Are GMOs Really That Bad?

Are GMOs Really That Bad?

These are the secrets food producers keep!

By TRAVIS WADE

There is so much controversy when it comes to Genetically Modified Organisms. Anything that makes a ton of money will always have controversy it seems. The last time I looked up GMOs on Google Scholar (in 2015) the first three pages had nothing but articles showing how spectacular of an invention GMOs were.

I was very surprised at the time because I had learned what GMOs were and how they were made. I had heard many doctors talk about how they remove GMOs from people’s diets and their patients got better. Were all these doctors lying?? Was everything I read about GMOs not true??

I’m going to tell you exactly what Genetically Modified Organisms are and how they are modified.  You make your own decision on whether they are good or bad for you. However, one thing I learned about nutrition is if anything has been altered by man it usually won’t be good for us.

Genetically Modified Organisms

How a GMO is made is scientists remove a desired gene, or combination of desired genes, out of a specimen and multiply the genes they want. They inject the desired genes into a petri-dish of plant cells and some of those genes make it into the DNA of some of those cells. They clone those plant cells into plants, and now every single cell of the cloned plants has the new desired gene or new gene combination.

Types Of GMOs

Glyphosate

There are three main types of GMOs. The original GMO was herbicide tolerance. Monsanto’s scientists discovered bacteria growing in a chemical waste dump, not dying in the presence of their herbicide “Roundup”. The active ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate, which was patented as an antibiotic. They discovered the bacteria had a particular gene that allowed it to survive in the Roundup.

The scientists took the gene out of the bacteria and inserted it into soybeans, corn, cotton, canola, sugar, and alfalfa. These GMO crops are all engineered not to die when sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. This unfortunately leads to Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate getting absorbed into the GMO foods.

The amount of glyphosate allowed was increased dramatically to accommodate spraying it on so many crops. Although wheat is non-GMO, glyphosate is sprayed on wheat crops 3 days before harvest to dry down or kill the plant. It speeds up the ripening process and kills the weeds for the next season. Of course the glyphosate ends up in the food.

As mentioned glyphosate gets sprayed by the tons and it’s in all our waterways. When tested, it was discovered that glyphosate is in all North American wine which is why I only drink wine from New Zealand. In New Zealand they only use organic pesticides and herbicides. They like to keep their island as pristine as possible. That’s why their lamb is so awesome too!

Glyphosate kills our reed wildlife and without reed wildlife we lose our ecosystems. I had a consult with a girl that had her masters in environmental science. Her job was to count all the reed wildlife along the North Saskatchewan river and plot them because we are losing the reed wildlife so quickly.

I asked her what was killing the reed wildlife and she said agricultural runoff. I asked her what that was and she said pesticides and herbicides. I asked her if she could name any and she said no. I told her about glyphosate and she had never heard of it. She told me the government’s plan was to not allow people to build on the existing reed wildlife.

Another environmental disaster I would like you to look up is the dead zones of the ocean. Most people are unaware that they exist. According to google they are caused by agricultural runoff and glyphosate is the number one pesticide sprayed in the world. However they do not mention glyphosate as one of the causes. It literally kills everything that’s not GMO. 89% or more of soy, corn, canola, sugar beets, and cotton are genetically modified. That’s a lot of glyphosate!

If you read what causes the dead zones of the ocean it’s too much nutrients feeding algae and bacteria then the algae and bacteria die leaving a low oxygen level in the water. The first one discovered was in the 70’s long before Glyphosate was being sprayed by the tons on crops. However, being that glyphosate is in all our waterways I can’t see it helping the situation.

When I first wrote this article years ago we weren’t allowed to call glyphosate a carcinogen because there were no human studies, (no volunteers). We are now officially allowed to call glyphosate a carcinogen. You can look up the Monsanto papers. They show you all the lawsuits against Monsanto. The weird thing in the U.S.A. is if you change the name of your company, anyone with a lawsuit against you has to start from the beginning. Unfortunately, people with cancer die. Monsanto is now called Bayer. Also, have a look at this study that shows the cancerous effects of glyphosate on animals.

BT Toxin

The next toxin used for GMOs is called Bacillus Thuringiensis or BT toxin and it’s found naturally in soil bacteria. You can gather that toxin and spray it on plants. It kills certain insects and washes off and biodegrades within a few days.

