Planet Waves Astrology | 2005 Blog Archive | April 26 to May 25
Planet Waves | May 23, 2005
In the 70's Adele Davis was the eating guru with her book, Lets Eat Right to Keep Fit ... and Francis Moore Lappé, with her Diet for a Small Planet, gave us a real heads-up, as we'd already been lulled into an easy complacency with whatever the grocer waxed, polished, and wrapped in saran. We'd already succumbed to the convenience of picking up a burger or chicken or whatever, rather than plan a meal, or worry about its nutritive value, at the end of a long day. Doctors of that era [and, sadly, still] gave us very little information about nutrition as they didn't believe it overly important in determining our health -- a look at the new lobbying-inspired Food Pyramid shows you that we still don't put the health of the public ahead of profit and special interests.
We had no idea how MUCH of an emergency there was thirty-or-so years ago, but at least these writers gave us ideas about what foods to combine for complete nutrition and how they effected our bodies. It was years after that period that we began to hear what pesticides were doing to our produce -- and we wouldn't have, had children not been sickened by apple juice which caused a stir in the press [that was when the press was still trusted to deliver the news.] The lid popped off that issue ... and we began to favor organically grown foods, which became -- of course -- more expensive and prohibitive to low income families. Now they're just plain expensive ... to everybody.
Ahhhh -- the good old days, when everything was simpler. Now we have a crisis in America's [and because of our influence, the world's] food source ... and it's not the produce we must eye skeptically, it's the seed that produced it.
I have to emote [laugh/cry/rant/pick one or all] when I read about George Bush's "clone wars" -- he will likely veto a new proposed bill in the House and Senate on stem cell research. He is manic about cells in a petrie dish but ignores the real cloning problem ... genetically modified food.
From an article [posted below] in Sundays lndependent/UK --
Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.
The Independent on Sunday can today reveal details of secret research carried out by Monsanto, the GM food giant, which shows that rats fed the modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood.
According to the confidential 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from another batch of rodents fed non-GM food as part of the research project.
The GM [genetically modified] possibilities began with a Supreme Court decision in the mid-90's that allowed for the patenting of life forms for commercialization. In 1989, modified soy comprised just 2 percent of the US soy market. By the year 2000 it reached 80 percent. By 1999, GM ingredients were to be found in 2/3 of all US processed food.
The World Trade Organization is very pro-GM ... and it is constantly in battle with countries that refuse it's biologically transformed food. We do not label GM ingredients in this country -- most countries do ... some restrict or ban them completely.
I could go off on this topic -- every "super-crop" we develop comes with a new "super-weed" that requires even more lethal poison to kill it. In a day and age when we're looking at the likelihood of super-virus's it would be nice to know that we had a decent immune system to give us a fighting chance, but ... you have to wonder; it didn't serve the rats immune's well in the expose, below. Every "super-food" we gobble down will create ... WHAT? And that is the question, of course. We know not what we do ... in pursuit of "profit." And those making the profit don't seem to care.
I check out the "Most E-Mailed Photos" on my Yahoo page every morning -- for the last several days, the most e-mailed has been a picture of a two-headed, five-legged calf.
Anomaly, you ask? Dear God, I hope so! But I'd like to know what they were feeding the mother -- it's not nice to fool with mothers.
It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature! She bites back.
Peace ~
Jude
ps -- go to this link first, for creative fun on this topic -- the one's that follow aren't nearly as cute.
Store Wars
The Organic Rebellion lives!
www.storewars.org
Eric Francis is on holiday. Jude, the editor of Political Waves, is standing in for his daily blog this week. You can subscribe to Political Waves (our all-politics news distribution list) for free at the link below. You'll receive between five and 10 news articles each day. You may write to Jude with your responses to her commentaries at moderator@planetwaves.net.
