One of the biggest controversies surrounding food in recent years is the entry of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into our food system. If you don’t know about GMOs by now, here’s the concept in a nutshell: Genetically modified foods have had their DNA changed through genetic engineering, using advanced techniques to insert foreign genes (from such varied sources as bacteria and viruses) in order to enhance or change certain characteristics of the organism. The most common modified foods are derived from plants such as soybean, corn, canola, and cotton, but the list of GMOs also includes hormones given to dairy cattle (rbGH). Now even the animals themselves are being genetically engineered.

Supporters of genetic engineering say that modification of organisms on a genetic level is safe, and is similar to how conventional plant breeding has taken place for thousands of years. They also state that in order to gain efficiency in food production to feed the world, GM foods are necessary. The producers of these GMOs maintain that they are as safe as any other food, and have no negative effect on the people consuming them or the environment.

Critics of GMOs (including me) point out that no true trials or testing have been undertaken in order to prove the safety of these foods. In fact, adverse effects from consuming GMOs have been recorded, and because it’s such a new practice, the full results of releasing these unnatural organisms into the environment still remain to be seen. Since science can measure only what it targets, and the sheer number of variables in our natural environment is enormous, the possibility is great that many unintended consequences will occur through the use and consumption of GMOs.

Unfortunately, due to the prevalence of GMOs and the intermingling of foods in our food system during harvest, storage, and processing, most U.S. consumers have been eating genetically modified foods for years. Even those of us who focus on eating all organic probably have been ingesting these foods if we eat out or dine at someone’s house who isn’t as strict as we are with their food purchases. Some 60 to 70% of the products in a grocery store contain some type of genetically engineered ingredient, with the biggest offenders being soy, corn, canola oil, and cottonseed oil.

So why do companies like Monsanto (the world leader in genetic modification) pursue genetic engineering?

One claimed benefit is that using GM seeds increases crop yields and decreases the use of pesticides and herbicides for food production (hence the claim that GMOs will help feed the world). However, contrary to the information coming from the supporters of genetic engineering, studies have shown that just as many pesticides and herbicides are being applied to GM crops as non-GM crops, and in some cases at even higher quantities. For crops modified to be resistant to herbicides, farmers can spray even heavier without damaging the plants, leading to increased use of herbicides worldwide. These herbicides end up in our groundwater, and may also be present in food even after harvest and processing. A recent study sponsored by the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN), published in Chemical Research in Toxicology journal, found that Roundup (glyphosate) diluted 105 times was toxic to three different human cell types. This level is significantly lower than the currently accepted residue levels. What this means is that every bite of GM food (modified to be tolerant of glyphosate application) will also have toxic residues which may be detrimental to your health.

Another reason given is the possible increase in nutrition from genetic modification (a higher vitamin content, such as vitamin A in so-called Golden Rice). Yet another is the production of pharmaceuticals from GM crops, which is touted as being able to increase the global availability of medicines and vaccines. Still another reason is the production of substances like spider silk in mass quantities (from genetically modified goats that can produce the silk protein in their Pesticides and GMOs milk).

The four major GM crops – soy, corn, canola, and cotton – are engineered to survive the applications of herbicides at levels which would otherwise kill the plants. Almost 70% of GM crops are engineered to be herbicide tolerant. Another trait of GM crops is a pesticide produced within the plant itself (Bt, or Bacillus thuringienses) in GM corn and cotton. Proponents claim that Bt is harmless, and is a natural bacteria, but some studies have shown an allergic reaction, a high immune response, and even damaged intestines.

If you aren’t OK with all of that, then you need to learn how to avoid GMOs in the food you buy. The best way to avoid them is to buy 100% certified organic food always (check the PLU number on the produce). Organic produce has a 5 digit PLU number, beginning with 9. Conventionally grown produce has a 4 digit PLU number. In theory, all GM produce has a 5 digit PLU number beginning with 8, but the critics say that because labeling is optional, not all GM produce will be labeled as such. If you eat meat, buy 100% grass-fed (pastured) beef and go for the certified organic meats. If you read labels carefully, you will find foods that have been labeled non-GMO or GMO-free. If it isn’t labeled as such, and the product contains non-organic soybeans, corn, canola, cottonseed oil, or dairy, you’re probably getting GM varieties in there.

For more info, be sure to bookmark Seeds of Deception and the Organic Consumers Association GM page.

I avoid GM food, and I wouldn’t feed it to my friends or family either. I highly recommend you become a careful label reader and keep it out of your diet as well.

Well, it’s getting to be that time of day (night 🙂 when I get to feeling I’ve had enough fun for one day and should be heading towards the ole sack, but I thought I’d leave y’all with this little true story that happened to me a few years back having to do with FrankenFoods.

At one time I was a promoter of Soy Protein Powder as a source of protein especially for some body builders I had as clients, and one day I was queried by one of them as to whether or not it was Genetically Engineered or not. GE had not been talked about very much up to that time and my knowledge on the subject was a bit scarce back then, but I thought I’d better investigate it. One of my friends had done some research on GE foods in general and the findings sent to me were shocking, outrageous, and downright scary.

To be on the safe side, I then decided to investigate this source that all my muscle builders were using, and proceeded to trace back the data trail as to how pervasive this GE thing was and whether or not there was any risk to my personal clients.