Biotech scientists took that gene that produces the toxin and put it into corn and cotton. The crop produces thousands of times more BT toxin. It’s much more dangerous. It kills insects by poking holes in their gut. It does the same to human cells. Maybe you’ve heard of Leaky Gut Syndrome? It’s also found to create allergic reactions or immune type reactions in humans and animals. Monsanto/Bayer claims it only affects the bugs it is intended for and is harmless to humans.

The BT toxin modification was designed to kill the European rootworm. Instead of having to spray a field, the crop itself will kill the bugs. Unfortunately, the BT toxin binds with clay in the soil. It can affect the ecosystem, reed wildlife system, beneficial insects, and of course humans.

Lectin

Increasing natural plant toxins has become the most popular GMO. All plants have a natural toxin called lectin. Lectin is poisonous but we can handle it in small doses that we get in our non-GMO fruits and vegetables. However, beans are very high in lectin and have to be soaked first before we can eat them. People get sick if they don’t soak their beans and approximately 2 people a year die from slow cooking chili with un-soaked kidney beans.

When they massively increase the lectins in fruits and vegetables no bugs will touch the produce and you get a perfect specimen. It’s very high in poison but it looks perfect. My friend planted organic potatoes and GMO potatoes on her acreage. The bugs ate all the organic potatoes and the GMO potatoes were untouched.

What lectin does to us is it binds to cells in our gut lining and destroys junctions or kills the cell. The amount of lectins in most peoples’ diet is easily enough to cause leaky gut syndrome. Our gut is meant to break down food into amino acids, vitamins and minerals and absorb those nutrients. Our gut is also meant to keep toxins out. I don’t know too many people these days that do a good job of this and from my 18 years of experience in EMS I can tell you there is a huge epidemic of gut issues and about half of them leave the hospital undiagnosed.

Other GMOs

Zucchini, squash, and papaya are engineered to withstand certain viruses and they have their own problems. It’s mostly papaya, zucchini, or squash from Hawaii or china. There’s also potatoes and apples that have been approved in 2015. They have genes that prevent browning or slow it down. Farmed salmon has now been approved for genetic modifications as well.

Is That Really A Problem?

If you plot the percentage of certain diseases in the U.S. and plot the amount of Roundup or glyphosate or GMOs, they have a distinct jump starting in 1996. Certain diseases follow the same slope as the GMOs; autism, diabetes, death from obesity, about 7 types of cancer, schizophrenia, anemia, ADHD, inflammatory bowel syndrome, kidney disease, liver disease, and many others. Although correlation does not equal causation it is another hint.

Jeffrey Smith has heard more testimonies than anybody about individuals getting better from removing GMOs and switching to organic. The number one category is always gastrointestinal (stomach) problems at every lecture he has gone to. Number two, glyphosate can mess up your testosterone/estrogen balance, it’s also a mitochondrial toxin causing fatigue, and brain fog.

More problems are birth defects, weight gain, skin conditions, immune system problems, allergies, asthma, autoimmune disease, mental conditions like anxiety or depression, headache or migraines, joint pain, infertility, erectile dysfunction, and cancer.

Weight Loss

People that switched to non-GMOs were able to lose weight they weren’t able to lose with a “conventional” diet. Weight loss is a consistent side effect of a non-GMO diet; seen often amongst many doctors’ surveys.

The Microbiome

There are 10 times more bacteria cells in the body than human cells. There is good bacteria and bad bacteria. These bacteria are a critical aspect of health. The microbiome supports our immune system, our digestion, prevents Leaky Gut Syndrome, it’s also involved with detoxification, produces amino acids that are the building blocks for our neurotransmitters, like serotonin, melatonin, and dopamine which control mood.

Glyphosate was patented as an antibiotic and it kills the beneficial bacteria. This allows the pathogens to overgrow leading to inflammation. This environment leads to inflammation of the brain, autism, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, produces toxins, and loses the ability to repair the lining of the gut. Leaky Gut Syndrome is linked to all kinds of diseases.

Glyphosate was developed to bind to minerals and clean the minerals off of things; it’s one of the widest spectrum chelators. Monsanto claimed it was safe in humans because it only blocked the shikimate pathway in plants and because humans don’t have a shikimate pathway they claimed that we are fine.

