Now GMO Fries? U.S.D.A. Approves Genetically Modified Potato.

Now GMO Fries? U.S.D.A. Approves Genetically Modified Potato. (NYTimes).

A potato genetically engineered to reduce the amounts of a potentially harmful ingredient in French fries and potato chips has been approved for commercial planting, the Department of Agriculture announced on Friday.

The potato’s DNA has been altered so that less of a chemical called acrylamide, which is suspected of causing cancer in people, is produced when the potato is fried.

The new potato also resists bruising, a characteristic long sought by potato growers and processors for financial reasons. Potatoes bruised during harvesting, shipping or storage can lose value or become unusable.

The biotech tubers were developed by the J. R. Simplot Company, a privately held company based in Boise, Idaho, which was the initial supplier of frozen French fries to McDonald’s in the 1960s and is still a major supplier. The company’s founder, Mr. Simplot, who died in 2008, became a billionaire.


The potato is one of a new wave of genetically modified crops that aim to provide benefits to consumers, not just to farmers as the widely grown biotech crops like herbicide-tolerant soybeans and corn do. The nonbruising aspect of the potato is similar to that of genetically engineered nonbrowning apples, developed by Okanagan Specialty Fruits, which are awaiting regulatory approval.Read the full story here.

Japan Cancels U.S. Wheat Order on GMO Fear.

Japan Cancels U.S. Wheat Order on GMO Fear.

SINGAPORE/TOKYO, May 30 (Reuters)By Naveen Thukral and Risa Maeda.  - A strain of genetically modified wheat found in the United States fuelled concerns over food supplies across Asia on Thursday, with major importer Japan cancelling a tender offer to buy U.S. grain.

Other top Asian wheat importers South Korea, China and the Philippines said they were closely monitoring the situation after the U.S. government found genetically engineered wheat sprouting on a farm in the state of Oregon.

The strain was never approved for sale or consumption.

Asian consumers are keenly sensitive to gene-altered food, with few countries allowing imports of such cereals for human consumption. However, most of the corn and soybean shipped from the U.S. and South America for animal feed is genetically modified.

"We will refrain from buying western white and feed wheat effective today," Toru Hisadome, a Japanese farm ministry official in charge of wheat trading, told Reuters.

An agriculture ministry source in South Korea said the government is reviewing the discovery, adding the country thoroughly inspects products from the United States as part of safety checks.

"I won't be surprised if other countries start cancelling or reducing their purchases of U.S. wheat, particularly Asian countries, putting pressure on wheat demand," said Joyce Liu, an investment analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.Read the full story here.

Related: Monsanto Modified Wheat Not Approved by USDA in Field

Discovery of Monsanto GMO wheat threatens US exports

Video - Ezra Levant: "The truth about golden rice."

The skeptical environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg, tells Ezra the truth about Golden Rice .

Video - GMO, Global Alert .Warning contains graphic images.

Video - GMO, Global Alert .Warning contains graphic images. (PA).As you will see in the video above, the results collected during a study that focused on determining the potential harm done to animals and humans from consuming GMO corn NK603 are worthy of the outrage and concern we are finally witnessing on a mass scale. The most telling discovery is that rats fed GMO had a 600% increase in death over the control group. Experts across the spectrum have weighed in to discuss these shocking findings. Equally disturbing are the findings surrounding the world’s leading herbicide, Roundup. It is a combination that now can be conclusively called pure poison.More information http://www.gmo-global-alert.net.

‘Monsanto Protection Act’ to grant biotech industry total immunity over GM crops?

‘Monsanto Protection Act’ to grant biotech industry total immunity over GM crops? (NN).While millions of Americans were busy celebrating freedom from tyranny during the recent Independence Day festivities, Monsanto was actively trying to thwart that freedom with new attacks on health freedom. It turns out that the most evil corporation in the world has quietly attached riders to both the 2012 Farm Bill and the 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill that would essentially force the federal government to approve GMOs at the request of biotechnology companies, and prohibit all safety reviews of GMOs from having any real impact on the GMO approval process.