I went to our biggest local healthfood store in Clearwater called Nature’s Food Patch and asked the bulk food manager whether or not his Soy Protein Powder was GE or not. He emphatically told me that the Food Patch did NOT sell anything that was Genetically Modified. Absolutely Not! I then asked him what the name of the product was and who was its supplier. He told me it was called Supro 440 and they got it from NOW Foods. Wellllll, I thought this was a good start, as I do business with NOW (still do) as I feel they have the best Vitamin E and COQ10 on the planet at the best price (only a few of the products made by someone else that I am willing to trust and endorse which is why they are on my product and price list).

I then called NOW Foods and asked one of the technical advisors there if the Supro 440 that they were selling was Genetically Engineered. “Absolutely NOT! No way in hell would they sell anything that was GE. Ridiculous!” Welllllll, OK this sounded good so I asked him who the manufacturer was who supplied them with the stuff. He told me it was a company called Protein Technologies and readily gave me their number.

I’m feeling all right and making good headway here, so I next call up Protein Technologies and asked to speak to a technical supervisor there as I had some questions to put to him. I get him on the line and I ask, “Is your Supro 440 a Genetically Engineered product?”. —- Long pregnant pause, and then he returned with, “Well, what exactly do you mean by Genetically Engineered?”. All of a sudden, I wasn’t having a good day and I was starting to feel a little apprehensive. I returned with, “GE, you know, GMO, Genetically Modified Organism???”. He said, “One moment please, and I’ll let you speak to our Head Chemist”. After a wait of about 30 seconds (my apprehension is now building), the Lead Chemist from Protein Tech comes on the line and I ask my question again. He tells me proudly, “Wellllllll, yessss the Supro 440 is GE and most of our soy products are”. I’m feeling a little queasy at this stage and I ask, “do you have any Soy Protein Powder which is Organic and non-GMO?”. He then told me that they did but he had to confess that they used the same machines to process the Organic as they did the GE/GMO and that they did not clean the machines after each usage. The bottom of my stomach dropped about 40 feet but I had one more question, “Is Protein Technologies a solely owned company or is it a subsidiary?”

He said, “The parent company is Dupont.”!

I couldn’t talk for a bit and slowly just hung up the phone, I don’t even remember saying “goodbye” to the man.

I called back NOW Foods, and to their credit, they had the product off the shelf within a week. I then called back the Bulk Foods Manager at Nature’s Food Patch and told him the story. His response was, “Impossible, we sell NO GE/GMO foods in this store”.

Oh well, there are ostriches in this world and he never would believe me or even call up and verify it one way or the other. I then had the realization that one could lose many freedoms through complacency.

And the moral of this bed time story?

LOOK!!! DON’T LISTEN!!!

Yours in Knowledge, Health and Freedom,

Doc Shillington

PS. Since I originally wrote this article back in 2001, the amount of Genetically Engineered Soy products sold in the American marketplace has grown to more than 90%. It is also my conviction that the other 10% is contaminated.  The same goes for all corn products.  You and your family are far safer if you avoid all soy and corn products altogether.  Unless you grow it yourself, or unless you personally know the farmer who’s growing it, ALL SOY & CORN PRODUCTS AND BYPRODUCTS SHOULD BE SHUNNED!

Ian “Doc” Shillington N.D.

If ever there was a company that stands for everything Organic Lifestyle Magazine stands against, it’s Monsanto. To us they are the villain, a company that embodies virtually everything we at OLM believe to be wrong with big business today. We would be hard pressed to find a company whose products have done more to harm our planet.

• Click here to read part II
• Click here to read part III
• Click here to read part IV

Many argue that Monsanto’s potential to devastate life as we know it is second only to producers of atomic bombs. Ironically, Monsanto was also heavily involved in the Manhattan Project and the creation of the world’s first nuclear bomb.

Monsanto started in 1901 as a chemical company. Their first product was saccharine, a coal tar product, which has had a controversial history. You may know it as Sweet‘N Low, the artificial sweetener sold in little pink packages.

Though saccharin was their first, Monsanto is also well known for many other chemical and chemically based products including Agent Orange, Bovine Growth Hormone, Polychlorinated biphenyl (commonly known as PCBs), Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT), and RoundUp.

Today, Monsanto is a leader in the bio-tech industry selling RoundUp ready GMO seeds. Its main crops are soy, cotton, sugar beets, and canola. Its controversial bovine growth hormone, rBST, was sold to the Eli Lilly Company earlier this year.

We asked Brad Mitchell, Director of Public Affairs for Monsanto if we were dealing with a new Monsanto since our take on Monsanto’s reputation is one of deception, corruption, bribery, and environmental degradation, a company that made significantly bad choices.

“I think more than anything, it’s a new age,” he said. “…I think you’re holding the Monsanto of the middle part of the 20th century against the standards of today. So, for instance, if you look at PCBs we all know today that what Monsanto did there was wrong. It shouldn’t have been done. Did we, Monsanto, or society as a whole know in the 60s or the 50s that that was wrong? I don’t think that we were as environmentally sophisticated as we are today.

“…I’m not saying that we’re not liable, that we shouldn’t have done it, and all that, but you know, when you make these kind[s] of statements about how Monsanto obviously disregarded human health and public safety and the environment for profit, I wasn’t there. I can’t tell you what was in people’s hearts and minds. I do believe, however, that to some extent we’re being held against today’s standards for actions that occurred half a century ago.”

