Showing posts with label genetically modified food. Show all posts

Saturday, 9 April 2016

Your Food, Thoroughly Poisoned: Glyphosate Ruining Your Gut and Triggering Autoimmune Diseases

Your Food, Thoroughly Poisoned

Glyphosate Ruining Your Gut and Triggering Autoimmune Diseases

http://www.investigatorsreport.com/images/article-images/images-4-2015/Dees_GMOs.jpg

What use is any government that allows its citizens to be poisoned by megarich private corporations?

by Dr. Jill Carnahan

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the popular herbicide, Roundup. Glyphosate toxicity is a big deal and what you don’t know just might kill you! Many people routinely spray their lawns with this chemical totally unaware of the toxicity. In the United States, farmers are applying ever increasing amounts to their crops before harvest. According the the World Health Organization, glyphosate is now declared a “probable carcinogen” which means it may cause cancer.

The industry still asserts that it is totally safe for humans, however, one only needs to look at the data to know that is not true. Ignorance may be bliss but I believe we may be on the verge of one of the most toxic man made environmental disasters in history… and unfortunately this chemical is persistent in both the environment and the human body and it is not easy to clean up. France’s highest court found Monsanto guilty of lying as far back as 2008 about the toxicity of its popular weedkiller, Roundup. “The court confirmed an earlier judgment that Monsanto had falsely advertised its herbicide as “biodegradable” and claimed it “left the soil clean” (Read more here)

According to an Article in Nature published March 24, 2015:

Glyphosate is the world’s most widely produced herbicide, by volume. It is used extensively in agriculture and is also found in garden products in many countries. The chemical is an ingredient in Monsanto’s weedkiller product Roundup, and glyphosate has become more popular with the increasing market share of crops that are genetically engineered to be tolerant to the herbicide.

California recently became the first state to issue plans to list glyphosate as a chemical known to cause cancer according to EcoWatch. This is big news and we need to pay attention. The use of glyphosate has nearly doubled from 95 million pounds in 2001 to nearly 185million pounds in 2007, according to the latest released report form the EPA and who knows how much it’s increased sine 2007! This is likely in part due to the increase usage of Round-up Ready genetically modified crops during that same time period.

Dr. Anthony Samsel and Dr. Stephanie Seneff state in their recent article published August 2015:

Glyphosate has a large number of tumorigenic [cancer-causing] effects on biological systems, including direct damage to DNA in sensitive cells, disruption of glycine homeostasis, succinate dehydrogenase inhibition, chelation of [minerals such as]manganese, modification to more carcinogenic molecules, such as N-nitrosoglyphosate and glyoxylate, disruption of fructose metabolism, etc…

Sadly epidemiological evidence supports a strong correlation between the dramatic rise in use of glyphosate on crops and the multitude of cancers reaching epidemic proportions, such as breast, pancreatic, kidney, thyroid, bladder, and liver cancers.

In perhaps the most ironic twist of all, glyphosate has proven highly toxic to the basic phase one detoxification of the liver, the cytochrome pathways. I find it incredibly alarming that one of the most toxic chemicals known to mankind also exerts it’s influence by impairing human detoxification. Did you get that!? A toxic chemical that makes is harder to detox… what nonsense!

Here is an excerpt from Entropy 2013, Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 enzymes and amino acid biosynthesis by the gut microbe:

Glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body.

Glyphosate-Ruining-Your-Gut-And-Triggering-Autoimmune

Glyphosate may trigger autoimmunity, such as celiac disease by the following mechanisms:

Spraying of wheat before harvest with glyphosate, a common practice in North America allows for a large exposure to glyphosate in wheat.
Wheat may be the most common ingredient in processed foods.
Glyphosate also damages the microvilli in gut reducing ability to absorb vitamins and minerals
Wheat contains gliadin, which is difficult for genetically susceptible individuals to break down.
Glyphosate may attach to the gliadin as a consequence of a chemical interaction between the chemical make it even harder to break down this large protein molecule.
It may not be recognized by the body or able to be broken down, making even more likely to induce an immunological response in susceptible individuals, contributing to development of celiac disease

In addition to celiac disease, researchers now believe that glyphosate may be linked to the following diseases:

