Dumpster Diving

Mention dumpster diving and it’s likely that the first image people envision is a male in tattered clothing, a wool hat, torn black jeans, boots that have no laces and a red-cheeked, drunken face jumping head first into a big pile of garbage to come out with half chewed apples, rotted eggs, and spoiled milk.

I’m here to tear down that stereotype. Yes, I’ve gone dumpster diving myself. OK, it wasn’t actually in a dumpster – it was plastic garbage bags that were placed on the sidewalk, but the concept is still the same.
I was first turned onto dumpster diving by a friend of mine who said he regularly used to go and get all sorts of fresh food and produce for free. When he told me this, I looked at him with the same head cocked and scrunched up eyebrows with which you are reading this.

He told me that he would go and get heads of fresh kale, bottles of juice, apples, bananas, and loaves of bread. After some minutes, I was definitely intrigued. Not only by getting free food, but also by the fact that these stores literally throw away all of this food. I thought that we were in a recession and there was a food shortage, which cause people to live on the streets and starve.

After hearing his stories, I promised myself that I would one day take the voyage into “dumpster diving.” I’d do it for no other reason than curiosity as to what is being tossed out and what I could find.

The night finally came. My alarm went off at 1a.m., and I got myself dressed. I was all prepared with my black sweatpants, black hooded sweatshirt, black wool hat, head lamp and a bandanna to cover my face. I couldn’t possibly let anyone see me rummaging through the trash now, could I?

I took my reusable bags and made the trek down the street to the store. There were about a dozen or so large black garbage bags piled on the sidewalk. I put my workout gloves on, lifted up my bandanna, flipped on my headlamp and started to untie the first bag.

The first bag had some tomatoes that were a bit squishy, red peppers and rotted pears. This is exactly what I thought it would be. A bunch of old rotting produce in a bag. I went through two more bags before I hit my first jackpot.

I came across a bag that had a few dozen bananas that were browned. When I buy my bananas I let them sit on my counter for a week until they start to brown. They were perfect. I packed them into my bag along with some tomatoes and peppers.

After going through only two or three bags, I called it a night. I just wanted to see what this was all about and how much food really was wasted.

It wasn’t until I got back to my apartment, shortly before 2a.m., and laid all the produce out onto the table that I realized how much that I had taken. In front of me were about two and a half dozen bananas, three or four tomatoes and a few red peppers.

They all weren’t perfect looking, but they were all totally edible and usable. The ones that weren’t I set aside to bring to my community compost center. The rest I planned on using and did.

I thought this would be a one-time event, but it’s something that I have since done about once a month. I even once did it in the rain. Instead of setting the alarm I was already up and decided to go. About half way there it started to rain. I wasn’t turning back. It wasn’t the most enjoyable experience. I mean, come on, I was going through garbage in the rain. Not so much fun.

Here are some things that I was able to score during my other dumpster diving adventures: two packages of portabello mushrooms, a box of organic crackers, three pounds of dried cherries, five clamshells of Earthbound Organics salads, organic carrot juice, two boxes of organic creamy tomato soup and bananas. I always score at least a dozen bananas.

Some of these items are blemished and some just have dented packaging. Regardless, they are still perfectly fine for human consumption.

If I had shopped at the store one day earlier, I would have spent somewhere in the range of $40-60 at the low end for all that. The salads alone would’ve been at least $20.

So what would’ve happened to all that food if I didn’t save it from being tossed out? It would’ve gone straight to the landfill to rot away and potentially do harm to the environment and our atmosphere.

Not only is the food being tossed, but it’s traveling a few thousand miles all the way from Peru to be tossed out. From a common sense and environmental aspect that doesn’t make much sense to me. The bananas are probably spending more time in transit from South America to New York than they did on the store shelves.
Instead of being tossed, I was able to save them from landfill and put them into my belly where food belongs.

This got me thinking even more. I’ve been doing this at one small store in New York City, and have seen the amount of food that’s wasted and sent to landfill. There are hundreds of stores throughout the city and the world; how much food is being tossed on a daily basis?

In my opinion this isn’t really an issue because the problem is out of sight, out of mind. The food gets tossed and we never “see” it again, so it just goes away. With all of the problems we have with homelessness and the recession, I’m not sure why we’d want usable food to get thrown way.

In talking to friends about this, most of them think that dumpster diving is gross and don’t understand why I do it. To them, I say that wasting food is gross and I don’t understand how we can be so irresponsible.

