FEAR OF STRING BEANS

                                                             (from future archives)

Remember those simpler, innocent times, before the “Not In My Garden” movement (when it was already too late), when you could still say “Some of my best friends are root vegetables”? Before tomatoes had a temper? When cabbages had nothing to hide? When an onion could be trusted? Before the great genetic disaster fully empowered rutabagas? Back when you’d never think of using an uzi on potatoes?

 

Well, that was the old past. The authorities still assured us it was ok: "The tomato won’t hurt you, just don’t make any sudden moves." They told us not to be afraid, they assured us that horned zucchini weren’t dangerous, so long as you grabbed the right end; they told us we could eat foods with a few odd genes and safely glow in the dark, that we needn't worry about deformities in our children or mutations compounding in future generations, but those assurances always sounded Monsantoish to me. 

   

By the time I came of age it was still considered unnatural for an adult to be afraid of fanged string beans, but when as a child I got caught in the bean patch— no, I can't get into that, there's little time left...  

   

It’s been half a century since the first rogue DNA escaped into what they used to call the "wild"-- back then you could distinguish cultivated areas, and it was still safe to travel through most gardens, though I’m not sure how they did that. I think they used fences or something, but the sudden emergence of metal-devouring tyrannocorn caught us all by surprise, made short work of barriers. Not long after, the brontomelons began to roll over everything. 

   

I hope someone finds this note someday, if there's ever anyone left, so at least they'll know that vegetables weren't  always ruthless, that there was a time when fiber was passive, that we humans once had a stronghold at the top of the food chain...

    

Have to end here; a squadron of turnip drones has just spotted me; wish I didn't glow in the dark...

                                                 

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ELDERLY TOMATO

 

In re the aforegoing and as per the hereinafter, I should have mentioned that at this time of year our house itself is a cold frame. We stop heating at the beginning of March, if not earlier, as soon as we enter the single-sweater cusp, so the house becomes a big cold frame.

Aboriginally, plants of course lived their entire lives outdoors, in their natural environs. Market demand for specialized cultivars, however, has since rendered their derived produce so civilized, so coddled, so entitled, as it were, that modern varieties are becoming weaker and more vulnerable to even slight variations in their environment. 

Analogically speaking, their offspring are losing their ability to read and write cursive, and make a living for themselves in the real vegetable world. They need all the debilitating luxuries and medicaments, right away. And not to put too fine a point on it, if you cross them you don’t know what you’ll get. Is this the vegetable future we want for ourselves? Monsanto PR says a big YES!!! in giant yellow herbicidal letters sprayed across a vast industrial cornfield not far from your home, using what used to be called Agent Orange.  

But anciently honored vegetables have their own opinions.“Why, when I was still green,” says an elder sun-dried Roma tomato, “we learned to write mentally, with the figurative equivalent of a steel-tipped pen dipped in 100% tomato juice! We mastered the fine points of tomato grammar in seedling school! A second language was a budding requirement; I studied our original Nahuatl. Day after day we absorbed the ancient Endless Tomato Saga, continually reciting it from memory in absolute silence! That is not easy for a youngster.  

“Yes, we were born outdoors, lived outdoors, and you never enjoyed a better tomato. We were so proud... Those were the days... They were all real tomatoes back then, let me tell you; it was a great time for a young fellow to be alive. Why, look at what they have in the supermarkets now, no integrity at all-- cloned in labs, grown in greenhouses, even in soups of chemicals... 

“In the old days, though... Let me tell you about this beautiful Italian tomato I remember well... She was a beauty; you don’t forget curves like that, nosir-- Bella Toscana her name was, we grew very close, even hung around together... Strictly vine ripened, of course... They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to... Saucy as hell... What a dish... Why, even when we were still green, one time she and I...”

We tastefully leave the elderly tomato over in the gourmet section, musing to himself with a wistful smile, dreaming of a fading past, of beauties that once were, of glorious sauces and truly haute cuisine, when even ketchup was made only from the finest families of the land...

Now let’s see if we can still find any Heirloom vegetables...

ROGUE WHAT?

I've heard of rogue a lot of things, mainly elephants and traders, but rogue wheat? If a seed can be rogue, it must be from Monsanto, the reclusive corporate individual who brought agent orange to the dinner table, funds all the useful PACs and sends its execs to head the U.S. Dept of Agriculture under the pliable presidents, pretty much passing its own laws for the benefit of mankind. You might call it a rogue company.

*

"Asia curbs US imports of wheat after genetically modified sample found.

The discovery of rogue genetically modified wheat in a farmer's field in Oregon shook global confidence in the safety of America's food supply on Friday.

Billions in food exports were potentially at stake following the disclosure by the US Department of Agriculture of the existence of the GM wheat plants.

The GM variant, developed by the agricultural giant Monsanto, has never been approved for human consumption."            more...                   PLM rogue Monsanto page

A MODEST PROPOSAL

Come on, Monsanto, shine your light! There's no need to keep being voted the worst corporation in the world year after year! If GMOs are as wonderful for humanity as you've insisted dozens of times a day in courts around the world for the past 20 years or so, then stop going to court to keep the public from knowing that your patented wondergenes are already in their food and children! If GMOs are even half as great as you say, you should be fighting to label everything GMO! A GMO label should be a HUGE selling point, right Monsie? So get that love out there for everyone to share! Hey! Where'd everybody go? Why are my tomatoes glowing? What's happening to my hands?