1. Autism

2. Autoimmune diseases

3. Cancer

4. Parkinson’s

5. Alzheimer’s disease

6. Inflammatory bowel diseases (Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis)

7. Cardiovascular disease

8. Depression

9. Infertility

Glyphosate is also toxic to our gut microbiome

Glyphosate is toxic to many of our benetifical gut microbes. It may preferentially kill off species, like lactobacillus while leaving potential pathogens, like clostridia to run wild. Glyphosate also chelates essential minerals, such as manganese, iron, cobalt, molybdenum, and copper so that the gut microbes do not have access to them. This leads to chronic inflammatory states in the gut as well as increased intestinal permeability, a mechanism at the core of many chronic illnesses, including inflammatory bowel disease, depression, and autoimmunity.

If you are eating processed food, you are eating glyphosate…

Residues of glyphosate are commonly found in the most common foods in the American Diet, including

1. Corn

2. Soy

3. Sugar Beets (sugar)

4. Canola

5. Cotton (not food but in clothing, sanitary napkins and many products we use daily)

Nearly one billion pounds of glyphosate are doused on both conventional and genetically modified crops world-wide each year but GMO crops receive the largest amounts. Processed foods undoubtable expose you to this toxic contamination, courtesy of wheat, corn, soy and the vegetable oil used. And the meats from conventionally raised animals in confined feed lots are given fed that most likely contains glyphosate-laden corn and soy.

And finally… it gets personal

You may know that I grew up on a farm in Central Illinois. My Dad and brothers still farm corn and soybeans there and I couldn’t be more proud that they have recently switched over to non-GMO versions of these crops. My brothers have started a few fields of organic crops as well. Due to my own history of breast cancer and Crohn’s disease, I have followed a 100% organic diet for at least the past 10-15 years.

Recently I realized just how pervasive this glyphosate exposure is in our environment when I sent out my urine to test my own glyphosate level. I was shocked to get the results back (below) showing that my level was higher than the “Farmer” study, which tested farm workers on application day! This made me realize how pervasive this dangerous chemical is in our environment and how important it is to remain vigilant to decrease exposure and work to get it banned. I am currently working hard on detoxing this chemical from my body and will keep you posted when I do repeat testing.

Dr. Jill glyphosate levels

Ok, so what can I do about it?!

The most important thing to realize is that you cannot wash glyphosate off food since it is incorporated into each cell of plant.

Here are some tips to keep your diet free of glyphosate:

Only way to 100% eliminate from your diet is to avoid conventionally grown and processed foods
Glyphosate accumulates in animal tissues, so make sure your meat was not fed GMO grains and your butter and dairy is organic
Switch over to a 100% organic diet
Take activated charcoal or rice bran powder in aiding elimination of organophosphates and glyphosate after exposure
Maintain adequate mineral status by taking a multi-mineral supplement that includes trace minerals
Support glutathione production with N-acetylcysteine, glycine and glutamine or oral liposomal glutathione
Support phase 1 and phase 2 liver detoxification by avoiding alcohol and taking liver support, like silymarin, lipoid acid
It is much harder to reverse damage once it’s done, so best to avoid glyphosate from the start—especially in children!

So go to it… It’s worth every penny to grown your own food or buy organic and begin to detox your body of this dangerous chemical!

From Thyroid Nation @ http://thyroidnation.com/glyphosate-ruining-your-gut-triggering-autoimmune/

Poisoned Fields – Glyphosate, the underrated risk?

For more information about Roundup see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/roundup

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Thursday, 4 February 2016

'Seeds of Change': The Seed Saving Movement

'Seeds of Change':

The Seed Saving Movement

Food Forward,episode 3: “Seeds of Change” - Seed Saving from ami capen on Vimeo.

Watch the full Seeds of Change on PBS. See more from FOOD FORWARD

By Dr. Mercola

Seeds are essential to maintain future food supplies. They are the foundation of life, from fruits and vegetables to grain and livestock feed — without them, we have no food. It's estimated that upwards of 90 percent of our caloric intake comes from seeds, directly or indirectly.

Seeds represent hope and new beginnings. When you save seeds, you're joining a lineage of farmers, gardeners and seed enthusiasts that dates back to the Stone Age — our civilization arose, in large part, due to seed saving.