Carebags Reusable Produce Bags

People who live an organic lifestyle tend to care about our environment. People who live an organic lifestyle also purchase a lot of fresh produce. That’s where Carebags Re-useable Produce bags come in. One Carebags pouch contains 4 reusable drawstring produce bags for $12.49CDN. The bags we tested were see-through, strong, and plenty large enough for us to stuff as much produce into each bag as we desired. We will not go grocery shopping without them. www.carebagsonline.com.

Big Business

Big Business, the term never used to turn my stomach. Now it does.

In my years of naiveté, the words “big business” meant industry, lots of jobs, lots of money, philanthropy. Corporate America was dependable, responsible. Men and women chose a career, worked until retirement, and then lived off their pensions. Corporations were benevolent structures, the backbone of the American economy.

Then I watched as baby boomers, who worked for the same corporations for years, were suddenly laid off. Men and women in their forties started over as younger workers were hired to replace them for less pay. Company loyalty was not repaid in kind.

Then internal corruption made headlines with mishandled pension funds and poor business practices. Rich CEOs were handed golden parachutes and our government bailed out corporation after corporation.

But to be honest, I still had blinders on. It wasn’t until I began working with OLM that I learned how pervasive greed and corruption are in corporate America, how often death and environmental devastation result. How can anyone with a conscience work for these companies that have looked the other way when they realized their chemicals were polluting groundwater, that their mercury was contaminating the ocean and our seafood, that their pills might be the root cause of mass shootings, that their vaccinations caused an epidemic of autism?

Whatever we do, we need to stop burying our heads in the sand, pretending we don’t see what’s really going on.

Step one: stop buying their products.
Step two: tell your friends why they should stop buying their products.

If a company does not practice environmentally sound principles, if their products are not good for us or for the planet, we have the power to put them out of business. All we have to do is STOP BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS!

Big business did not build our economy; microenterprise built our economy—small businesses with five or fewer employees, often family owned and run enterprises. Let’s support those small businesses. Let’s buy our food from local farmers and CSAs. Let’s look online or better yet through the pages of OLM to find natural and organic products from microenterprises or small businesses. Buy smart, stay safe, protect the planet. It’s really quite simple.

To Consume or not to Consume

On the other hand, if cars ran forever, and we never bought another new car again, we would be stuck with gas guzzling vehicles. There is something to be said for progress. As we vote with our wallet we push technology forward thanks to competition. If no one bought the Toyota Prius, then companies wouldn’t see the need to build the new all electric vehicles. And as we purchase these vehicles technology will improve every year.

The same argument can be said for solar panels, televisions, water heaters, homes, and clothing. Purchasing a home and making it as energy efficient as possible is great, but if it weren’t for the rich consumers who have paid handsomely to build their luxury, custom, technologically advanced, energy efficient homes we wouldn’t have some of the technology to remodel our homes with.

Personally, when I’m deciding if I shouldmake a new or a used purchase, I decide whether or not the product may enrich my life. And if I am replacing an item I consider the likelihood of the item being put to good use by someone else. I do not know if this is the best approach, but I am trying to look ahead whenever I consume resources.

Monsanto Company Profile part III of IV

Ten to twelve thousand years ago, fertile ground led to the rise of our first civilizations as mankind began the slow shift from full dependence on hunting and gathering food to planting and growing crops. Seed was saved and sowed from year to year. Wild plants become domesticated. We learned to irrigate fields, to maximize production, to feed nations.

In time, we learned to use selective breeding. Selective breeding produced desired traits such as taste, size, drought resistance, and yields. Experience brought us wisdom. We learned the benefits of crop rotation. Knowing rich soil grew healthy, disease resistant crops, we found natural ways to replenish the land.

But famine has always plagued mankind. Famine is caused by many factors—war; over-population; climate shifts including drought, over abundant rainfall, temperature shifts, decreased sunlight; and so on. Though many would argue we have enough food to feed the world, famines continue. A quick look at the history of famine, and the famine conditions that exist today, explains much about the search for solutions.

Beginning in the 1940s, the agricultural technology of industrialized nations – utilizing fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation techniques, and high yield cultivars (new varieties of

grains developed through selective breeding) – was brought to developing nations. Dubbed the “Green Revolution”, these projects created remarkable increases in yields but they also changed the face of traditional farming.

