People ask me all the time why I waste money on organic foods, or go through all the effort of my restrictive diet to abstain from beef and avoid eating foods with MSG, corn syrup, GMO’s, RBGH, and other items the FDA claims are GRAS (generally regarded as safe). The main reason is simply that I enjoy living a healthy lifestyle. The more I learn and research health and green topics the more adjustments I make. We all have the ability to adapt, and in this country almost always the means to adapt, just not always the will to change. Unfortunately some people have the attitude “who cares we are all gonna die anyway”. That is really just another way of saying “I don’t know any better and I’m too lazy to learn or change”. If that sounds familiar and you are just going through the motions in your life, then you are really missing out on good food and a lot of other things. It’s time to wake up and smell the organic coffee!
The reason I bring all of this up is that I recently watched a very disturbing documentary called “The Future of Food”. It basically discusses corporate control over food and farming in America and GMO’s (Genetically Modified Organisms) that are bioengineered. I have always loved watching documentaries because they are educational and usually expose facts and ideas that government and corporations would rather you not know about. “The Future of Food” was one of those documentaries that really open your eyes to a part of everyday life of food that affects everyone on earth. After watching this I felt like breaking out some protest signs and marching on Washington!
Many of the questions I had about food and GMO’s were answered in this film. Other topics such as growing your own food, buying organics, joining CSA’s were discussed and justified as part of the solution. My only complaint about the documentary is that I wish they had spent more time talking about solutions and less time making me mad about the details concerning the problem. I guess the point is that if people don’t fully understand the problem enough to get mad about it they won’t be motivated to change. Point taken! If you want to get mad about your food and government too then just watch the intro to this documentary from the link below, or better yet just watch the whole documentary and get really mad!
The current situation with agriculture reminds me of when oil prices doubled last year driving up inflation and helping to fuel the fire of the bad economic state we are in now. The reality of just how dependant we are on oil and the foreign countries that produce it became glaringly apparent. People became more conscious of the record profiting oil companies and lobbyist that have their hands in the pockets of government officials, auto industries, and just about everything else.
Now just imagine instead of an oil crisis there is a worldwide food shortage. Drought and overpopulation cause people even in this country to scramble for food and stockpile items like rice and beans just so they can be assured of their own future of food. In reality this is already happening in many parts of the world, but if another factor was added to that list you would have the perfect storm that could starve the world. Do you think when a loaf of bread suddenly costs 10 dollars people would wake up in a hurry and get educated about what we are eating, where it is coming from, and who are the corporations pulling all the strings? You bet!
“The Future of Food” talks at length about a handful of corporations that have been making and patenting genetically modified seeds since the 70’s. These modified seeds are designed to grow crops that withstand pesticides which are specially formulated to kill everything else except those crops. How convenient! If this all sounds like a racket, well it is. These corporations are all in bed with each other along with the FDA and lobbyists. The scary thing is that these seed and insecticide corporations are so greedy they continue to modify and patent new GMO’s such as suicide seeds that will sprout crops that produce sterile seeds that won’t sprout when replanted. This is all to make big money. Farmers will have to buy seeds every year from these corporations instead of saving their own seeds like they have done since the dawn of agriculture. These seed corporations have already put many small farmers out of business by suing them for having the GMO pesticide resistant seeds/crops mixed in with their own crops, which happens naturally from birds/bees/wind/etc. Here’s the real kicker- imagine what happens when these new GMO suicide seeds get mixed in with natural crops! The seed companies will rule the world, or what’s left of it.
The best thing we as consumers can do before it gets to this inevitable point is to get smart about food, and use the one influential power we have (besides our voice and vote) which is our buying power. What we buy dictates what is sold. It’s simple economics- supply and demand. So when you read food labels, buy organic foods, shop at farmers markets, join CSA’s, and grow your own food you are not only becoming what we call in Portland a “foodie”, but you are fighting corporate control. You can grow your own food, plant organic veggies, and use organic seeds instead of genetically modified ones. Local nurseries are better bets to find natural and organic plants than big corporate chain stores. For our own garden we have used mostly organic seeds and plants with no pesticides or unnatural fertilizers. We have found a really good seed company locally in Oregon called Territorial Seed that uses only natural organic seeds. Next year we plan to buy all of our seeds from them and make sure everything in our garden is completely organic.
One additional thing we can do is demand that products containing GMO’s are labeled like they are in Europe. If you go into your local organic grocery store you will see many products that say “no GMO’s”, but you will be hard pressed to find a product in the U.S. that says “contains GMO’s”. Americans lead the way on many different fronts, but when it comes to food we could learn a thing or two from our neighbors across the pond.
Europeans are years behind America in food technology, and that’s a good thing. Instead of fast food restaurants and chain grocery stores on every corner you have local bakeries and farmers markets. That is the way it has been done for ages, and it’s how the people in Europe like it. Having firsthand experience with food in Europe and America I can tell you- there is no comparison. Americans want easy, fast, and cheap food; basically anything that comes in a box, bag, or can. Even most American restaurants shamefully serve what amounts to upgraded tv dinners at a premium price. When you go to a conventional grocery store the only natural looking food is in the produce and meat department, but alas even that is bioengineered in this country. Imagine if Americans decided to get smart about their food and used thier loud voices to demand change. It would change the Future of Food in this country, and maybe the world. Personally I’m all for new technology and lifestyle improvements, but when it comes to food I’ll take it the way nature intended it to be, not the way man has made it to be.
