles, etc.

I don’t know what else to say guys, what do you think?