Early humans selected the best wild plants with which to feed themselves, passing those varieties along to others by saving and sharing seeds.

Sadly, age-old heirloom varieties are disappearing at an alarming rate — 90 percent of the crop varieties grown 100 years ago are already gone. The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 plant species are in danger of extinction.¹

In response to these snowballing losses, a movement to save seeds is sweeping the nation.

The PBS documentary "Seeds of Change" features seed savers who are pursuing grassroots alternatives to GMOs and to industrialized agricultural practices that threaten our health and the health of the planet.

The Disastrous Consequences of Patenting Life

Traditionally, seeds have been saved and shared between farmers from one season to the next. Farmers rarely ever had to buy new seed. Nature, when left alone, provides you with the means to propagate the next harvest in a never-ending cycle.

Today, valuable heirlooms have been replaced by massive expanses of genetically engineered (GE) crops. According to the USDA, 94 percent of U.S. soy and 88 percent of U.S. corn are now genetically engineered.

It's estimated that, since 1970, 20,000 seed companies have been swallowed up by mega-corporations. In 2005, Monsanto bought the world's largest fruit and vegetable seed company, Seminis, for $1.4 billion.

Just four agrichemical companies now own 43 percent of the world's commercial seed supply, and 10 multinational corporations hold 65 percent of global commercial seed for major crops.²

Many farmers are now dependent on patented GE seeds and must buy them every year from companies like Monsanto. Saving such seeds is illegal because it's considered patent infringement.

Farmers don't buy the seed outright anymore — they essentially buy a license to use the seed for a short period of time — typically one season. It's more of a lease, or a "technology use agreement."

For 200 years, the patenting of life was prohibited, especially with respect to foods. But in 1978, all of that changed with the first patent of a living organism, an oil-eating microbe, which opened the proverbial floodgates. One of Monsanto's proxies has a patent claiming 463,173 separate plant genes!

Patenting of life was never approved by Congress or the American public, but as far as the GMO industry is concerned, they own a gene wherever it ends up and however it gets there.

You have undoubtedly heard the argument that GE foods are the only way to feed the world (which is, by the way, completely false). What is often not mentioned in that argument, however, is the inequality of the playing fields.

According to the featured documentary, in one three-year period alone, public funding for the development of GE versus organic crops was 70 to one!

Every Day, Your Food Choices Become Increasingly Limited

Over the course of 80 years (between 1903 and 1983), we lost 93 percent of the variety in our food seeds. According to Rural Advancement Foundation International:³

We went from 497 varieties of lettuce to 36

We went from 288 varieties of beets to 17

We went from 307 varieties of sweet corn to 12

Even the popular heirloom tomato has taken an enormous hit, having lost at least 80 percent of its diversity over the last century. Even more tragic is the fact that many of these precious plants are being replaced by patented GE varieties.

The National Geographic infographic below shows how many varieties of fruits and vegetables appear to be nearing extinction.⁴ This data is already more than 30 years old, so the statistics may be even grimmer today.

Five Important Reasons to Save Seeds

There are many advantages of saving seeds, but four of the most important are the following:⁵

1. Seed Security: By saving your seeds, you control your seed and therefore your food supply — you aren't depending on seed stores or catalogs for difficult to find seed.

Hundreds of excellent plant varieties have been discontinued as big corporations have consolidated the seed industry and focused on more profitable varieties. Half of the vegetables grown today have no commercial sources — they must be obtained through seed trades.⁶

2. Regional Adaptation: Most commercially available seed has been selected because it performs fairly well across the entire country if given synthetic fertilizers. But when you save seed from your own best performing plants, on your land and in your own ecosystem, you gradually develop varieties better adapted to your soil, climate, and growing conditions.

3. Consistent Quality: Large seed suppliers rarely "rogue" the fields to pull out inferior or off-type plants, so the open-pollinated (OP) seeds they sell have inferior specimens in the mix.

You can select your own seed for uniformity and quality. You can control the gene pool for optimal germination, ripening time, flavor, storage, disease resistance, color, or other traits. After a few seasons, more and more of your plants will have all of your personally selected traits.