Monsanto's Minions Attack CA's Right to Know About GMOs

Here’s my ongoing Monsanto links page, clear evidence that Monsanto is being illogically litigious and irrationally secretive...

COUPLE DOZEN THOUSAND MORE REASONS TO GROW YOUR OWN

Pesticide Residues in Food and Feed

Veterinary Drug Residues in Food

via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyLI8UVdTzQ   

(5 min)

(Love the way they gave it a Latin name resonant with "nutritional expertise")

and it's international!

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FOOD INC.

(Entire documentary)
(Effectively removes any remnant wool from eyes)

＋


GM Soy in animal food - Greetings from Monsanto

Short and to the point.

via: reddit

ABOUT THOSE FOLKS WITH THEIR GENES IN YOUR FOOD...

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Iraq's new patent law: A declaration of war against farmers

"When former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator L. Paul Bremer III left Baghdad after the so-called 'transfer of sovereignty' in June 2004, he left behind the 100 orders he enacted as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Among them is Order 81 on 'Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety.'"

Interesting, that Bremer brought such an odd and unwanted law with him right into Iraq, as though it had been prepared well before the sudden invasion...

They sure move fast, don't they...

Almost as if it were a military-industrial complex...

SORRY, WE'RE ALL OUT OF UNPATENTED HAM...

How about some fresh Monsanto bacon with those Monsanto eggs?
Part 1 of 5
(2, 3, 4, 5)

Folks who eat these probably don't mind...

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(w/thanks to Martin Frid)

World Summit on GMO-Free Diversity in Bonn (Germany), 12-16 May 2008:

"We, the participants of the 3rd Conference of GMO-Free Regions in Europe invite the farmers, gardeners and consumers of the world to celebrate the diversity of our seed and food and cultures and their freedom from GMOs, patents and corporate control... We call upon organisations, communities and institutions from around the world to join us in organising this event and to contribute to its program. Let us join forces for the freedom of seed and reproduction and the freedom from GMOs and patents on life. Let us also make our message be heard [by] the representatives of governments as well [all] the people of the world."

+

ARE YOU ROUNDUP READY?

"WE WILL WATCH THE CHILDREN OF THE UNITED STATES
FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS..."

---Japanese trade representative

Whoever controls the seed controls the food...

This film should be shown in every school
and every community hall around the world.

The choice is still ours...

from
The Future of Food

***

A bright spot: Monsanto - How Now Brown Cow? (with thanks to Annette)

I WONDER IF CAPITALISM WILL ALLOW THIS...

"The United States Government has been financing research on a genetic engineering technology which, when commercialized, will give its owners the power to control the food seed of entire nations or regions. The Government has been working quietly on this technology since 1983. Now, the little-known company that has been working in this genetic research with the Government’s US Department of Agriculture-- Delta & Pine Land-- is about to become part of the world’s largest supplier of patented genetically-modified seeds (GMO), Monsanto Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri."

Monsanto buys ‘Terminator’ Seeds Company

(read all about these quiet plans for the world's food future)

Here's one safeguard...

and another...

and another...

WORKING HARD FOR HUMANITY

While scanning Google news this morning I came across this newspaper headline: Avoiding Milk During Pregnancy Linked to Lower Birth Weight, with deeper down a few dozen more headlines on the subject, including these:

Milk's a must for mums-to-be
Avoiding milk 'leads to smaller babies'
Drinking too little milk 'can harm unborn baby'
Pregnant women 'need to drink milk'
Milk 'essential in pregnancy'
More Reasons For Pregnant Mothers To Drink Milk
Study: Pregnant Women Must Drink Plenty of Milk
Pregnant women who drink less milk risk low birth weight babies
Limiting milk can hamper Babies’ Growth

Only one headline had gotten the elemental fact of the matter right: Vit D linked to baby birth weight. Simply that. Seems more and more like the dead-tree media, under threat from bloggers and the internet in general, are increasingly resorting to scary tabloid-type headlines, much as the dairy industry is resorting to recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).

Vitamin D intake was the key point to the story, not milk. So why all the emphasis on milk? In Canada (where the study was done), milk is fortified with vitamin D, but there are plenty of other sources of that vitamin, none mentioned in these articles. Milk of any kind is fundamentally an unnatural food for adults, to say nothing of cow's milk for pregnant humans and their babies...

So I wondered why all the scare headlines: why all this obvious pushing of milk on a trusting (?) audience? How unbiased was this study, anyway? So I went to the study itself and waaay at the very bottom was this statement: "Funding sources for our study included the Dairy Farmers of Canada..."

Oh.

