GMOs – Are You A Lab Rat?
Can you imagine being in an experiment where you are the lab rat or the guinea pig? Hey guys it’s Ivan and I wanted to talk to you about GMOs or genetically modified organisms now genetically modified organisms were introduced back in the 80s and they have become very very popular and they are widely used among you know all kinds of products around your supermarket. A lot of you have seen my GMO song and/or have watched the video as well but I felt like a three minute song was just not enough to go over certain things about GMOs.
Today I wanted to talk specifically about four myths surrounding GMOs and three tips also on how to avoid them, so let’s get into it!
Myth #1: GMOs will save the food crisis
The first myth you’ll hear chemical companies say is that GMOs are here to solve the world’s food crisis that comes from you know overpopulation and world hunger and all these things. Now, first keep in mind that these are not altruistic companies, these are companies that came from second world war and most of them developed very, very toxic chemicals like DDT, Agent Orange, aspartame, etc and quickly they realized that they needed to get into a different line of business and so they got into food and now they produce food, but these are the type of companies that we’re dealing with here and when they say that they’re gonna solve the world hunger and they have been around for a few decades and world hunger has actually increased significantly and it is due to the fact that there is more inequality around the world. So the problem with the food crisis is not that there’s not enough food. I’ve never gone to the supermarket and found there’s no lettuce or kale or eggs right? Those kinds of problems are simply not found in the first world. The problem is that a lot of people do not have the financial resources or the money to purchase those products. That’s the real problem, inequality, so if these companies really wanted to solve that problem they would have taught those people how to farm how to plant their own crops and how to be self-sufficient, but this is not the purpose of these companies and their GMO products, of course. This brings me to the second myth…
Myth #2: GMOs Produce Higher Yields
The second myth is that GMOs actually have higher yields. In other words they can produce more with the same amount of agricultural land. So, in other words a GMO crop is supposed to deliver more corn, for example, than a conventional corn or than an organic corn. Nothing can be further from the truth here. There are several studies now showing that GMO crops and conventionals and organics do not have higher yields from each other. In fact there are some circumstances where organics seem to do better than the other two. Specifically when there’s drought or on certain other conditions. So GMOs do not have higher yields than their counterparts.
Myth #3:GMOs Help Reduce The Amount Of Pesticide Use
In this particular case, we all know that pesticide use has become a really, really big problem and what we have now is superbugs and a decimating population of pollinators like bees. These superbugs are resistant to these pesticides because we have just really, really overdone the pesticides like we have with antibiotics, so what has happened is that crops that have pesticides in them like the BT corn now require additional pesticide applications because the bugs are now resistant to the BT corn and on top of that the production of pesticides and the use of pesticides have has really increased exponentially around the world.
So GMOs have done nothing to improve the pesticide use and in fact the opposite seems to be true.
Myth #4: GMOs Are Equivalent To Their Natural Counterparts
This is really convenient for chemical companies because they actually have patent and they actually profit largely from these patents so the seeds are significantly different from this perspective. So different that they require a patent that they can exploit and they can make money from but when it comes to consumption, that’s us as consumers, when we’re gonna consume a product they feel like we don’t need to know because it would be more confusing for the consumer to know which crops are GMOs and which crops are not. They have done all kinds of efforts in order to keep you in the dark.
Those are the four myths that surround GMOs. Now that we’ve covered the four most important myths that are promoted by chemical companies, the question is how do we avoid them? How do we being the lab rat in this experiment? The answer here is not a simple one but here are three tips that will help you navigate through the supermarket:
HOW TO AVOID GMOs
1. Avoid Processed Food
This first tip makes sense not only because of GMOs but because it’s nogood for you. So avoid processed foods. Avoid the Tostitos and the chocolate chip cookies and all that stuff that comes in the box that’s no good for you, just avoid it altogether.
Now, if you are going to consume it what I encourage you to do is to look for the non-gmo project label which is a third-party independent company that actually verifies that there are no GMOs inside of the products. So you don’t know which ones have GMOs but you at least are starting to know which ones don’t have them, so that will help you when it comes to processed foods.
2. Purchase Organic
I know it’s more expensive to purchase organics but would you rather pay for it now and have good health or pay for it later as a way of a hospital bill and have terrible health? So, for the most part, and whenever you can, try to purchase organics. This is not only going to be healthy for you, but it’s also going to drive the prices down and eventually, there might be just a turning point where organics are actually at the same price or at least similar to GMOs or to conventional products. So just keep purchasing organics as much as you can and within your budget.
3. If You Eat Animal Protein Find The Best Quality
For example, grass-fed beef is far superior and more nutritious than the regular meat that you purchase at the supermarket and the regular meat that you purchase at the supermarket is from cows that have been in a confined animal feeding operation or CAFO, which is not healthy for them because they don’t go out in the Sun as much so they’re depleted from vitamin D. There, they also get fed corn. Most of them get fed GMO corn and that’s where most of the GMO corn production goes in the US. And when they are fed that corn they become sick they have to open up their stomachs there’s all kinds of nasty things going on with that practice. They get sick and they have to they have to treat them with antibiotics so the cow that you’re eating is not very healthy to say the least. So the meat is not gonna have as much nutrition as grass-fed meat, for instance where the cow is allowed to be out in the open it’s allowed to purge itself with grass which is its natural diet. So considering the best possible animal protein is smart for you and your health.
Those are the three tips that I have to avoid as much as possible GMOs so I hope these tips help you navigate through the supermarket and navigate through life. As usual, please remember to comment like and share! Until the next one!
Further resources:
GMO Emperor Has No Clothes (report):
https://www.nabu.de/imperia/md/content/nabude/gentechnik/studien/gmo_emperor_study_pdf.pdf
Union for Concerned Scientists – Failure to Yield Report:
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