The Alliance for Natural Health – USA (ANH-USA), the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), and several other health freedom advocacy groups have been actively drawing attention to these stealth attacks in recent days, and urging Americans to rise up and oppose them now before it is too late. If we fail to act now as a single, unified community devoted to health freedom, in other words, America’s agricultural future could literally end up being controlled entirely by the biotech industry, which will have full immunity from the law.
You can fight back now against these threats to food freedom by visiting:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_25711.cfm
Full exemption from the law for the biotech industry
Authored by Congressmen and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Related Agencies Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), the 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill rider, known as the “farmer assurance provision” (Section 733), specifically outlines that the Secretary of Agriculture will be required, upon request, to “immediately” grant temporary approval or deregulation of a GM crop, even if that crop’s safety is in question or under review.
In other words, if the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is strong-armed into approving a new GM crop that is later legally challenged in court (which is basically what happened for GM sugar beets and GM alfalfa), the Secretary of Agriculture, under the provisions of the Kingston rider, will be required to approve the cultivation and sale of that crop anyway, even if a higher court has already ordered a moratorium on that crop.
“A so-called ‘Monsanto rider,’ quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, would require — not just allow, but require — the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is completed,” wrote Alexis Baden-Mayer and Ronnie Cummins in a recent piece for AlterNet.
“All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation’s food supply.”
You can read the rider for yourself, which begins on page 86, Sec. 733 of the following document:
http://appropriations.house.gov
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Or.) introduces amendment to kill ‘Monsanto Protection Act’
According to the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations website, the 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, with the Kingston rider, was already approved by the committee on June 19. (http://appropriations.house.gov) But it will move next to the House floor, where debate and further amendment proposals will take place — this means there is still time to fight it.
One amendment being proposed by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Or.) seeks to altogether eliminate the Kingston rider, which has now been dubbed by the health freedom community as the Monsanto Protection Act, from the 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill. You can urge your Congressmen to support Rep. DeFazio’s amendment to kill the Monsanto Protection Act by emailing (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_25711.cfm) or calling (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_25778.cfm) them.
Committee Farm Bill riders would destroy safeguards that protect farmers, environment from untested GMOs
Another serious food freedom threat exists in the House Agriculture Committee’s discussion draft of the contentious 2012 Farm Bill, where Monsanto et al. have inserted key language, via corrupt legislators of course, that will dismantle existing federal law as it pertains to regulating GM crops, and replace it with a free-for-all system where biotech giants are basically free to grow and market whatever GMOs they please without resistance or legal challenge.
“Deliberately buried in the House Agriculture Committee’s voluminous discussion draft of the 2012 Farm Bill, these significant changes to the Plant Protection Act (PPA) — one of the few statutes that regulate GE crops — will counter the gains that have been made to protect our food supply and the farmers who grow it,” writes Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety (CFS), one of the key groups fighting back against this Monsanto sneak attack.
“The provisions (Sections 10011, 10013 and 10014) would force the rushed commercialization of GE crops, create a backdoor approval for Dow’s ‘Agent Orange’ corn and eliminate any meaningful review of the impacts of these novel crops” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com).
These provisions would explicitly outlaw any review of the environmental or human impacts of GM crops under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), or any other environmental laws as well. Only the USDA would be allowed to review the safety of GM crops, and this review process would be so severely neutered that the USDA would essentially operate as a formal “rubber stamp” for approving the biotech industry’s offerings.
Both sets of riders threaten to eliminate every remaining semblance of regulatory power that “We the People” have over our own food system. If passed, these riders will abolish virtually all remaining protections over the American food supply, and allow Monsanto and the rest of Big Ag to completely control what is grown, and how it is grown.
There is still time to fight back against these heinous threats to food freedom, but swift action is necessary to stop Congress from hammering the last few nails into the coffin of American food freedom.
Be sure to contact your Congressmen right now and demand their support for Rep. Peter DeFazio’s amendment to eliminate the Monsanto rider from the 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, as well as their opposition to Sections 10011, 10013 and 10014 of the 2012 Farm Bill:
(http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_25711.cfm)
Sources for this article include:
http://www.anh-usa.org/urgent-action-alert-on-two-gmo-amendments/
http://www.alternet.org
http://rt.com/usa/news/monsanto-bill-immunity-court-862/
http://fooddemocracynow.org

Activist Outrage Causes Major Supermarkets to Drop 'Pink Slime' Meat

Activist Outrage Causes Major Supermarkets to Drop 'Pink Slime' Meat.(AP).We have been reporting on the staggering amount of "pink slime" used in the U.S. food industry over the last few months. Pink slime is a meat filler made from "ammoniated boneless lean beef trimmings or similar products, which are considered unfit for human consumption until ammonia has been added.”

In early March, it was reported by ABC that a shocking 70% of ground beef at supermarkets contained this pink slime. Since this disgusting food additive has been exposed, natural health activists rallied to demand its removal from McDonald's and school lunches. Now major grocery chains are falling to the pressure of activism.

First McDonald's was forced to stop ammonia-soaked pink slime in their beef after a campaign led by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver raised awareness of McDonald's use of the meat filler.

Next, activists targeted pink slime in school lunch programs forcing the USDA to cave in and permit schools to opt out of using this tainted meat in public school lunches.

Just yesterday, Safeway, SUPERVALU and Food Lion announced they will no longer carry what the beef glued together with "pink slime" fillers.

"While the USDA and food industry experts agree that lean, finely textured beef is safe and wholesome, recent news stories have caused considerable consumer concern about this product. Safeway will no longer purchase ground beef containing lean, finely textured beef," Safeway said in a statement.