Indian Farmer Suicides

Search anywhere on the net, and you will find story after story blaming Monsanto for alarming suicide rates among poor rural farmers—200,000 or more farmers in India since 1997. The stories claim poor farmers incur debt to purchase Monsanto seeds at 1000 times the conventional price, believing Monsanto’s exorbitant claims that GMO seeds will require little to no pesticide and yield abundant crops, bounties never before seen. These stories also claim GMO seeds require twice the amount of water as conventional seeds. Sold in areas of persistent drought, the crops fail. Farmers, with land now indebted to pay for their inputs of seed, fertilizer, and pesticide, are committing suicide by the thousands, many of them by drinking Monsanto insecticide before they lie down in their fields to die an agonizing death.

Brad Mitchell, Monsanto’s Director of Public Affairs, denies the claim that their seeds are priced at 1000 times the cost of conventional seeds, but admits their cost is higher. “Monsanto’s seeds are based on value,” he says, directing us to information on the company website that explains higher yields and lower inputs justify a higher price tag on GMO seeds. Mitchell also denies the claim that Bt cotton seeds require more water.

Monsanto’s website states, “Bt cotton has been given an unfair reputation when the true culprit is a smorgasbord of repairable socio-economic problems in India. A variety of third-party studies have proven that personal debt is the historical reason behind an Indian farmer’s decision to commit suicide, notbiotech seed. Think about it this way: if Bt cotton were the root cause of suicidal tendencies, then why is it that Indian farmers represent the fastest-growing users of biotech crops in the world? Between 2005 and 2006, India’s adoption of Bt cotton nearly tripled to 9.5 million acres! Today, Bt cotton is currently used in nine states in India on 14.4 million or 63 percent of India’s total cotton acres. So, if the studies don’t disprove the myths relating Bt cotton to Indian farmer suicide, then perhaps the sales figures will.” ¹

Brad Mitchell encouraged us to read an independent study by The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Bt Cotton

and Farmer Suicides in India, Reviewing The Evidence.

The study reaches the conclusion that on a national level there is no “resurgence” of farmer suicide and no correlation to Bt cotton and farmer suicide rates. Overall, national cotton production “appears” to have a positive correlation to Bt cotton; pesticide use is down.

The study reports farmer suicides at the rate of 14,000 to 18,000 per year representing 14-16 percent of India’s total suicides, since 1997. It concludes, “Based on the observed national trend from 1997 to 2006, one can clearly reject the assertion that the growth in suicides has accelerated in the last five years or so. The number of farmer suicides is significant and tends to be growing over time, but so is the total number of suicides in the general population…” They also state, “Yes, farmer suicide is an important and tragic phenomenon, but it still only represents three-quarters of the total number of suicides due to pesticide ingestion in India and less than a fifth of total suicides in India. Moreover, even if there has been an increasing trend in total suicides, the reported share of farmer suicides has in fact been decreasing. Of course, all these conclusions are based on available estimates, which may be underestimated, but without better data, onecannot deny that claim.”

The study also reveals that national trends and regional trends on suicide differ as do reports of success with Bt cotton. At the time of the International Food Policy Research Institute report, Bt cotton was cultivated in more than 10 states across India. Bt seed sold at prices up to 400% higher than conventional seed (down from its original price of 500 times the price of conventional seed), and it promised higher yields with fewer inputs (less need to spray with pesticide). “…Bt cotton is a costly technology compared with non-Bt cotton because of the highly priced seeds. At the same time, some farmers seem to have spent significant amounts on other inputs (fertilizers and so forth) with the planting of Bt cotton, based on the belief that this new technology would result in an extraordinary level of yields in all conditions (even with drought) or on the false perception that high pesticide use was still required. Other farmers seem to have purchased high-cost spurious seeds, thinking the seeds were Bt seeds, but they were duped. Lastly, and more generally, a number of farmers bought Bt seeds without considering the type of Bt variety they were purchasing; therefore they blamed the Bt technology itself, when actually the variety they purchased was inadequate for their conditions.” ²

India’s first Bt cotton was illegally planted. The seed company held responsible, Navbharat, claimed they collected seed from a number of fields to produce a new hybrid seed, not knowing the seed carried Bt genes. Whether Navbharat told the truth and Monsanto’s seeds were already sown across the countryside or the company was lying and knowingly sold Bt cotton seeds to farmers, the fact remains that Monsanto’s Bt cotton entered India illegally, bypassing safety testing protocols and endangering non-GMO crops with contamination. At roughly the same time, a Monsanto subsidiary in Indonesia bribed an Indonesian official to repeal or modify a law that prevented the introduction of Bt cotton without a legally required environmental impact study.

