BK 10: (Apr 2, 2019) Food Fight - GMOs and the Future of the American Diet

Hi Everyone...

On Apr 2nd we will discuss Food Fight - GMOs and the Future of the American Diet by Mckay Jenkins (Jan 24, 2017).

With 285 reading pages it is approximately 10 pages a day.

Check out the Bio & Videos below...

"Are GMOs really that bad?  A prominent environmental journalist takes a fresh look at what they actually mean for our food system and for us.

In the past two decades, GMOs have come to dominate the American diet. Advocates hail them as the future of food, an enhanced method of crop breeding that can help feed an ever-increasing global population and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Critics, meanwhile, call for their banishment, insisting GMOs were designed by overeager scientists and greedy corporations to bolster an industrial food system that forces us to rely on cheap, unhealthy, processed food so they can turn an easy profit. In response, health-conscious brands such as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods have started boasting that they are “GMO-free,” and companies like Monsanto have become villains in the eyes of average consumers.

Where can we turn for the truth? Are GMOs an astounding scientific breakthrough destined to end world hunger? Or are they simply a way for giant companies to control a problematic food system?

Environmental writer McKay Jenkins traveled across the country to answer these questions and discovered that the GMO controversy is more complicated than meets the eye. He interviewed dozens of people on all sides of the debate—scientists hoping to engineer new crops that could provide nutrients to people in the developing world, Hawaiian papaya farmers who credit GMOs with saving their livelihoods, and local farmers in Maryland who are redefining what it means to be “sustainable.” The result is a comprehensive, nuanced examination of the state of our food system and a much-needed guide for consumers to help them make more informed choices about what to eat for their next meal. "

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This is what we discussed at the meeting...

* Flavr Savr

* Processed foods: Corn & Soy

* Effects of chemical sprays effects on Monarch populations.

* Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer & BASF seed sales & chemical sales

* Hershey, McDonalds, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Chipotle  refusing GMOs

* Cisgenics

* Bt Corn

* Pig digestion and GMOs

* Long time effects similar to smoking

* Roundup/Glyphosate & EPA review

* EPA & Toxic Substances Control Act not updated in 40 years

* Political leaders and who they placed in political positions from industry & then they return

* Pesticide and poisoning

* Oahu and milk contamination

* Agrochemicals killing birds

* Gluten Intolerance vs Roundup Intolerance

* Rise in kidney failure in agricultural workers and glyphosate exposure

* Chronic diseases (diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular & neurological) run parallel to increase of Glyphosate but again correlation

* Weeds like Amaranth becoming resistant to Glyphosate & stacking atrazine

*  Bias of companies doing their own research

* GMO similar to Big Oil & Big Tobacco

* North America 80% of food contains GMOs

* DARK act

* Allergies to Synthetic Insulin (My grandmother had cardiac arrest to it!)

* GRAS label to GMOs

* Loss of Bananas

* Epigenetics

* Objectivity in Science

* Who is on Journal Editorial Boars

* Obesogens...put on weight, regardless of their diet...Chemicals cause changes not just in exposed individuals, but in their offspring down at at least three generations

* Papaya Trees

* Paraquat

* Kaui farm workers sicken and others near the spraying? (63 active ingredients spraying 16 times a day, 2 out of 3  days during the year) 18 tons a year of 22 different restricted-use pesticides. No statewide program to test water, nearest EPA office 2K miles away in San Francisco

* Effects of Atrazine

* Michael Pollan NY Times Magazine "The Great Yellow Hype" on Golden Rice

* Paraguay's President stand & ousted funded by multinational food companies

* False claims Golden Rice saving eyesight of children in Asia

* StarLink

* Fertilizers causing Algae Booms in Gulf of Mexico

* Kernza

* Ethanol

* Plenish

* Organic/Community Gardens

* CRISPR and stem-cell in lab

* Food Wasted