Oddly, in all this deeply heartfelt journalistic concern for mothers and their infants, none of the news articles mentioned a study on, say, bi-weekly shots of rBGH, or the use of other hormones and antibiotics to keep cows alive and producing, not a word on Monsanto (which means 'Sacred Mountain,' ironically), sewage sludge in cow feed, or all the many other detrimental aspects of milk; nor did they refer to non-organic milk. Let alone the famous Milk Letter.

STUDY SAYS MILK NOT GOOD FOR YOU; U.S. NATIONAL DAIRY COUNCIL HAS A HISSY FIT

Hissy excerpt: "When it comes to nutrition, people should listen to health and nutrition experts, not animal rights activists."

Full statement [Warning: as biased as the National Dairy Council]

Perhaps not so oddly, the NDC statement failed to mention the many drugs dairy cows (and their milk drinkers) receive, such as Chloramphenicol, Clorsulon, Ivermectin and Thiabendazole, Penicillin, Erythromycin, Streptomycin, Tetracycline, a class of sulfa drugs called sulfonamides, to name a few, not to mention growth hormones like rBGH...

What is rBGH, you ask?

"Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone is a genetically engineered copy of a naturally occurring hormone produced by cows. Manufactured by Monsanto Company, the drug is sold to dairy farmers under the name POSILAC, though you'll also find it called BGH, rBGH, BST and rBST. When rBGH gets injected into dairy cows, milk production increases by as much as 10-15%. The use of rBGH on dairy cows was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in late 1993 and has been in use since 1994. " From Shirley's Wellness Cafe

Early puberty, anyone?

One also gets the feeling that maybe the NDC hasn't read Milk:The Deadly Poison

"Once upon a time, milk was teeming with life forces. Today, supermarket milk is a brew of hormones, chemicals, DDT, fungicides, defoliants and radioactive fallout, produced by artificially inseminated creatures forced to stand around in muddy feed lots all day long."

Or visited tuberose:

"Milk fat contains high concentrations of toxins, which accumulate from the pesticides, chemical fertilizers and antibiotics, tranquilizers and other drugs that are applied to the bushels of grains that the cattle are fed, and that are injected into them... The Wall Street Journal published a front-page story detailing the results of two independent milk surveys. One survey sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), found drug residues in 38% of milk samples. The other survey, sponsored by the journal itself, found drug residues in 38% of milk samples purchased in 10 major cities.

A 1988 staff memorandum from the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine listed 30 unapproved drugs believed to be used by milk producers. Sixteen of those drugs are being used extensively in dairy cows, on an extra-label basis.

Milk is a causative factor in most health problems plaguing Americans consuming the Basic American Diet. The drinking of cow milk has been linked to iron-deficiency anemia in infants and children; it has been named as the cause of multiple forms of allergies and plays a central role in the origins of atherosclerosis and heart attacks. Cow milk is linked with recurrent ear infections and bronchitis, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and simple dental decay. Milk is a carrier of radioactive substances. Dairy products are major contributors of saturated fat and cholesterol to the diet. According to cardiologist Dean Ornish, M.D., 'Milk rates second only to beef as the largest source of saturated fat in the American diet.' The greatest instigator of calcium loss, it turns out, is a high-protein diet."

SEED SUICIDE: HOW UNNATURAL CAN WE GET?

"Consumer, farmer, and environmental organizations across the globe are mobilizing to stop the legalization and commercialization of the controversial Terminator Gene Technology, whereby seeds are genetically engineered to become sterile or commit suicide after one growing season.

The Monsanto corporation and the biotech industry support the Terminator Technology, because it will force many of the 1.4 billion farmers around the world to stop saving their seeds and instead to purchase patented seed varieties from the Gene Giants. In addition, scientists are concerned that genetic pollution from Terminator crops will lead to killing off a wide range of crops and plants, as Terminator pollen and seeds are spread by the wind, insect pollinators, and commercial seed co-mingling and transportation.

After a massive international campaign in 1998, Monsanto Corporation announced they were shelving plans to commercialize the Terminator, while the United Nations (UN) called for a global ban. But today (2/11/2005), renewed efforts to overturn the worldwide ban were launched at a UN conference in Bangkok."

Learn more and sign OCA's petition to the UN to terminate the Terminator Gene

OCA home page

HORMONE PROBLEMS, ANYONE?

Agricultural biotech giant Monsanto has sued Oakhurst Dairy, a small dairy in Maine, saying Oakhurst's label ("Our farmers' pledge: no artificial growth hormones.") implies that the dairy's milk is somehow better than milk from cows treated with recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST, a hormone sold by the company under the brand name Posilac.

All the kids say a glass of recombinant bovine somatotropin goes down pretty good, with some cookies. About 17 percent of dairy farmers use rBST, injecting 32 percent of all cows in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If you find yourself suddenly mooing now and then, this may be the cause.

The hormone is made of an isolated gene from the growth hormone that cows produce when they lactate. Injections of the product make cows lactate longer and produce more milk. Most cows injected with rBST produce about 25 percent more milk than they would normally. Then it's passed on to the kids with the cookies.

[Dec 21 addendum: Further jaw-dropping info on all this and unappetizingly more, particularly as it pertains to UK and EU, at Vegan Society; thanks to Colin for the link.]