Indian cotton farmers have “adopted the methods at higher rates than anywhere else on the planet with any other technology ever introduced into agriculture,” says Brad Mitchell.

Monsanto is certainly perpetuating the second wave of the “Green Revolution” model which began in the last century, a movement that encourages farmers to adopt non-sustainable agriculture and results in a dependence on companies such as Monsanto for seed and other inputs. More >and more small Indian farmers have moved into non-sustainable cash crop farming, planting one crop instead of many, and relying on that one cash crop to make a profit that will pay for all the family’s needs. As a result, small rural farms in India are on the decline, an all too familiar scenario.

Seed Monopoly

Monsanto, now the largest seed company in the world, has bought out many seed companies across the nation. Critics are crying foul, with fears that Monsanto is gaining a monopoly on the world’s seed supply. Brad Mitchell says, “At present, if we dominate—if you want to use the word dominate – we dominate through innovative not through unfair business practices. People buy our product because they like it, and because they find value in it, not because they have to. I ask every farmer I meet, ‘Do you have choices?’ and he’ll say. ‘Hell yes.’ So that’s out there. I’ve been looking for statistics on this, but my understanding, and I can’t cite it, but the best understanding I can come up with from personal sources is that about 80% of the world’s seed remain open source; that they’re not patented, they’re not hybrid.”

Anti-GMO critics aren’t the only sources concerned that Monsanto now holds a monopoly on the seed supply. Monsanto’s GMO competitor, DuPont, has gone public with the same concerns about a monopoly, though DuPont’s concern is a monopoly within the bio-tech seed industry. ³

Monsanto’s latest seed company acquisitions to make the headlines are two of the largest seed companies in the world. While purchasing an overseas company is not addressed under U.S. anti-trust laws, the greater concern now becomes global dominance.

On March 31, 2008, Monsanto announced its agreement to acquire DeRuiter Seeds, a Dutch company, one of the world’s leading vegetable seed companies. This action followed the acquisition of Seminis in 2007 for 1.4 billion in cash plus assumed debt. Seminis was the world’s largest seed company. Monsanto’s news release stated, “Seminis is the global leader in the vegetable and fruit seed industry and their brands are among the most recognized in the vegetable-and-fruit segment of agriculture. Seminis supplies more than 3,500 seed varieties to commercial fruit and vegetable growers, dealers, distributors and wholesalers in more than 150 countries around the world.” The Organic Seed Alliance reports Seminis controlled 40% of the U.S. vegetable seed market and 20 % of the world market. ⁵

Again, we asked Mr. Mitchell for clarification on the monopoly issue, this time in writing. “What percentage of the world’s marketable seeds is owned by Monsanto (not counting seeds saved by farmers from their own crops)?”

He responded, “Monsanto’s share of the total worldwide seed market is very small. Of the global seed market, it is estimated that greater than 80 percent is ‘open source’ farmer saved seed. So, the commercial seed market is less than 20 percent and Monsanto’s is a fraction of that 20 percent.”

That “fraction” equals 23% of the global proprietary seed market. In 2007, their sales totaled $4,964 million dollars.5

Monsanto is wildly criticized for the fact that farmers are not allowed to save seeds for the next crop. Farmers who purchase GMO seeds enter a contract, fully aware that they will have to buy new seed next season. Yet critics abound, saying this goes against nature, that farmers have always saved seed.

Brad Mitchell reminds us that this is not always true. “You can’t save hybrids. I’m a little perplexed, frankly, by this whole thing about not being able to save seeds, because it’s nothing new. Beyond that, I guess I look out in the marketplace and I’m a home gardener and I have friends who are organic farmers. I’ve yet to hear one of them who can’t get the heirloom seeds they want. I look at catalogs like Johnny Seeds and it doesn’t look to me like all those seed varieties are going away. In fact it seems like Johnny Seeds is growing every year. So I don’t see the evidence of us losing these open source varieties of seed.”

Mr. Mitchell tells us farmers would never save and plant hybrid seeds for a second season as they don’t do well for second generation planting—the farmer doesn’t know what he’s getting.