Our gut bacteria use the shikimate pathway to build the building blocks of serotonin, melatonin, and dopamine. These neurotransmitters depict our mood. If we are blocking the shikimate pathway by depriving it of manganese and cobalt, depression is likely. Serotonin also tells the body when it’s full. To make matters worse because glyphosate binds to minerals, we will likely not get enough leading to increased appetite due to lack of nutrients.

My Google Scholar Search

I did a search on google scholar to see what was being said about GMOs recently. I couldn’t find any studies but there was a lot of articles on what people’s opinion of GMOs were. I found this one article, it’s not a study, just an article reviewing the benefits vs the risks of GMOs.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/6/2861

In this article they say “GM crops and their products must be rigorously evaluated before being commercially released”. The CEO of the Food and Drug Administration at the time GMOs were approved was Michael Taylor. He approved GMOs against the boards recommendation and many letters to not approve GMOs for public consumption.

Have you ever heard the term crony? A crony is someone who is put in a powerful position to carry out a specific task then they will be rewarded with a high paying job in the private sector for their hard work. Cronies have always existed throughout history. If you follow the path of Michael Taylor’s career, I think you will see some shady activity.

Another point made in this article is that GMO products are not labelled with a warning sign. You can put a Non-GMO label on your food but GMOs do not have to be labelled GMO. According to this article the reason this decision was made is because me and you along with all the other laypeople are too stupid to know whether GMOs are good or bad.

“Nonetheless, an increasing number of countries have been involved in labeling with distinct regulatory characteristics. At least 64 countries worldwide, such as the EU countries, China and Australia, expect some form of GMO labeling”. It also states, “the USA strongly opposes labeling”.

Another important quote from this article states, “Many prevalent GE myths exist and cover wide-ranging themes, from health and safety to other environmental safety areas. Allergies, toxicity, possible horizontal gene transfer (HGT) to the environment or other species, and several anomalies such as metabolic disturbance, tumor genesis, or infertility have all been related to the consumption of GM crops. Overall, the considerable scientific consensus holds, insofar as currently marketed GM food does not pose a higher risk than traditional food [8,33,47]. The authors offer a risk–benefit analysis based on scientific evidence and debunk myths that interest groups have spread.”

The article goes on to talk about the future of GMOs and what they are currently in the process of working on. They talk about wonderful things like getting more production and less waste from viruses and other plant pathogens. They talk about increasing nutrients and delaying the ripening process of fruit and vegetables for less waste in transport of these products.

I believe all of these concepts are awesome and in a perfect world GMOs would be the best. However, whenever you alter something our body sees it as foreign and rejects it. Like a transplant. People have to take medication so their immune system doesn’t reject the new organ. It would be great to have more productivity and more nutrients if there was no bad reactions to the new product.

What To Avoid

If you want to avoid GMOs, some of the foods you want to avoid are legumes including soy, grains including corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa, papaya, zucchini, yellow squash, salmon, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, milk, meat, and eggs, unless it’s wild caught or organic.

Unfortunately, avoiding GMOs is not good enough which is why organic is strongly recommended. If you use nongmoshoppingguide.com it doesn’t guarantee your food doesn’t have glyphosate, but it’s a much better bet than conventional. Avoiding GMOs and Roundup can be done by switching to organic.

In the film Secret Ingredients they will show people that had autism and people that were disabled, had breast cancer, diabetes, infertile, a whole list of people that when they switched to organic got better. For many of them the weight came off; there’s a lot of benefits switching to organic.

One last thing I think you should know is GMO corn, soy, sugar, grains, and many others are in packaged foods unless otherwise mentioned. A great resource to help you avoid GMOs is resposibletechnology.org. Sign up for the newsletter to keep up to date on new GMOs. A couple other resources are:

Rounduprisks.com

Glutenandgmos.com

I hope this article was helpful and remember your vote is important. Your vote is what you choose to eat. The big companies can’t keep producing crap if you won’t buy it. The other thing is to let everyone know about this information. Like and share this article with as many people as you can.

Very shady things happen at the cost of our health to make the rich richer. This stuff really happens. Reminds me of a cartoon with the big evil villain wanting to take over the world at the cost of everyone else’s lives.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton.