The Future Of Food-Revisited

After 24 hours of absorbing The Future of Food, I'm still at a loss for words.  In my naivete, I thought GM=hybridized, more or less.  You know, I thought they just sort of tinkered around with the 'stuff' that was already present to create these crops resistant to blights, fungus, RoundUp, etc.  It never occurred to me that Monsanto (et al) was manipulating genetics by introducing bacteria, antibiotics,  viruses, foreign DNA.  That's insane.  Who the heck ARE these people?  And what the heck is wrong with bell peppers, rice and watermelons that they feel a need to tinker with them???  Oh, I'm sure I know the answer to that one:  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Dirty buggers.  Every single one of them.  Their mothers were hamsters and their fathers smelt of elderberries.  A little Monty Python humor there, just to cut the tension.

And yet, I'm so thankful for Monsanto and "The Future Of Food".  Everything I've read and learned in the past couple of days has been the impetus I needed to climb off the fence.  I was sort of wishy-washy before on GM foods and the perversion/adulteration/manipulation/bastardization of seed.   Now I see why it's a big deal and why everyone is up in arms about it.  Now, what to do about it?

Concentrating on the "Big 3", corn, soy and canola, I can start narrowing down the offenders.  We don't eat much corn in this household; some fine ears on the grill in the heat of summer is nice, but otherwise, we don't each much.  Ditto soy; we're not huge consumers of tofu or soy meat replacement, but soybean oil and soy lecithin seems to be everywhere and that's probably worse than tofu.  And canola oil.  And high fructose corn syrup.  Is there anything on the market that isn't doped with HFCS, soy lecithin or canola oil?  Hardly, I think.

So what's a mama to do?

-I went to the Mennonite store and stocked up.  On wheat, which thankfully isn't a GM product.  Not yet, at least.  On pasta.  On grains and beans.  On some fine Amish cheese. 

-A friend is working out the price for a cow, er, I mean a beef; a grass-fed, antibiotic-free beef. 

-A local farmer's market begins in 2 weeks, so with luck, I may be able to fill in the corners of our diet with finds from the market.

-And this year, our garden becomes top priority. OUR fruit isn't tinkered with. OUR veggies aren't manipulated. I can say without a doubt that my bell peppers don't have e.coli-ridden viruses swirling around in the DNA strands. We can trust OUR food is pure and clean and good and wholesome and that's not something we can say about THEIR food.

The most frustrating part of this whole experience is that we're not supposed to know how bad this stuff is for us.  Monsanto doesn't want us to know exactly what they've done to our food.  They don't want us to know what they've added to our corn, or what they've used to innoculate soy.  They're trying to hide the fact that they've been playing Frankenstein with our food for nearly 2 decades.  They hide research.  They hide damning results.  They hide the extent to which they bastardize our crops.  At least Frankenstein was recognizeable for what he was.

In the end, truth will out.