Hybrid seed is not new to India. The traditional relationship between the famer and his seeds has already been disrupted by the “Green Revolution” and the acceptance of hybrid seeds.

The abundance first realized through petroleum-based fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides has taken its toll on the land itself. “The foundation of all agricultural production is quality soil,” says K. Rashid Nuri, of Truly Living Well Natural Urban Farms. “Conventional agriculture uses soil as simply a receptacle for the roots, and then attempts to add chemical nutrients that plant and soil scientists feel are necessary. These chemicals actually degrade and pollute the environment and do not provide or create life-giving food.”

Lessons we have learned over thousands of years of agriculture are being ignored. Short term gains are realized at the expense of long-term results. It is only through honoring the land itself that we will reap benefits in the long run.

“Farmers who understand agricultural practices holistically,” says Nuri, “realize that all life begins and ends in the soil. Thus, the proper agricultural focus is on building quality soil through application and incorporation of copious amounts of compost and other organic materials. This material feeds the soil and the life found in it. Plants grown in healthy soil that is full of earthworms, fungi and other micro-flora and fauna create an environment that produces healthy, disease resistant plants full of vital nutrients requisite to human health.”

Isn’t it high time we support traditional farming?

Monsanto Part IV (click to read) addresses RoundUp safety and GMOs in Europe as well as other safety issues regarding GMOs

Sources:

Children, Cell Phones & Health

An Inconvenient Truth about a Convenient Technology

Once upon a time there was a little girl on a playground who noticed gray smoke pouring out of the windows at a school across the street.

“Fire!” the little girl shouted.

A man sat calmly on a nearby bench. “I don’t see any fire,” he said.

“Fire!” the girl cried again.

“But I only see smoke.”

“Fire!” the girl shouted over and over.

A few hours later, the school burned to the ground.

The moral of this story? Where there’s smoke, there’s a good chance you’ll find fire. That’s the precautionary principle practiced by most governments in Europe when it comes to the 4.2 billion cell phones in the world, the electromagnetic radiation (EMFs) they emit, and protecting public health. Refusing to adhere to this “better safe than sorry” principle has caused catastrophic health and
environmental effects globally, writes David Gee, author of THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IN THE 20TH CENTURY: Late Lessons from Early Warnings. The book analyzes the dismal failures of governments around the world to respond to early danger signs from carcinogens such as lead, benzene, asbestos, and the depletion of Atlantic fisheries. In fact, David Gee recently testified in Brussels at the European Commission on EMF & Health about the profound danger posed by cell phone radiation, or electropollution, which many scientists are now calling the ”worst toxin in planetary history.”

“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

Because of this common-sense precautionary principle, France outlawed cell phone ads to children this past January. Many other countries followed suit: Russia’s Ministry of Health issued a warning that no child under eighteen should use a cell phone, and pregnant women should avoid them completely. Israel’s Health Ministry and Canada’s Dept. of Health issued warnings as well. Germany, the UK, Belgium, India, and Finland have all publicly discouraged children’s use of cell phones, too. What are we doing here in the USA? Not long ago, Sprint signed a two billion dollar contract with Disney Corporation to market cell phones to children under twelve. Ironically, the US government makes more money from cell phone minutes than any other product besides oil.

What is the health impact of 4.2 billion microwave emitting devices on the human body and brain; wireless devices that were never pre-market tested for health?

“Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and radiation damage DNA and enhance cell death rates and therefore they are a ubiquitous, universal genotoxic carcinogen that enhances the rates of cancer, cardiac, reproductive, and neurological disease and mortality in human populations. Therefore there is no safe threshold level…”- Dr. Neil Cherry, Associate Professor of Environmental Health

There is a growing body of evidence – more than 2,000 independent studies worldwide – linking EMFs with serious health issues, from autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, to developmental delays and spectrum disorders like Autism and ADD, to various cancers such as astrocytomas and glioblastomas. Award-winning cancer specialist and
vneurosurgeon Dr. Vini Khurana went so far as to declare that cell phones were more dangerous than smoking and asbestos.

But this is not an article about giving up your cell phone, cordless phone, laptop, iPod, or Wi-Fi technology. That request would be impossible since 80% of our planet is already wireless. Cell phone towers now decorate the Himalayas.

The health risks posed by smoking and asbestos pale in comparison to cell phone radiation, which produces ICRWs (Information Carrying Radio Waves), precisely because our exposure to ICRWs is completely involuntary. We can choose to walk out of a smoky bar or re-insulate an asbestos laden home. We can no longer avoid electromagnetic radiation. One might say this has become a civil liberties issue because our exposure is non-optional, which may be why parents and teachers in Europe have marched in the streets, demanding wireless be removed from schools.

Microwave radiation, in fact, passes through everything between the cell tower and your phone (or computer) at the speed of light (186,282 miles/second) and is instantaneously absorbed into your body and brain. The compelling research from Dr. Om P. Gandhi, a professor and Chair of Electrical Engineering at the University of Utah, dramatically illustrates this: When adults makes a cell phone call, there is 30% radiation penetration into their brains; 50% radiation penetration into the brain of a 10 year old; 75% radiation penetration into a five-year-old. Professor Leif Salford, who headed the research at Sweden’s prestigious Lund University, says “the voluntary exposure of the brain to microwaves from hand held mobile phones is the largest human biological experiment ever.”

But it’s not just human cells at risk. Dr. Robert Becker, twice Nobel Prize nominee, and Dr. Neil Cherry believe EMFs may be permanently damaging all DNA material, plants and animals included, affecting the genetic integrity of all life on earth.

“I have no doubt that, at the present time, the greatest polluting element in the earth’s environment is the proliferation of electromagnetic fields (EMFs). I consider that to be far greater on a global scale than global warming and the increase in chemical elements in the environment.” – Dr. Robert Becker, twice Nobel Prize nominee, author, CROSS CURRENTS: The Promise of Electromedicine, the Perils of Electropollution

Children and teenagers are most at risk due to their developing brains and skulls. Dr. Lennart Hardell, M.D., Ph.D. from Sweden studied teenagers on cell phones and found they are at a five-fold increased risk of brain cancer by the time they reach their mid twenties. (Cordless phone radiation gives them a four-fold risk.) A Spanish study headed up by Dr. Michael Klieeison demonstrated that a two-minute cell phone call disrupted the electrical activity in a child’s brain for up to two hours. How many minutes does our average American teenager spend on a cell phone? Two thousand sixx hundred minutes each month.

Fortunately, there are actions you can take to mitigate the harm posed by EMFs. Thomas Jefferson insisted a free society cannot exist with an uninformed public. So whether you’re a parent, teacher, or concerned human being, educating yourself is the first step; then you can make the best decisions to support the long-term well being of your family, and this planet.

CALL TO ACTION – Ways to Thrive in a Wireless World

Limit exposure. Use speaker mode or landlines whenever possible.
Use patented noise field intervention technology on all wireless and wired devices. (Wireless routers, digital alarm clocks, and hair dryers emit high levels of EMFs.)
Wired headsets act as antennae, tripling the radiation to the head. Use Blue Tube headsets, not unprotected Blue Tooths.
Never let your child or teen sleep with their cell phone (or any other electronic device). Texting still exposes them to a near-field plume of radiation.
Unplug or remove all electronics from your child’s bedroom.
Maintain a potent, nutritionally healthy diet and lifestyle.
Take political action, e.g., write to your congressman, demanding that governments adhere to the standards set by the Bioinitiative Report. (www.bioinitiative.org)

Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com Discusses GMOs with OLM

OLM: Can you tell us a little about the history of the companies that are making GMOs? Who are they? What did they do before they made GMO foods?

Mike Adams: Well, I think Monsanto is one of the most dangerous corporations in the world. I think it has a long history of oppressing the farmers and oppressing developing nations and their farmers. I think it has put profits before the people time and time again to such a degree that it really poses a threat to the sustainability of the human race. That’s about as bluntly as I can state it. [chuckle]

OLM: Are there other companies doing what Monsanto does with GMOs?

Mike Adams: There are smaller companies toying with genetics in the same way, but no one has dominance over the industry like Monsanto. It virtually holds a monopolistic control over seeds. I imagine Arthur Daniel Midland would be next in line in terms of culpability for destroying the food supply, but I don’t know if ADM has a GMO lab or not. That would be interesting to check out.

OLM: We hear that Monsanto bought many seed companies. The FTC didn’t take notice of this action?

