Monsanto is trying to hoodwink you with genetically modified foods

Adding omega 3 oils into food is the latest big-thing in the food industry. Why does this impact you?  You spend your hard earned dollars on foods and have a right to know what's in the products you put into your mouth, and how they might affect your health. Yet information is deliberately being kept from you.

You need to know that omega 3 oils from GENETICALLY MODIFIED soy are soon to be introduced into the foods you buy. The product packaging deliberately won't tell you that these omega 3 oils are genetically modified because food producers know that people don't like the idea of eating genetic modifying food and want to know if they are buying it. [Link downloads a PDF file].

Biotechnology companies, such as Monsanto, which is based in St. Louis, MO, spend millions of dollars every year lobbying politicians to invoke regulations and laws such as substantial equivalence which permit food producers to hide from you the fact that your food is genetically modified. This counters the wishes of the American public and reaps Monsanto and others big profits.

You may detect a lack of appreciation for Monsanto in the tone of my article. The reason is that they are a corrupt business which is creating poor quality products which endanger the global food supply, and damage the environment and human health. I recommend you watch The World According to Monsanto to understand what I'm talking about. It will open your eyes. You also need to know that there have been only a tiny handful of trials looking at the effects of eating genetically modified food, and some of them have been on children.

Europeans have been steadfastly opposed to consuming genetically modified food. When I was in Britain in 1999, I remember that the press and public were against the idea from the beginning. The European Union has been very hesitant permitting anything more than trials of genetically modified (GM) crops, which is helped, in part, by the approval process being very slow in the E.U. Yet in the U.S., the approval process is far faster.

I make no apologies upfront for the lack of objectivity in this article. Having followed Monsanto's scandalous activities for the past nine years, I find it hard to be totally dispassionate about their operations which have included manufacturing Agent Orange, PCB pollution, Dioxins, Genetically-modified bovine growth hormone in milk, and now GM food.

For the past month I've been observing how Monsanto has quietly been introducing information to medical world and food producers to get its GM soy bean omega 3 oils added into foods. If you doubt the potential harm of genetic modification, I recommend you read about what happened to Arpad Pusztai and hear him talk about the effects of GM crops.

Here's the time line:

• June 26, 2009: Study released saying that 96,000 people die annually in the U.S. from omega-3 fatty acid deficiency. This presents a wonderful opportunity for all omega 3 oil suppliers to market their product. It also creates an opportunity for Monsanto to create a product to sell to food suppliers.
   
• October 21, 2009: A flawed study passed through the peer review process for scientific journals and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It claimed that omega 3 fatty acids performed no better than a placebo for people with depression. This counters almost all previous observations.
   
• October 27, 2009: A report was released saying the FDA had approved the use of omega 3 oils from GM soy and that the Monsanto product was going to be cheaper and easier to integrate into foods [than naturally-sourced fish and algae omega-3]. It also said that food manufacturers are testing the product. 
   
• November 17, 2009: One of the authors of the flawed Oct 21 study, Dr. William Harris, a scientist who arguably has major conflicts of interest, talks with the American Heart Association and presents a study claiming that consuming GM soy omega 3 oils increases levels of one of the nutrients found in omega 3 oils from fish - but not both of them.

What's happening here is that our food is being genetically modified and we don't even know that we're eating it. Monsanto and the food producers, such as Nestle, Unilever, and Kraft are keeping quiet because they've helped to secure legislation which allows them to not tell you they're selling you genetically-altered garbage. 

You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll start seeing GM omega-3 enriched processed foods appearing in stores with the Amercian Heart Association logo on. Examples will include yogurt, salad dressing, cereal, and breakfast and snack bars.

On the packaging you'll see "heart healthy" and "contains omega 3s" in order to trick you into believing that you're eating a product with the same quality of omega 3 oils and fish and fish oils. Yet these processed foods will contain GM ingredients which have not been subjected to long-term testing, making every human who eats them a guinea pig.

Do you want to be a guinea pig? Take a stand now. Here's what we can do together:

1. Send a short message to the grocery store companies telling them: I don't want to see or buy genetically modified food from your stores. Send a comment to: Walmart, Safeways group, Kmart, Kroger, Costco, Publix, and SuperValu stores.
    
2. Forward the web link to this article to 5 friends who care about what they or their children eat.
    
3. Realize that we can only do this together and by educating each other. Write a short letter to your local newspaper (you can normally do it online now!) sharing what you've learned.
    

By educating our fellow citizens, we give them the power of choice - they can choose whether to buy genetically modified foods. When enough people stop buying GM foods then sales will drop significantly, and food producers will cease using GM technology in our meals because they realize that it reduces their profits.