Frankenfoods, Frank Answers and Fair Play
Eye-catching boxes line store shelves and many look like our old favorites but everything old is new again and nobody’s telling us what’s really in the food we eat. Genetically engineered foods are nearly everywhere and we never got a chance to vote on whether we even wanted them.
Here in America, biotech food products are almost impossible to avoid, whether we want them or not. They’re in flour, spices, herbs, processed foods and snacks. You won’t find them on the labels but they’re in baby foods and animal foods. They’re silently served on airlines, at restaurants, salad bars and in vending machines. We’re fed them in hospitals, school cafeterias and nursing homes. It’s a genetically engineered diet plan, from cradle to grave. Many experts say it’ll probably get us from one to the other a whole lot faster and a lot more expensively.
The frankenfood industry is not held accountable for what their products might do to us and generations of children. Meanwhile, the US government admits over 44,000,000 folks (a deceptively low count) can’t get medical insurance and, for many of us, medical services are unavailable or in jeopardy.
Insurance conglomerates and politicians complain about the rising demand for and cost of healthcare, deciding who to kick off the gurneys and lock out of the hospitals. Meanwhile, disease rates rise and freaky foods may be a factor. The frankenfood kings are in their counting houses, counting out their money while we’re getting shortchanged at the market. They’re not at all concerned but then, they don’t have to eat what they sell.
The industry, its political lobbyists and our politicians have mutual interests and the public health doesn’t seem to be their highest priority. We aren’t corporate executives, their well-funded mouthpieces or politicians with free lifetime first-class health care. We’re real live, really vulnerable human beings with the right to gain knowledge and make our own choices.
We need to know what we’re eating, in order to know what’s eating us. Independent consumer protection organizations like
Public Citizen,
Environmental Working Group and
The Center for Food Safety are on our side. These groups help fund or run clinical studies and they all have educational websites, with the food and supplement facts we need to know.
Biotech is big business, despite opposition in countries worldwide. Soybeans, maize, corn, tomatos, sweet potatos, bananas, wheat and more are being farmed from genetically altered seeds, along with cotton (which shows up in some new foods) and other crops. GE brings good things to life, for those who cash the checks but, somehow, these biotechies can’t afford to give us answers.
Rather than take up a collection to benefit the communicatively challenged – they really don’t need the money – we can educate ourselves to eat well and wisely. That’ll teach ‘em – their classroom is the marketplace and if we don’t buy, they fail. We won’t make positive changes in food quality and consumer protections until we learn to be selective and make our voices heard. Stomachs, get ready to rumble!