Mike Adams: It’s very clear that the FTC is highly selective in its application of anti-trade action. It totally ignores some monopolies such as the pharmaceutical monopoly or the seed monopoly while attacking other things that are beneficial to consumers. For example, the FTC will attack a church that sells anti-cancer herbs. I actually documented one of those cases, so I’ve seen it
firsthand. But the FTC completely ignores these monopolies, which are the most dangerous to human beings. I think that the food supply and the pharmaceutical industries are two of the best examples.

OLM: How did these foods get approved without testing? Wasn’t it true that many FDA scientists took issue with the foods not being tested?

Mike Adams: GRAS – generally regarded as safe. It’s sad. It’s hilarious, but sad. You’re right; there was no testing done. No safety testing, at least not to the degree any reputable scientist would agree to be adequate. Basically, they just swept it under the rug and pushed it through the approval process. They declared it to be safe by decree, you know? Like, “The king declares this poison to be safe.” It’s kind of like the aspartame story—you know where Donald Rumsfeld was pivotal in getting aspartame approved by the FDA despite all the tests showing it to be dangerous. It just proves that decisions about the food supply are political decisions. They do not have anything to do with the actual science, or real safety, or prioritizing the health of the people. They are purely political/commercial decisions. That’s the sad state of the FDA today.

Why aren’t GMO foods labeled?

Mike Adams: It is very clear that the reason they are not labeled is because the industry does not want the consumers to know. This is a censorship campaign to prevent people from being informed. It’s the same reason that irradiated foods are not labeled. The FDA is on the record as saying that they are afraid people might not understand what irradiated means. It’s a remarkable statement all by itself.

OLM: Yeah, when in fact, the statement really means the opposite. They don’t want people to know. They don’t want us to understand.

Mike Adams: Industry is afraid of knowledge. It’s afraid of people being informed and having access to accurate knowledge about GMOs or irradiated foods, or even other toxic chemicals that are in the foods such as acrylamides. Essentially, the food industry supports a delabeling campaign. It wants to remove as much information as possible from the labels so consumers don’t have access to the information they need to make informed decisions.

OLM: Obviously there is an indirect link to the drug companies and the food industry. It seems as if they have made a deal to line each others’ pockets. It seems as though they’re working together.

Mike Adams: I think that’s a really great observation on your part. The food industry feeds the pharmaceutical industry in terms of profits. It’s the foods that make people sick; they cause chronic degenerative disease. So the foods create demand for the drugs, which are real profit centers. Of course these companies are making money off of foods as well, but GMOs fit into this picture in a very clever and insidious way. All the evidence so far shows that GMOs may pose a very real health threat to those who consume them. As you mention, that benefits the pharmaceutical industry by poisoning people, by creating patients who need pharmaceuticals or who can be diagnosed with diseases and sold pharmaceuticals whether they need them or not.

I think at the retail level Walgreens demonstrates it the best. Walgreens is a pharmacy, but it sells some of the most toxic processed junk food that you can find in America. In front of the store they sell foods that cause disease and in the back of the store they sell the drugs that they claim treat disease. It’s a system of toxicity. I have gone into the store to buy samples of processed
foods that I was sending to laboratories for testing. When I walk through the store I cannot believe the depth of the poisons that are in there: personal hair care products, fragrance, cosmetics, sodas, all the foods. Those stores should be completely shut down. They should be banned. They should be outlawed in this country. They are creating
a toxic America.

OLM: What was that quote about GMO consumers not being able to reproduce?

Mike Adams: What I talked about was that GMOs do damage to the ability to reproduce and as a result the future of the human race is going to be inherited by those who do not consume GMOs and who do not expose themselves to toxic chemicals like pharmaceuticals.

Along those lines I just want to clarify that especially in the natural health field, no one wishes death or suffering upon another human being. I’m not happy that unhealthy people die. But what I am pointing out is that they are making a choice. By consuming GMOs they are choosing not to have great- grandchildren. And that choice is given a label—it’s a Darwin Award [chuckle]. These people are all participating in this multi-generational or trans-generational Darwin award. And in the long term, it is probably a great benefit to the future of human civilization that the people who choose to consume poisons do not inherit the future of our race.

OLM: Is it true that executives from these companies are hired in top positions by the USDA and FDA?

Mike Adams: Yeah, definitely. That’s called the revolving door policy. You’ll see many examples of top managers or executives at drug and food companies who become top people at the FDA or the FTC or the USDA. They often go back and forth between the regulators and the industry several times.

