If you are read­ing this you likely already know that “con­ven­tion­ally grown” pro­duce is not good a thing because pes­ti­cides and chem­i­cals in and on the food you eat is bad. (click here if you are not sure if you have been eat­ing con­ven­tional, GMO, or organic) I am amazed that so many peo­ple still choose to ignore this, espe­cially when they go to the gro­cery store. To be fair, I too once let the pretty arrange­ments of pro­duce  intox­i­cate my senses when shop­ping.  All that  unnat­u­rally pretty, oddly col­or­ful,  and uni­formly shaped pro­duce looks appeal­ing. This com­bined with a naive sense of faith in “the pow­ers that be”  also helped me to ignore the obvi­ous. If I ever did let my mind wan­der to images of rat poi­son and the like, I quickly dis­missed those unpleas­ant thoughts. It was eas­ier to believe that that the gov­ern­ment (and even their gro­cer) had my back on this issue. They wouldn’t allow  any­thing on the food that wasn’t well tested and safe for my fam­ily and I to eat right? This is eas­ier to  believe because if you choose not to, you will be forced to ques­tion other things. That is unset­tling for many peo­ple and a lot of work too.

Look­ing back I now shud­der to think of all the pro­duce I ate over the years with only a light rinse under tap water!!! How was I sup­posed to know they often use oil based pes­ti­cides or that they coat things in petro­leum to keep it look­ing nice longer? That stuff doesn’t wash off with tap water!!! There are vol­umes of infor­ma­tion out there about the ill effects of con­sum­ing “con­ven­tional” pro­duce. I will spare you the long winded soap box on this but in short, eat­ing con­ven­tion­ally grown is not a good thing.

It is unfor­tu­nate that con­ven­tion­ally grown pro­duce is now a nec­es­sary evil in the mod­ern world. It is the result from gen­er­a­tions of bad agri­cul­tural prac­tices. Most farm­ers are good peo­ple and they don’t want to spray and grow their crops with chem­i­cals any­more than we want them to. Most aren’t mad sci­en­tists either but they have been forced into this cycle. As a farmer if you focus your resources too much on one or two types of crop such as, oh let’s just say corn and soy, you are pretty des­per­ate to save them when a bug, dis­ease, or par­a­site moves in.  In nature these crop ail­ments pro­vide for nat­ural selec­tion. There is a rea­son for this. When we try to nar­row the play­ing field down to a cou­ple key play­ers we back our­selves into a cor­ner when they get sick. Isn’t this why steroids are a prob­lem in pro sports? This becomes a dif­fi­cult cycle for many farm­ers to break out of. The same holds true for many ath­letes stuck in the cycle of steroids like McG­wire was I suppose.

What about GMO?

Genet­i­cally Mod­i­fied Organ­isms, doesn’t that have a nice ring to it?

These are crops that are altered in a lab at a genetic level to be bet­ter than nature. Some GMO crops have been aug­mented to kill par­a­sites all by them­selves. Many can even with­stand treat­ment by the very same stuff that will kill your lawn, Roundup. Mmmm…mmm!  What’s worse is the com­pany that makes Roundup, also makes the GMO seeds that pro­duce the GMO crops. Did I men­tion that they also hold the patent on the GMO seeds? If you are a farmer, this sce­nario could be likened to pay­ing pro­tec­tion money to the mafia. Really, it’s that bad. You will see why in a moment as you read on.

One GMO crop in par­tic­u­lar was genet­i­cally mod­i­fied using, of all things, the E-coli bac­te­ria. This genetic med­dling allowed the crop to pro­duce its own lar­vi­cide. This lar­vacide  (Bacil­lus Thuringien­sis or BT) that it pro­duces (again, all by itself) is the same key ingre­di­ent used to treat mos­qui­toes in ponds and stag­nant water. Granted I know through using this stuff myself that it is safe and non-toxic to humans. This doesn’t mean I would want to sprin­kle it in my food. To that end I dont want my food grow­ing it either. This is the same GMO Crop that can take the Roundup and keep on smiling.

Sci­en­tists fig­ured out that the E-coli bac­te­ria was the only thing that offered the right com­po­nents to help pen­e­trate the cell walls of this crop at a genetic level.  So which crop is it you ask? Can you say high fruc­tose corn syrup? Yup, that right, corn. It is at the top of the list for GMO crops with soy and Canola (rape­seed) trail­ing closely behind.

In 2006, it was esti­mated that 61% of all corn grown in the US was GMO. That was in 2006! I couldn’t find any recent num­bers for this.

So why is GMO Corn so bad?

If you are a farmer grow­ing con­ven­tional corn, GMO is quite fright­en­ing. GMO corn can spread read­ily on the wind. It can take over the crop of a nearby farm with­out warn­ing. The real kicker — remem­ber what I men­tioned about how the com­pany that invented the GMO corn holds the patent on it? If they find a farmer grow­ing their corn with­out license, they threaten him with law­suits if he doesn’t pay. If he doesn’t, they sue and the farmer loses nearly every time. So lets recap this — a farmer that grows con­ven­tional corn in a field that has been in his fam­ily for gen­er­a­tions gets a vis­i­tor one day.  The rep­re­sen­ta­tives (goons) tell him that he must pay them money for their patented corn. This can be a total sur­prise because the farmer may not even be aware that GMO corn had invaded his field.  He refuses to pay, they sue and win. One more small inde­pen­dent farm checked off the list. You have to love our legal system.