In addition to these large food retailers, Walmart also announced they will offer ground beef without pink slime, though they declined to remove all the beef that contained lean finely textured beef (LFTB).

"Recently some customers have expressed concerns with lean finely textured beef (LFTB) and, while the USDA and experts agree that it is safe and nutritious, Walmart and Sam's Club will begin offering fresh ground beef that does not contain LFTB," Walmart said.

These recent actions prove that when the public is informed about what they're consuming they will demand healthier products. It should be noted that once this story broke into the mainstream, it took less than one month for the public outcry to reach enough critical mass to affect change. And it proved that even large conglomerates will quickly change their policies when enough people demand it.

The story of pink slime was echoed by the alternative media long before it was picked up by mainstream news outlets, much like the story of meat glue going mainstream. We can also see this happening with GMO foods where activism is exposing the health dangers and forcing lawmakers to support GMO labeling.Hmmmm................Read the full story here.

Scientists Warn EPA Over Monsanto’s GMO Crop Failures, Dangers.

Scientists Warn EPA Over Monsanto’s GMO Crop Failures, Dangers.A group of scientists is calling for major federal action in order to deal with the threat posed by Monsanto’s GMO crops, now petitioning the EPA to address the issue head on. The group of 22 academic corn experts are drawing attention to the immense failure of Monsanto’s genetically modified corn, which is developing mutated and resistant insects as a result of its widespread usage.
Corn is critical not only as a food staple, but is heavily used in ethanol production, animal feed, and much more. As GM corn becomes the norm, currently taking over 94 percent of the supply, these scientists are seriously concerned about the future of corn production.
Joseph Spencer is one outspoken member of the group, a corn entomologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, part of the University of Illinois. Spencer states that what is happening is no surprise, instead it is something that needs to be addressed. Warning the EPA over the dangers, the experts sent a letter on March 5th to the agency explaining their worries regarding long-term corn production prospects in light of GMO crops failures. Specifically, the experts are worried about the lack of protection presented by GMO crops against rootworms.
The EPA has already acknowledged that Monsanto’s GMO crops are creating resistant rootworms, which are now ravaging the GMO crops as they mutate to the biopesticide used known as Bacillus thuringiensis (BT). The EPA found that the resistant rootworms, which are evolving to resist the insecticide, are currently found Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska. After the EPA evaluated documented cases of severe crop damage as well as reports from entomologists, the EPA stated “Monsanto’s program for monitoring suspected cases of resistance is ‘inadequate’”.
Essentially, the GMO crops are doing the opposite of their supposed purpose — leading to more damage from rootworms as they become mutated to resist the defense of the crops. And Monsanto has answered by simply further genetically modifying the Bt, which research shows is extremely ineffective.
“When insecticides overlay transgenic technology, the economic and environmental advantages of rootworm-protected corn quickly disappear,” the scientists wrote.
It’s time for the EPA and other agencies to address the serious threats to nature and human health presented by Monsanto’s genetically modified creations.Hmmmm............Mother nature still 'outsmarts' the apprentice wizards.Read the full story here.

China Rejects Genetically Modified Rice in Opposition to GMO Crops

China Rejects Genetically Modified Rice in Opposition to GMO Crops.(AcP).
By Andre Evans.As awareness of genetically modified food and the dangers associated increase, actions are being taken to eliminate the issue entirely.
With countries destroying their GMO crops, scientists showing the facts, and individuals voicing their discontent on the matter, there is a large and growing contingent across countries that are taking action to preserve the integrity of our food supply. China is the latest nation to take a stand against GMO crops.China recently suspended the distribution of genetically modified rice within its commercial food supplies.
Rice, being perhaps the most common and prominently used food within Chinese diet makes its safety and reliability very significant. Acting as a staple food for over 1.3 billion Chinese people, any compromise to the integrity of their food supply should be accordingly assessed and acted against based upon the interests of the population.This action helps to preserve the sovereignty and safety of their food supply, something that largely must still be addressed in our own country.
The United States GMO foods are not only accepted by loose regulation standards, but are not even labeled appropriately.
The dangers of GMO foods are so great that they are still not — and may never be — fully assessable. With a large number of documented negative effects on its consumers, GMO foods are a highly dangerous threat to individual health alone.If this weren’t enough, genetically engineered crops actually threaten the integrity of the food supply altogether by devastating the environment with powerful superweeds and mutant bugs. The nature of genetic engineering is so volatile that unless properly handled, the integrity of the entire world food supply could be ruined.
As such, any form of action that a government takes to prevent or eliminate GMOs from the equation is significant. Reassessing the nature and scale of the threat in light of new evidence should compel even more action in even more locations around the world.Read the full story here.