OLM: And then they write the laws?

Mike Adams: Well, it’s not laws. They enforce regulations. Sometimes they write regulations. It’s important to distinguish between the two. Laws are passed only by the legislative branch, members of congress. But the USDA, the FDA and the FTC are essentially lawless regulatory agencies. They are not required to follow any law in their day-to-day decision making. They are above

the law. In fact they are violating the law. If you or I did what the FDA or the FTC did, we would be charged with felony crimes. We can’t just pick up an assault rifle and walk into a company that sells products we don’t like and seize all their computers and handcuff their people and march them off to prison. But that is what the FDA does on a regular basis. It’s a violation of law. It’s a violation of the constitution. So these are lawless organizations.

OLM: Does the president appoint the heads of the USDA and the FDA?

Mike Adams: Yes, the president does appoint the heads of those organizations without a public vote. That’s important to note. All that has to happen is that the senate confirms those appointments. The public is never given a chance to vote on them, so it’s bypassing the democratic system.

OLM: What do you think of Obama’s appointee for the Department of Agriculture?

Mike Adams: I’ve been following that on the Organic Consumers Association. Ronnie Cummins there has reported on that appointment with a lot of good details. I think clearly Obama’s siding with big business. He is going to continue the policies of Monsanto and he is not going to speak up for the people, for the farmers, you know. I see a lot of this with the Obama administration which is kinda frustrating because he came in under a platform of change, you know, talking about protecting the people. And certainly, of course, none of us wanted to see the Bush policies continue, at least not on human rights, and war, and all that. But then with Obama in office, not just for agriculture, but for the treasury, and many other areas, the policies are quite disturbing. They show that the Obama administration, at least through its appointments so far, is largely continuing business as usual, at least in my opinion. I’m optimistic that maybe there will be some changes, but you know, I don’t see any big changes so far, other than a whole lot of money being handed out. And that’s not change. That’s just the same old scam.

OLM: Are you keeping up with the new laws they are trying to pass?

Mike Adams: Ronnie Cummins would have a lot more detail on this, but I keep up with some of it. The big picture is very clear. They are working at federal and state levels to destroy small family farms, to destroy even the definition of organic so that anything could be called organic. They are the enemies of anyone who believes in sustainable agriculture or true organic foods.

OLM: What’s going on with GMOs in Europe?

Mike Adams: GMOs had been banned in certain parts of the U.K. I think that issue has come to the surface again with codex and the harmonization of the European Union. They’re trying to keep GMOs in the food supply. But the thing is, GMO labeling is now mandatory in the U.K. At least that’s my understanding of it. And U.K. citizens are much better informed about this issue than U.S. citizens. And in the U.K. they are very vocal in their opposition to GMO foods, as they should be. And it is in America that people have this kind of bizarre acceptance of whatever the government tells them to do. It’s like America has been drugged into a state of complacency. Pharmaceuticals and fluoride maybe have something to do with that.

OLM: What’s your take on Monsanto’s claims that GMOs are a better way to grow food, that they produce better yields and can help stop world hunger?

Mike Adams: Sure, it’s all about short-term thinking versus long-term thinking. Of course, Monsanto and ADM and other such companies are really focused on short term thinking. In the short-term, it’s true that a single planting of a genetically modified crop can out-produce a non-GMO crop. You look at that season and you weigh how much corn came out of the field and so on. But in the long term, what risks are there to the viability of the food supply? How do GMO organisms affect honey bees, for example? We have colony collapse disorder, which is really threatening the global food supply. We had the issue of cross pollination, cross contamination, which is a huge threat to the food supply.

These long-term threats are never factored into the equations that are being decided by Monsanto or these other companies. So they ignore the long-term risks and they just highlight and focus on the short-term benefits. And it is this kind of short-term thinking that could very well spell the destruction of human civilization as we know it today. All it would take is one year of crops being wiped out around the world due to monoculture farming, and perhaps genetically, GM contamination. One season of the food disappearing and the human population collapses by maybe 70 to 80 percent.

That’s a loss of billions of lives. That’s what’s at risk here. These companies are essentially putting billions of lives at risk in order to obtain a short-term profit.

OLM: What are your favorite GMO information sources?

Mike Adams: Well, definitely the Organic Consumers Association is a top source on this issue, but there is also the Environmental Working Group which is doing great work, although they don’t post as much content as the OCA.

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