Perhaps we could agree that these actions occurred half a century ago if Monsanto had voluntarily embarked on a clean-up of PCB contamination in Anniston, Alabama, in any decade following the 50s or 60s. If they had, perhaps we could believe the corporation has grown a conscience. According to The Washington Post, it was February 2002 when Monsanto was held liable by an Alabama jury for all six counts it considered: negligence, wantonness, suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass and outrage. The Post quotes the legal definition of outrage under Alabama law as conduct, “so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society.”

The Center for Food Safety maintains a website, www.monsantowatch.org. On this site they report, “In August, 2003, Monsanto and its former chemical subsidiary, Solutia, Inc. (now owned by Pharmacia Corp.), agreed to pay $600 million to settle claims brought by more than 20,000 residents of Anniston, AL, over the severe contamination of ground and water by tons of PCBs dumped in the area from the 1930s until the 1970s. Court documents revealed that Monsanto was aware of the contamination decades earlier.”

History tells us Monsanto was well aware of the damage their silence and lack of action brought Anniston as The Center for Food Safety also reports,

The world’s center of PCB manufacturing was Monsanto’s plant on the outskirts of East St. Louis, Illinois, which has the highest rate of fetal death and immature births in the state. By 1982, nearby Times Beach, Missouri, was found to be so thoroughly contaminated with dioxin, a by-product of PCB manufacturing, that the government ordered it evacuated.”

Monsanto can, however, claim the Monsanto of today is not the Monsanto of yesteryear. According to Wikipedia, the Monsanto of 1901-2000 and the current business are now two legally separate corporations, though they share the same name as well as many of the same executives and workers. The “new” Monsanto is an agricultural company (as opposed to a chemical company).

Are Monsanto’s misdeeds a thing of the past? In 2005, BBC News reported that Monsanto agreed to pay a $1.5 million dollar fine for bribing an Indonesian official “to avoid environmental impact studies being conducted on its [bio-tech] cotton.” Monsanto said it accepted full responsibility for its “improper activities” and agreed to three years of close monitoring of its business practices by American authorities.

GMO seeds were approved by the FDA under the GRAS designation—generally recognized as safe. As such, Monsanto’s bio-tech seeds were granted exemption from premarket approval by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Due to this ruling, the onus to ensure the safety of genetically altered food created by Monsanto rests with Monsanto, a company whose actions have revealed an unparalleled disregard for human life and environmental safety.

Opponents of GMOs often quote a cavalier statement made by Phil Angell, Monsanto’s former director of corporate communications to author Michael Pollan. In Pollan’s article, Playing God in the Garden, published in the New York Times Magazine in 1998, Angell is quoted as saying,

Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

We asked Brad Mitchell, Director of Public Affairs for Monsanto if we were dealing with a new Monsanto since our take on Monsanto’s reputation is one of deception, corruption, bribery, and environmental degradation, a company that made significantly bad choices.   “I think more than anything, it’s a new age,” he said. “…I think you’re holding the Monsanto of the middle part of the 20th century against the standards of today. So, for instance, if you look at PCBs we all know today that what Monsanto did there was wrong. It shouldn’t have been done. Did we, Monsanto, or society as a whole know in the 60s or the 50s that that was wrong? I don’t think that we were as environmentally sophisticated as we are today.

…I’m not saying that we’re not liable, that we shouldn’t have done it, and all that, but you know, when you make these kind[s] of statements about how Monsanto obviously disregarded human health and public safety and the environment for profit, I wasn’t there. I can’t tell you what was in people’s hearts and minds. I do believe, however, that to some extent we’re being held against today’s standards for actions that occurred half a century ago.”

Perhaps we could agree that these actions occurred half a century ago if Monsanto had voluntarily embarked on a clean-up of PCB contamination in Anniston, Alabama, in any decade following the 50s or 60s. If they had, perhaps we could believe the corporation has grown a conscience. According to The Washington Post, it was February 2002 when Monsanto was held liable by an Alabama jury for all six counts it considered: negligence, wantonness, suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass and outrage. The Post quotes the legal definition of outrage under Alabama law as conduct, “so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society.”

The Center for Food Safety maintains a website, www.monsantowatch.org. On this site they report, “In August, 2003, Monsanto and its former chemical subsidiary, Solutia, Inc. (now owned by Pharmacia Corp.), agreed to pay $600 million to settle claims brought by more than 20,000 residents of Anniston, AL, over the severe contamination of ground and water by tons of PCBs dumped in the area from the 1930s until the 1970s. Court documents revealed that Monsanto was aware of the contamination decades earlier.”

History tells us Monsanto was well aware of the damage their silence and lack of action brought Anniston as The Center for Food Safety also reports,

The world’s center of PCB manufacturing was Monsanto’s plant on the outskirts of East St. Louis, Illinois, which has the highest rate of fetal death and immature births in the state. By 1982, nearby Times Beach, Missouri, was found to be so thoroughly contaminated with dioxin, a by-product of PCB manufacturing, that the government ordered it evacuated.”

Monsanto can, however, claim the Monsanto of today is not the Monsanto of yesteryear. According to Wikipedia, the Monsanto of 1901-2000 and the current business are now two legally separate corporations, though they share the same name as well as many of the same executives and workers.  The “new” Monsanto is an agricultural company (as opposed to a chemical company).

Are Monsanto’s misdeeds a thing of the past? In 2005, BBC News reported that Monsanto agreed to pay a $1.5 million dollar fine for bribing an Indonesian official “to avoid environmental impact studies being conducted on its [bio-tech] cotton.”  Monsanto said it accepted full responsibility for its “improper activities” and agreed to three years of close monitoring of its business practices by American authorities.

GMO seeds were approved by the FDA under the GRAS designation—generally recognized as safe. As such, Monsanto’s bio-tech seeds were granted exemption from premarket approval by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Due to this ruling, the onus to ensure the safety of genetically altered food created by Monsanto rests with Monsanto, a company whose actions have revealed an unparalleled disregard for human life and environmental safety.

Opponents of GMOs often quote a cavalier statement made by Phil Angell, Monsanto’s former director of corporate communications to author Michael Pollan. In Pollan’s article, Playing God in the Garden, published in the New York Times Magazine in 1998, Angell is quoted as saying,

Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

When we asked Mr. Mitchell if he was familiar with this statement, he said he thought the statement had been made by a Monsanto foreman and that it was taken out of context. “I don’t know the gentleman, but I do know the general feeling here. There is nobody here at Monsanto that I know that says, ‘Screw safety, that’s not our problem, it’s FDA’s.’ I think what the gentleman quoted is referring to is that when it comes down to it, the law, by the law, it’s FDA’s responsibility. I don’t know a single person at Monsanto who does not believe that we have the responsibility. But if you want to look at the law, the final say on this, and the final arbiter, and the people legally charged with safely stating whether it’s safe or not is not Monsanto, it’s FDA.”

Mitchell tells us he and Monsanto’s scientific team have never seen a study that shows any significant risk associated with GMO foods.

I’ve worked with our scientific affairs team, so when studies come out to do analysis and that sort of thing, we have yet to see a study which we think shows us any significant risk with these things. So, those studies are best addressed on a one-on-one basis, and I would say that there are just as many studies, independent as well, that show (chuckles) that there are not risks with them [GMOs].”

He argues that the oft referenced study by Árpád Pusztai showing GMO potatoes was flawed. “My understanding is that there were only six animals in each control group, so statistical significance is pretty weak there.” In addition, he states that Pusztai did not go through the basic safety processes. “The premise of biotech safety in virtually every country that allows these things is something called substantial equivalence. You compare a genetically modified potato to a non-genetically modified potato against a whole bunch of parameters on stuff they contain. And essentially if it doesn’t cause any physiological or physiochemical differences in the potato, they’re deemed to be substantively equivalent, which means that they are pretty much the same with the exception of the protein that’s expressed in the genetically modified one. …Now the ironic part is that Pusztai, when he did his test, never analyzed the potatoes for substantial equivalence. And in fact there is very good evidence that snowdrop lectin [used in the study] will actually—the protein itself, will change the physiology of that potato where it would not meet the standards of substantial equivalence. So he’s testing a GM product that was never commercialized, that has never even been even through the most basic level of safety, with a poor study, that basically shows and basically came to the conclusion that all genetically modified crops have risks, when he hasn’t even done the basic tests that genetically modified crops go through before being approved.”

In 1997, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre were hired by Fox Television as the researchers and stars of a new investigative news show, called The Investigators. Akre says they were told, “Do any stories you want. Ask tough questions and get answers.”  One of the first stories they proposed was an expose on Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone, rBST, also known as Posilac. Their investigation revealed that Canada refused to approve Posilac, citing health concerns, that Posilac was linked to cancer, and that the FDA had rubberstamped the product without proper testing.

While Monsanto’s publicity stated, “Posilac is the single most tested new product in history,” Wilson and Akre’s investigation revealed that the longest test Monsanto had done for human toxicity was for 90 days on 30 rats.

Legal threats from Monsanto prompted Fox to kill the story and set in motion a chain of events that resulting in Fox firing Steve Wilson and Jane Akre for insubordination after several attempts failed to convince them to kill the story, re-write the story, or out and out lie about its contents.  Fox even attempted to bribe the pair, offering them the rest of a year’s salary in exchange for their silence about the story and Fox’s part in it.

Brad Mitchell stated, “We would still contend that Monsanto [rBST] is a safe product. The FDA would support us on that. It’s still being used, albeit by a different company.”

Mitchell also tells us recent Internet rumors that Monsanto was opposed to or tried to prevent the labeling of milk as rBST free were absolutely untrue.

What we were trying to prevent was misleading labeling of milk as being rBST free. And many of the milk companies out there who were labeling it were doing so in a way that was in violation of FDA guidelines and made it basically sound like our product wasn’t safe, and the scientific consensus, at least in this country, was that it is.

“You know, we obviously would prefer that it wasn’t labeled that way, but our gripe was not against people who were labeling milk as rBST free; our real concern was people who were labeling it in opposition to what FDA guidelines set. And the vast majority of the state legislation and the things you saw really were just forcing milk labelers to label in accordance to those guidelines.

“I’ll give you an example, where some milk labels said it’s hormone free. Well, no milk is hormone free. It’s just misleading to say so. Now, if you want to say it’s rBST free, that’s better. What the FDA suggested was that it says this milk comes from cows not treated with rBST. Obviously we would prefer that people didn’t put that in writing and that people didn’t see a problem with our products. But if they were labeling milk accurately, we would not have had an issue with them.”

This company Highlight is continued in our next issue. Click to read Monsanto Company Profile Part II, Monsanto’s Turn. We will discuss Monsanto’s stand on patent infringement lawsuits and high yield potentials of GM crops, Europe’s attitude toward GMOs, and more.

Recommended Reading:

• Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods
• Monsanto part II
• Monsanto part III
• Monsanto part IV

As a brand new farmer, I farmed conventionally for two years and broke even both years on one quarter section. Not so good. No profit. Farming has to make money or there is no point in doing it, right?

I decided I could make a little more money if I converted to organic, plus I didn’t like spraying all those chemicals. So I began the next year with a crop of oats, and I didn’t spray. Well, in the spring, what popped out of the ground was a beautiful field of wild mustard weed. Again not so good. The oats did grow, but they suffered under the canopy of the wild mustard.

From a distance, the field looked like a canola field. I hung my head in shame thinking that once again, I would not make a profit. Some farmers laughed. Some jokingly commented on how beautiful my canola crop looked. And some probably thought I was one bale short of a hay stack! In desperation I searched the web for a solution, but could find nothing. I resigned myself to just let it grow and harvest whatever I could in the fall instead of plowing it under.

That summer I spoke to many farmers and eventually met up with an old timer who used to farm organically. Over coffee at his place, I told him about my field and all the things that went wrong. To my surprise, in one hour he gave me more info on how to farm organically than I had learned in months of searching on the net.

With this new-found knowledge, I purchased a few more pieces of old farm equipment to help me out. Fall came, and the oats, wild mustard, wild buckwheat, and all the other weeds that offered me their seed were pouring into the combine. It was a mess that looked like a dog’s breakfast, but, thanks to my friend, the old timer, I used an old-fashioned screening system I had found for $400.00 at a local farm auction to separate the small weeds from the larger oats . It worked so well, I was able to remove 99% of all the junk from the oats.

With this new found hope, I felt confident I could farm organically. But what was I to do with all these weed seeds like wild mustard? Most farmers just dig a hole in the field and bury them four feet under. I did some brainstorming and research, and then it came to me. I could crush them like they crush canola seeds to make my own fuel.

Since then, I have designed and built my own bio-diesel reactor, purchased a grain burning stove, and purchased a small canola crusher. My tractors and trucks run on my homemade bio-diesel, a major reduction of my fuel farming costs. I also heat my home on weed seeds, saving even more money.

The second year I planted wheat and was able to keep the weeds to a minimum. During the summer, I noticed I had a wheat midge problem. (A midge is a little bug that eats the wheat.) It wasn’t an all out devastating infestation, but I asked around to a few farmers who all told me I should spray to get rid of the pest. However, I knew if I sprayed, I would no longer qualify to be organic. So I went back to the web in hopes of an answer. I found nothing but chemicals used to kill the bugs.

I once again resigned myself to just letting the crop grow and harvesting in the fall if the bugs left anything to harvest.

I once read a quote by Ambrose Bierce, “Patience: A minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.” That sort of summed it up for me. But this story gets better. Much better! I have to tell you! Are you sitting down in your chair?

A miracle happened. About a week later, I noticed a new critter in the field. Lady bugs. Lady bugs and more lady bugs. What seemed like millions of them. Everywhere I looked and everywhere I walked, lady bugs would land on my arms, hands, and hair. I wondered what in the world they were doing in the field because I had not seen them there before. To my amazement, they were eating the pesky wheat midge. Just when I thought all hope was lost, the small seemingly insignificant lady bug came to my rescue.

Every day I would walk through the field and marvel at the tiny creatures that were now living in my field creating balance the way it was designed to work. You know the best thing I ever did was choose not to follow the conventional wisdom. Had I sprayed the first year for weeds, I wouldn’t have all this free bio-diesel. Had I sprayed the second year for the bugs, I would have killed the wheat midge, but I also would have indiscriminately killed many other critters like the amazing lady bug. I wouldn’t have let the natural cycle of the field follow its course. I would have missed out on a major blessing.

Organic agriculture is sustainable. I can’t help but wonder what we as a people could accomplish if we were just a little more patient.

According to Everyday Food, eggs are one of the earliest known food sources, and yet the question of whether the chicken or the egg came first continues to perplex and befuddle the masses. Today an even more complicated issue has arisen – what kind of eggs are best for you?

Have you noticed that the egg section is starting to rival the shampoo and drink sections for variety and choice, leaving you to decipher multiple labels and lists of ingredients? There are free range, cage free, and organic varieties, to mention just a few. What do these terms mean and how do you decide which eggs are best for you and your family?

Egg Basics 101

According to a fact sheet compiled by theU.S. Dept. of Agriculture, American Egg Board and USAPEEC – revised June 2008 “Presently, there are 60 egg producing companies with 1 million plus layers [egg-laying hens] and 12 companies with greater than 5 million layers. To date, there are approximately 240 egg producing companies with flocks of 75,000 hens or more. These 255 companies represent about 95% of all the layers in the United States. In 1987, there were around 2,500 operations. (Number of operations in 1987 include some contract farms and divisions.)”

Chicken eggs come in different sizes – small to jumbo (or extra large) and in different colors. Egg containers show the size, sell by date, and the kind of eggs. Brown hens usually lay brown eggs. White hens lay white eggs.

In Eggs, author Michael Roux says, “An egg is a treasure chest of substances that are essential for a balanced diet – rich in proteins, lipids, vitamins and minerals, including iron and zinc. It provides first-class protein, is low in sodium, and a medium egg contains only 78 calories.”

In the supermarket in the U.S., you’ll find your eggs are classified according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards. Eggs are graded AA-B and will have the USDA logo on the package to show that the eggs have been federally inspected. In Canada, the best choice is Grade A eggs.

Choices, Choices

Eggs from Caged Hens

The kind of eggs that you and your mother have been buying from your grocery store for the last few decades probably come from chickens raised in battery cages. These birds were probably given antibiotics. This kind of set up is banned in some areas of Europe  and is a target for animal rights groups. In fact, many people are outraged by the inhumane treatment of these chickens, such as the group ChickenOut!, a project of the Vancouver Humane Society.

Organic Eggs

Fed with organic feed (no additives, animal byproducts or GMO), these hens live cage free with access to the outside. According to Wikipedia, “Organic egg producers cannot use antibiotics except during an infectious outbreak. Only natural molting can occur within the flock; forced molting is not allowed. (Molting is forced by starving the hen for weeks at a time). Organic certification also means maintaining of high animal welfare standards, which prohibit any cutting off of beaks or wings without anesthesia, methods common until today in (the) poultry industry.” Hens cannot be given growth hormones and the USDA inspects the farm before they are allowed to use the “organic label.”

(Please note that organic certifications and regulations vary from country to country and province to province, so check on the certification requirements for your area).

Free-Range (or Cage-Free) Eggs

A new study from Mother Earth Newsproves that pasture-raised chickens produce superior eggs with less cholesterol, less saturated fat, twice the omega-3 fatty acids, 3 times the vitamin E, 7 times more beta carotene, 2/3 more vitamin A, and 4-6 times as much vitamin D!

Unfortunately, while free-range chickens raised for meat must meet specific standards, there is no legal definition for free–range eggs and there are no standards. Free-range doesn’t necessarily mean pasture raised. Free-range hens are supposed to have access to the outside. But there is no regulation as to how long they are outside, how much room they are to be given, or about any of the standards that deem them “free-range.” Some reports claim many free-range chickens are caged. Plus these birds can still be given antibiotics, animal byproducts, and food from GMO crops. They may live in an overcrowded situation and may or may not have access to nests and perches.  In other words, they are probably not what you thought they were.

Free-Run Eggs

This is one of those terms that sound like the hens are having the time of their life, but in fact, they are usually kept indoors in large barns. They are not allowed to go outside and it may be overcrowded.

Antibiotic Free Eggs

According to the USDA, this label can be used on beef and poultry products, provided that the producer supplies “sufficient documentation … that the animals were raised without antibiotics.”

Hormone Free Eggs

This label applies only to beef, says the USDA. Since hormones are not supposed to be given to pigs or chickens, pork and poultry products cannot legally be tagged with this label without the disclaimer “Federal regulations prohibit the use of hormones.”

Fed Vegetarian Feed, All-Natural, Farm Fresh, Omega-3 Eggs

ChickenOut! says, “These words and images on egg cartons mean nothing as far as animal welfare is concerned. In fact, eggs in these cartons are from hens in cages.”

Amish Eggs

Some people think Amish eggs are the most natural. Ariane Daguin, co-owner of D’Artagnan, a Newark-based supplier of Amish chicken to New York restaurants and markets told the New York Times, “It’s a marketing ploy. It doesn’t mean anything.” The mystique of the Amish label, Ms. Daguin said, comes from its ‘’aura of naturalness.” Chickens raised on Amish farms do not always eat vegetarian feed. Nor are they more likely to be free-range or free-roaming. Read From Gravy to Jus, Now ‘Amish’ Is Trendy

The Bottom Line

It seems that out of all the practices, organic is best. Chickens raised organically are the only chickens with guaranteed welfare standards in place. Organic eggs are becoming an overwhelmingly popular choice for many egg consumers, not only for their fresh taste, but for the ethics involved in the raising and handling of the hens. But according to the USDA, “Only 1 percent of dairy cows and less than 1 percent of chickens are raised in accordance with these standards.” So be sure to check your labels carefully.

May 2011 Update: Vital Farms sell highly nutritious organic eggs raised by healthy, humanely treated chickens. If you can’t raise your own chickens, these are the best we know of.

K. Rashid Nuri is a farmer. If this statement conjures an image of a white two-story farmhouse situated at the top of a rise, overlooking acre upon acre of planted fields that have been handed down through six generations, put a pin in it. Nuri is not that kind of farmer. A city boy, he grew up in Boston. His father had been an educator, his step-father a Navy man, and his mother a community activist. Nuri enrolled in Harvard to pursue a life in politics. He graduated with a degree in political science and enough math and science under his belt to pursue medicine if he was so inclined. But Rashid was a child of the ‘60s who dedicated his life to making a difference. He understood the fundamentals behind nation building—it doesn’t start from the top down; it starts from the bottom up. A nation’s first need is to clothe, shelter, and feed its people. Nuri chose food. “I set out to learn all about food from the seed to the table, and wanted to do this through practical experience.”

He started with a Masters in Plant and Soil Science from the University of Massachusetts. Practical experience began when his first job after college took him to San Diego County, California, where he installed organic gardens. Since that time he has worked in more than 35 countries around the world. “I have built farms, managed farms, worked with government, managed a 30,000 rose bush garden, taught organic farming, and spent years in agribusiness working with feed, seed, poultry, cotton and oilseed processing, and commodity trading.” He also served four years as a senior executive in the Clinton Administration, which included time served as the Deputy Administrator of the Farm Service Agency and Foreign Agricultural Service for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In 2006, Nuri brought his 40 years of experience to the creation of Truly Living Well Natural Urban Farms. This community supported agricultural project grows food on four sites in the Metropolitan Atlanta Area, providing nutritionally-rich, fresh-picked, organic produce to the community. Organic, urban food production minimizes the carbon footprint. Crops are not stored and shipped over great distances. Food does not lose its nutritional value. Crops are not contaminated by unwashed trucks or storage bins.