4. Better Nutrition: Consuming a wide variety of fresh, whole foods prevents nutritional deficiencies and increases your overall nutrition by exposing you to a broader range of nutrients. Loss of food diversity compromises your health by narrowing your food choices.

5. Preserving Your Heritage and Biodiversity: Today multinational corporations select seed varieties according to their own financial interests; they control 82 percent of the world's seed market, which includes 75 percent of the vegetable seed market. It's up to small farmers and home gardeners to preserve thousands of years of biodiversity.

How Seed Libraries Preserve and Improve Seed Quality

The basic operational principle of any library is that you borrow something and later return it. Many seed libraries work on a slightly different principle: the seeds are returned slightly improved or not at all. The program established by the seed library at Hampshire College is a good example.⁷ They will loan you packets of seed only if you promise to plant them, and you're allowed to return them only if you managed to grow thriving plants.

This means there's a good chance the seeds you borrow will never be returned, and they'll have different DNA, as the result of natural mutations. Unfortunately, these stipulations mean the number of seeds returned can be very low. For example, after one season at the Concord Seed Lending Library, only five out of 270 people returned their seed.

Besides functioning as a "lending library," seed banks have another important mission: archiving and preserving knowledge. Seeds in libraries are largely locked away, not reproducing but rather sitting in a drawer waiting for the next plant scientist to retrieve them for study. According to The Boston Globe:⁸

"The mission of cataloging and saving seeds has fallen mainly to big seed banks and academic researchers. There are 7.4 million seed samples conserved in professionally managed seed vaults worldwide; the biggest — the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, on an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean — holds seeds for more than 770,000 distinct plants."

The fact that seed libraries like Hampshire College are actually getting those plants into circulation is a vital part of promoting diversity and creating new and superior strains. According to Stephen Brush, a master adviser for international agricultural development at the University of California, Davis: "The more seeds you can get out in the field, the broader the base of conservation. In a gene bank, evolution is frozen, there's no more natural crossing."

Not long ago, there were only a handful of seed banks scattered around the U.S. Now there are more than 200, typically housed in public seed libraries, but also attached to farms, greenhouses and other local facilities. Going forward, seed libraries will continue to fulfill important roles in preserving and often improving local plant strains and allowing communities to refine seed lines tailored to their regions. The more seeds are exchanged and grown, the better the seeds will become.

The World's Greatest Seed Vaults

The world's greatest seed vaults ⁹ are hidden away in some amazing places, a type of "apocalyptic insurance policy." If the world were to fall victim to a serious environmental disaster — particularly one of global proportions — our survival could depend on seed vaults.

Some are placed in remote locations, far from civilization and seismic zones in some the coldest regions of the globe, as seeds here would have the best chance of survival in the event of total power failure. And most are the pinnacle of security.

A prime example is Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. Tucked away on a frigid island near the North Pole, Svalbard is described as "the mother of all seed vaults," serving as backup for 1,750 seed banks all over the world. Currently, approximately 840,000 samples (4,000 plant species) are preserved in Svalbard, but the facility has the capacity to store 4.5 million samples!

If other seed collections are damaged or lost in a global crisis, the Svalbard vault is the place we'll go to begin rebuilding the earth's vegetation. A great deal of thought and planning went into its construction:¹⁰

"The vault is set nearly 400 feet into a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen Island. Although no permanent staff are assigned to guard the vault, the structure has an impressive security system that would foil even the most nefarious of seed stealers.

When an organization deposits seeds, only they are able to access the boxes containing those seeds; the organizations retain ownership, making Svalbard simply a storage and preservation facility for the good of the planet."

Image source: weburbanist.com

Other impressive seed vaults include England's Millennium Seed Bank, which houses between 60,000 and 100,000 endangered plant species — an impressive one-fourth of all of Earth's plants — and the Australian PlantBank, which now houses a staggering 100 million seeds.

In South America, Camino Verde Living Seed Bank has a special mission to preserve medicinal and otherwise useful trees. There's even a World Vegetable Center, housed in Taiwan, dedicated to improving nutrition and eliminating hunger worldwide. For more information on these vaults and others, this article in Web Urbanist is truly amazing.¹¹

Why Choose Open-Pollinated and Heirloom Seeds Over Hybrids?

As a gardener, one of your more important decisions is whether to choose open-pollinated, hybrid, or heirloom seed varieties — but which are best? According to Seed Savers,¹² for seed saving purposes, the most significant distinction among these types is saving true-to-type seed from open-pollinated and heirloom varieties, and avoiding hybrids. Open-pollination seeds are pollinated by insects, birds, humans, wind or other natural mechanisms.

According to Seed Savers:¹³

"Because there are no restrictions on the flow of pollen between individuals, open-pollinated plants are more genetically diverse. This can cause a greater amount of variation within plant populations, which allows plants to slowly adapt to local growing conditions and climate year-to-year. As long as pollen is not shared between different varieties within the same species, then the seed produced will remain true-to-type, year after year."

An heirloom variety is a plant that has a history of being passed down multiple generations within a family or a community. An heirloom variety is by definition open-pollinated, but not all open-pollinated plants are heirlooms. Hybridization is a controlled method of pollination in which the pollen of two different species or varieties is crossed (usually by human intervention, although it can happen in nature), usually from a desire to breed in a particular trait.

Hybrids are typically unstable and less vigorous, producing fewer of those desirable traits with each passing year. However, hybrid seeds can be stabilized by open-pollination — by growing, selecting and saving the seeds over many seasons. Choosing open-pollinated and heirloom seeds helps preserve genetic diversity and prevents the loss of unique varieties, including the ones that contribute to our long-term survival because of special hardiness and disease resistance traits.

Biodiversity is our best insurance in times of vulnerability, such as extended periods of drought. A profound example of this is what's currently occurring in drought-stricken California, where experts say the state's drought-related economic losses are on track to reach $3 billion in 2015.¹⁴ Genetically engineering plants for pest or disease resistance is unnecessary because the same resistance can be accomplished through classical plant breeding, and good cultural techniques and field practices.

Support Seed Diversity — Ditch GE Food Forever

I encourage you to support the seed saving movement by borrowing seeds, and by purchasing open-pollinated or heirloom seed varieties for your garden — but don't stop there! You can take back control over our food supply with the choices you make about your food and personal products. Several suggestions are provided below — but these are just starters. You can change the system daily, bit by bit, simply by voting with your debit card.

1. Stop buying non-organic processed foods. Instead, build your diet around whole, unprocessed organic foods, especially raw fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats from coconut oil, avocados, organic pastured meat, dairy, and eggs, and raw nuts that are low in protein and high in fat like macadamias and pecans.

2. Buy most of your foods from your local farmer's market and organic farms

3. Cook most or all your meals at home using whole, organic ingredients

4. Patronize restaurants that serve organic, cooked-from-scratch local food. Many restaurants, especially chain restaurants, use processed foods for their meals (Chipotlé is a rare exception)

5. Buy only organic, open-pollinated and heirloom seeds for your garden, which applies to both decorative plants and edibles; they're obtainable from seed swaps, seed libraries and exchanges (see next section for sources)

6. Boycott all lawn and garden chemicals (fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) unless they are "OMRI Approved," which means they're allowed in organic production. If you use a lawn service, make sure they're using OMRI Approved products as well

7. Join the Organic Consumers Association's new campaign, "Buy Organic Brands that Support Your Right to Know"

Seed Saving Resources

If you want to begin saving your own seeds, there are four basic steps: Choosing the right plants, collecting their seeds, cleaning the seeds and storing them appropriately.¹⁵ Below are some excellent seed saving resources, as well as suggestions for where to purchase open-pollinated and heirloom seeds.

"Seed to Seed: Seed Saving Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners" by Suzanne Ashworth (March 2002) is an excellent and widely cited book about seed saving
Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA): National non-profit organization committed to protecting, promoting, and developing the organic seed trade and its growers
Seed Savers Exchange: Organization whose mission is to promote saving and sharing of heirloom seeds and plants
SeedSave.org: Online seed school with free downloadable book about the basics of seed saving
Hudson Valley Seed Library: Featured in the movie, Hudson is much more than a library — it's also a place where you can order heirloom seed
Mother Earth News article ¹⁶ about their picks for top 15 vegetable seed companies

From Dr Mercola @ http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/01/23/saving-seeds-movement.aspx

For more information about sustainable agriculture see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/sustainable%20agriculture