I am not a farmer so why should I care about GMO?

One of the first things I real­ized when mak­ing the changes to my eat­ing habits was how much corn and soy were in the foods I ate. Remem­ber these are the two most com­monly pro­duced GMO crops. Most peo­ple don’t know that nearly all processed foods con­tain corn in some form or vari­ety and often times soy as well. Given the 2006 esti­mate that said more than 61% of all corn is now GMO, what do you think the like­li­hood is that you have been eat­ing GMO corn or soy and didn’t even know it?

This topic has been cov­ered well by other rep­utable sources so there is no need for me to re-write what has already been writ­ten. Suf­ficed to say there is  com­pelling data to sup­port not eat­ing GMO products.Very lit­tle test­ing or research has been done with humans and the effects of GMO thus far.

Here are a just a few rea­sons to care about GMO.

• When offered a choice between GMO or non-GMO foods, ani­mals instinc­tively choose non-GMO. This says a lot to me all by itself.

• Research also shows a direct cor­re­la­tion between organ dis­ease and can­cer rates amongst ani­mals fed GMO com­pared to those fed non-GMO.

• Stud­ies also show a sig­nif­i­cant increase in birth defects as well as infant mor­tal­ity in ani­mals fed exclu­sively GMO diets.

For addi­tional read­ing about GMO  check out these links:

Genet­i­cally Mod­i­fied Foods: Just Say No! - Dr. Joseph Pizzorno

So organic is the answer right?

I wish. At a per­sonal level yes, it is absolutely bet­ter. It may not be as pretty, col­or­ful, or as big but at least it isn’t laced with chem­i­cals. Going organic does how­ever mean buy­ing sea­sonal which in turn means you shouldn’t be eat­ing cher­ries in Decem­ber. A small price to pay in my opin­ion.  Okay so you can live with that, why is organic still not the answer?

We have ded­i­cated so much of our agri­cul­tural resources to crops such as corn and soy; there isn’t enough room to grow organic fruits and veg­etable in large enough vol­umes to feed the masses any­more. The same goes for rais­ing grass fed cat­tle but that is another story alto­gether. As a result, and to meet the demands of the pop­u­la­tions, con­ven­tion­ally grown has been the only way to go for the masses and most farm­ers. You can grow toma­toes faster, fat­ter, and cheaper with chem­i­cals that you can with­out. Yes, even though they have to buy chem­i­cals to grow them, they yield more for less which is part of the appeal. Corn is also sub­si­dized by the gov­ern­ment. This makes it even cheaper to produce.

How Much Does Organic Cost?

The road that led to the use of pes­ti­cides and GMO was paved with good inten­tions. Some­where along the way how­ever, greed also stepped in. Feed­ing the world through sci­ence is a noble cause but dangerous.

There is always a price to be paid some­where. The ques­tion is will it be at the expense of your wal­let or your health. Until we tell the world we want more organic and we are will­ing to pay for it, they will keep grow­ing con­ven­tional and sub­si­dized pro­duce because they have to. Think Wal-Mart and China. We wanted stuff cheaper and they gave it to us. All the while our jobs drifted across to the other side of the globe. The same con­cept applies here. Every time you buy organic, you are vot­ing for it in com­put­ers all over the world. If we vote enough, they will listen.

As I noted in my post about our gro­cery bills it isn’t as bad as it sounds in terms of costs to eat healthy. There is a def­i­nite dif­fer­ence in cost though. Are you will­ing to sac­ri­fice your junk food (made with corn I might add) to eat bet­ter pro­duce? It was impor­tant enough to me and my family.

Be Prac­ti­cal but Aware

My fam­ily and I  still eat con­ven­tional from time to time. This is not some­thing we do on a reg­u­lar basis but it is some­times very incon­ve­nient to be OCD about organic food. There are times when for what­ever rea­son we need some­thing that isn’t avail­able in organic. When we do buy con­ven­tional, we at least do so with the fore­knowl­edge of what it  is.   We also wash it with soap and water like a schiz­o­phrenic with a germ pho­bia before we eat it.

There are times when you have to be flex­i­ble and prac­ti­cal. There are no absolutes when eat­ing healthy. Noth­ing would make me hap­pier than to some­day see organic as the norm and con­ven­tional or GMO as the minor­ity, but we are a long way off from that vision. Until then there will always be shades of gray between buy­ing and eat­ing healthy and not so much.

At least now you know and I must apol­o­gize if all of this was news to you. From this point for­ward there is a  chance that you will be accom­pa­nied by a faint and slightly nag­ging voice in the back of your mind each time you make a trip to the gro­cery store.

Will it still be eas­ier to just ignore it?