Most of the food produced by the farm is sold through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscriptions, which are sold on a revolving basis. Each subscription punch card is good for 13 boxes of food, to be redeemed at the buyer’s convenience. Member subscription fees provide capital to purchase supplies and fund the operations. Truly Living Well also sells produce to local restaurants and to the community at large.

Yes, K. Rashid Nuri is a farmer. He is also a social activist. He fights hunger through his outreach efforts to help students, organizations, and individuals plant sustainable, organic gardens and through teaching opportunities at his farm. He serves on the board of Georgia Organics and is a member of the Atlanta Local Food Initiative. He is also OLM’s newest contributor and advisor.

Check out Nuri’s article on How to Start Your Own Organic Garden in the next issue.

At age 30, Mike Adams was fifty pounds overweight. He suffered from chronic back pain, depression, high cholesterol, and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The son of a Pfizer contractor and a clinical trial tester for some of America’s largest pharmaceutical companies, he had grown up trusting conventional medicine. Extensive research led him to the truth about health: the vast majority of all diseases can easily be prevented and even cured without drugs or surgery. Within months he had cured himself of diabetes and he quickly achieved optimal health. The founder of Natural News.com, The Consumer Wellness Center, Better Life Goods, and Truth Publishing, he is known today as Mike Adams, The Health Ranger.

OLM: Tell me about what’s going on with the FTC and the FDA these days.

Mike Adams: The biggest issue that affects your readership is the irradiation of the food supply. Many people choose organic foods because they want the increased nutritional potency of those foods. Everybody knows that organic fruits and vegetables have more nutrients, more vitamins, more minerals than conventionally grown. But when you irradiate those foods you destroy the delicate phytonutrients and phytochemicals that are responsible for protecting us from chronic degenerative disease. So by irradiating the food supply, the FDA and the USDA are in fact depleting the nutritional potency of the food supply. And on top of that, they don’t want anyone to know the foods are being irradiated. They want to be able to label foods as “pasteurized” if they’ve been irradiated. Louis Pasteur would be rolling in his grave to hear his name was being associated with irradiation of foods. But it’s a symptom of what’s happening in our nation. Even this financial fiasco that is going on is all about just sweeping things under the carpet, misleading consumers, and trying to pretend these problems don’t exist. It’s what the FDA is doing as well as Wall Street.

OLM: How do they irradiate food? Do you know what the process actually is?

Mike Adams: Yes. There’s an irradiation machine. It’s a lot like the conveyor belt at the airport where you put your luggage through. There’s a tunnel and there’s a belt and the food is already packaged so it’s usually already wrapped in plastic. And then it’s just fed through this machine and it simply radiates it for a few seconds with a very high power radiation machine, higher power than what they use at the airport by the way, and then it comes out, and that’s it. It’s been irradiated, and from that point forward it’s been altered. The genes, the DNA of the plant have been altered, and so have the nutritional properties.

OLM: I know they are doing this with spinach. Are they doing it with any other produce?

Mike Adams: Well, they do it with spinach. You’re right. They are considering doing it with green onions, peppers and tomatoes. And it’s only a matter of time. You know how these things go. They will expand this effort to include other veggies. Because, you see, our federal government, in my view, would rather destroy the food supply than to try to make farmers and ranchers more accountable for the cleanliness of their own operations. You see, E. coli contamination of foods is not caused by plants. It’s caused by upstream cattle factories. E. coli doesn’t grow in plants. It only grows in animals. So the contamination of lettuce or tomatoes or anything along those lines with E. coli is really caused by upstream cattle operations. And rather than clean these up they’d rather just irradiate the food supply.

OLM: And my understanding is that the E. coli that can hurt us is actually manmade. The E. coli has to survive acidic conditions and antibiotics before it mutates and becomes dangerous.

Mike Adams: Well yeah, exactly. By Industrial Farming pumping those cattle full of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, they are breeding in, essence, E. coli superbugs. And that is what gets into the food supply when they don’t have clean operations. The problem here is upstream. And again, this is very typical of what is happening in the U.S. today, which is to ignore the root causes of the problems and simply treat the symptoms or try to mask the symptoms in some way.

OLM: Do you know of any E. coli or salmonella outbreaks with organic produce?

Mike Adams: No, I don’t know of any. I’ve heard of some organic almonds being contaminated. But they were all contaminated during the shipping or transportation phase. Organic almonds are never contaminated at the source. It’s only distributions, shipping, that kind of thing, because they don’t clean the containers. You know, the big trucks. They might ship some other contaminated food first and then they don’t wash it out properly and then the almonds get contaminated.

OLM: And what they are doing with spinach they might be doing with organic spinach, as well as conventional, right? There’s no rule that says they can’t irradiate organic spinach, correct?

Mike Adams: Well, I think there is a rule that you can’t label it organic if it’s been irradiated but I’m not actually sure about that. I’d have to check on that. Regardless, what’s happening is a trend towards irradiation of more foods and a weakening of the definition of organic. And that’s where institutions like the Cornucopia Institute, which I consider to be good friends and good allies, are working very, very hard to protect the integrity of the word organic, the definition of organic.

OLM: I’ve just recently looked at their website pretty extensively and I am pretty pleased with them. I just found out about them from… I think it was one of your emails.

Mike Adams:They represent small farms all over the country. That’s their constituency, so to speak. They are trying to protect those small farms and doing so requires the protection of the definition of organic. Because if you can let big business come in and put chemicals on the crops and chemicals in the animals and then still call it organic then, of course, the small farmers can’t compete.

OLM: It seems that they are what the FDA should be.

Mike Adams: Yeah. Yeah. (Laughing wryly) It’s very clear that the FDA and the FTC and even the USDA no longer work to protect the people, not by any wild stretch of the imagination. They work to protect the interests of the corporations that control this country. The people are protected only by the non-profits. It’s organizations like the Cornucopia Institute that are suing the USDA  or organizations like the Organic Consumers Association, which  I also support , that are suing the so called organic deputy operations. These non-profits are doing the job that the regulators should have been doing but are refusing to do.

OLM: Yeah, and you know a lot of people have a really hard time swallowing the idea that there are people in Congress, the FDA, and the FTC who want us to be sick.  But it does seem like that’s what they’re doing. That’s certainly the end result.

Mike Adams: It’s a well known phenomenon that every regulatory agency eventually becomes the marketing branch of the very industry it’s supposed to regulate and the reason is because all the people working at the FDA, or most, used to work in the industries they regulate. And the people who leave the FDA go to work at those companies. So it’s a revolving door policy is what it’s called. So it’s all the same people and they’re just pretending to be on two sides of the fence when in fact they are all working in the same direction which is more drugs, more power, more profits for the corporations.

Now none of these people actually want Americans to be sick. They don’t fall asleep at night dreaming of a nation full of sick, diseased people.  However, they are willing to look the other way while this happens.  We’ve seen the lack of integrity in Western culture where people are willing do anything to make money. We saw it with Enron. We’re seeing it right now with the big financial fallout on Wall Street where people are walking away with billions of dollars in profits while causing taxpayers to foot the bill for all the debt and fraud that they created. People in positions of power will almost always compromise the safety or the health of the public if it means more money or more power for themselves. And that’s just a basic human law.  People are inherently selfish. And there are some individuals who have high spirituality, who have learned ethics, who can overcome that basic human nature of selfishness. I think you and I are certainly among those people; however, we are in the minority. Most people think about themselves and their own financial gains, and that’s it.

OLM: The FTC is suing companies that are trying to help people, companies that say they can cure cancer or companies that say they can treat or cure disease. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Mike Adams: The FTC is joining the FDA in running what I call a campaign of terrorism and oppression against companies offering legitimate cancer solutions. There are many, many anti-cancer plants and herbs and natural medicines that exist. And this is widely acknowledged everywhere in the world except in the United States.  The FTC has now taken it upon itself to insist there is no such thing as an anti-cancer nutrient and anyone who says there is, is automatically guilty of a serious crime.  And they are now suing and threatening prison time and threatening bankruptcies to these companies that offer legitimate scientifically validated anti-cancer solutions. This is being done, of course, to protect the highly corrupt, fraudulent cancer industry that depends on the continuation of cancer in the population in order to stay in business. The truth is we could cure 90% of cancer right now, using what we know right now.

OLM: And the 10% we can’t cure are just people who are so far gone.

Mike Adams: Right. Those would be the 10% who got chemotherapy, who suffered freakish radiation events or things like that, that are just very, very difficult to reverse.  But 90% with confidence, we can reverse. And certainly we can easily prevent 98% of all cancers. We could live in a world without cancer. But the cancer industry absolutely does not want to see that happen.

OLM: Well, cancer, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome, anything that requires continued care, is just too profitable.

Mike Adams: That’s it. And realize a full quarter of our national economy is now invested in the business of disease and sickness care. What are you going to do? Give the cures to the population? Then you will have a 25% unemployment rate. You’ll have trillions of dollars in losses, because there’s been so much investment in hospitals and clinics and oncology centers and medical schools and all of these things that are based on people staying sick and diseased. Sothey don’t want the population to be free of cancer. It would cause too much economic devastation.

OLM: Speaking of that, I think it was in one of your newsletters I read that talks about where our taxpayer dollars go. And a big chunck of that is health, or lack thereof.

Mike Adams:  Yes. The three biggest areas where our tax dollars go right now, and I believe it’s 96% of our tax dollars—that’s war, disease, and debt. If you just go look at the numbers, that’s what it’s paying for. War, which they call security. Disease, which they call health care. And debt which is just interest payments on the national debt, which is now, as of the recent financial situation, 10 trillion dollars.

OLM: And you know not one of these three could really last forever. I just don’t see how a country can spend the majority of its money on any one of these three and be profitable forever. It sounds like a house of cards.

Mike Adams: It’s absolutely a house of cards. And its ultimate outcome is not in doubt by anyone who can do math. That is the complete—the complete collapse of the United States government and a re-booting of the global economy. The USA as we know it today will not exist in a few more years. It cannot. It is mathematically impossible. Even if you could pay off all the debt. If aliens showed up with money, just paid off the debt of everybody in the world, you still have a nation that’s diseased. And you have a generation of children who are diseased and are being raised on junk food, and pharmaceuticals, and vaccines, and toxic chemicals but not getting sunlight and not getting nutrition. You don’t have a future. No nation has a future if the health of its children is compromised. So the future for the United States of America looks very, very bleak in my opinion. And it may be several generations before people learn these hard lessons and realize that if you want to have an abundant future you must invest in health rather than investing in disease.

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To learn more about Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, go to healthranger.org