Why Schools Should Remove Gene-Altered Foods from Their Cafeterias

[Guest guest]

Dear Smith,

This is a mindboggling story. Thank you. How many 'intellectual' people in

the wold read this?

Regards,

Sakti

(India).

 

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:17 AM, <bestsurprise2002 wrote:

 

> Why Schools Should Remove Gene-Altered Foods from Their Cafeterias

> _http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14507.cfm_

> (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14507.cfm)

> By Jeffrey M. Smith

> Comanche County Chronicle, Elgin, OK, September, 2008

> Straight to the Source

>

>

> from Institute for Responsible Technology, Spilling the Beans newsletter on

>

> GM Foods by Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception

>

>

> Before the Appleton Wisconsin high school replaced their cafeteria's

> processed foods with wholesome, nutritious food, the school was described

> as

> out-of-control. There were weapons violations, student disruptions, and a

> cop on

> duty full-time. After the change in school meals, the students were calm,

> focused, and orderly. There were no more weapons violations, and no

> suicides,

> expulsions, dropouts, or drug violations. The new diet and improved

> behavior has

> lasted for seven years, and now other schools are changing their meal

> programs

> with similar results.

>

> Years ago, a science class at Appleton found support for their new diet by

> conducting a cruel and unusual experiment with three mice. They fed them

> the

> junk food that kids in other high schools eat everyday. The mice freaked

> out.

> Their behavior was totally different than the three mice in the neighboring

>

> cage. The neighboring mice had good karma; they were fed nutritious whole

> foods and behaved like mice. They slept during the day inside their

> cardboard

> tube, played with each other, and acted very mouse-like.

>

> The junk food mice, on the other hand, destroyed their cardboard tube, were

>

> no longer nocturnal, stopped playing with each other, fought often, and two

>

> mice eventually killed the third and ate it. After the three month

> experiment,

> the students rehabilitated the two surviving junk food mice with a diet of

> whole foods. After about three weeks, the mice came around.

>

> Sister Luigi Frigo repeats this experiment every year in her second grade

> class in Cudahy, Wisconsin, but mercifully, for only four days. Even on the

>

> first day of junk food, the mice's behavior " changes drastically. " They

> become

> lazy, antisocial, and nervous. And it still takes the mice about two to

> three

> weeks on unprocessed foods to return to normal. One year, the second

> graders

> tried to do the experiment again a few months later with the same mice, but

>

> this time the animals refused to eat the junk food.

>

> Across the ocean in Holland, a student fed one group of mice genetically

> modified (GM) corn and soy, and another group the non-GM variety. The GM

> mice

> stopped playing with each other and withdrew into their own parts of the

> cage.

> When the student tried to pick them up, unlike their well-behaved

> neighbors,

> the GM mice scampered around in apparent fear and tried to climb the walls.

>

> One mouse in the GM group was found dead at the end of the experiment.

>

> It's interesting to note that the junk food fed to the mice in the

> Wisconsin

> experiments also contained genetically modified ingredients. And although

> the Appleton school lunch program did not specifically attempt to remove GM

>

> foods, it happened anyway. That's because GM foods such as soy and corn and

>

> their derivatives are largely found in processed foods. So when the school

> switched to unprocessed alternatives, almost all ingredients derived from

> GM crops

> were taken out automatically.

>

> Does this mean that GM foods negatively affect the behavior of humans or

> animals? It would certainly be irresponsible to say so on the basis of a

> single

> student mice experiment and the results at Appleton. On the other hand, it

> is

> equally irresponsible to say that it doesn't.

>

> We are just beginning to understand the influence of food on behavior. A

> study in Science in December 2002 concluded that " food molecules act like

> hormones, regulating body functioning and triggering cell division. The

> molecules

> can cause mental imbalances ranging from attention-deficit and

> hyperactivity

> disorder to serious mental illness. " The problem is we do not know which

> food

> molecules have what effect.

>

> The bigger problem is that the composition of GM foods can change radically

>

> without our knowledge. Genetically modified foods have genes inserted into

> their DNA. But genes are not Legos; they don't just snap into place. Gene

> insertion creates unpredicted, irreversible changes. In one study, for

> example, a

> gene chip monitored the DNA before and after a single foreign gene was

> inserted. As much as 5 percent of the DNA's genes changed the amount of

> protein

> they were producing. Not only is that huge in itself, but these changes can

>

> multiply through complex interactions down the line.

>

> In spite of the potential for dramatic changes in the composition of GM

> foods, they are typically measured for only a small number of known

> nutrient

> levels. But even if we could identify all the changed compounds, at this

> point we

> wouldn't know which might be responsible for the antisocial nature of mice

> or humans. Likewise, we are only beginning to identify the medicinal

> compounds

> in food. We now know, for example, that the pigment in blueberries may

> revive the brain's neural communication system, and the antioxidant found

> in grape

> skins may fight cancer and reduce heart disease. But what about other

> valuable compounds we don't know about that might change or disappear in GM

>

> varieties?

>

> Consider GM soy. In July 1999, years after it was on the market,

> independent

> researchers published a study showing that it contains 12-14 percent less

> cancer-fighting phytoestrogens. What else has changed that we don't know

> about?

> [Monsanto responded with its own study, which concluded that soy's

> phytoestrogen levels vary too much to even carry out a statistical

> analysis. They

> failed to disclose, however, that the laboratory that conducted Monsanto's

> experiment had been instructed to use an obsolete method to detect

> phytoestrogens

> results.]

>

> In 1996, Monsanto published a paper in the Journal of Nutrition that

> concluded in the title, " The composition of glyphosate-tolerant soybean

> seeds is

> equivalent to that of conventional soybeans. " The study only compared a

> small

> number of nutrients and a close look at their charts revealed significant

> differences in the fat, ash, and carbohydrate content. In addition, GM soy

> meal

> contained 27 percent more trypsin inhibitor, a well-known soy allergen. The

>

> study also used questionable methods. Nutrient comparisons are routinely

> conducted on plants grown in identical conditions so that variables such as

> weather

> and soil can be ruled out. Otherwise, differences in plant composition

> could

> be easily missed. In Monsanto's study, soybeans were planted in widely

> varying

> climates and geography.

>

> Although one of their trials was a side-by-side comparison between GM and

> non-GM soy, for some reason the results were left out of the paper

> altogether.

> Years later, a medical writer found the missing data in the archives of the

>

> Journal of Nutrition and made them public. No wonder the scientists left

> them

> out. The GM soy showed significantly lower levels of protein, a fatty acid,

>

> and phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. Also, toasted GM soy meal

> contained nearly twice the amount of a lectin that may block the body's

> ability to

> assimilate other nutrients. Furthermore, the toasted GM soy contained as

> much

> as seven times the amount of trypsin inhibitor, indicating that the

> allergen

> may survive cooking more in the GM variety. (This might explain the 50

> percent

> jump in soy allergies in the UK, just after GM soy was introduced.)

>

> We don't know all the changes that occur with genetic engineering, but

> certainly GM crops are not the same. Ask the animals. Eyewitness reports

> from all

> over North America describe how several types of animals, when given a

> choice, avoided eating GM food. These included cows, pigs, elk, deer,

> raccoons,

> squirrels, rats, and mice. In fact, the Dutch student mentioned above first

>

> determined that his mice had a two-to-one preference for non-GM before

> forcing

> half of them to eat only the engineered variety.

>

> Differences in GM food will likely have a much larger impact on children.

> They are three to four times more susceptible to allergies. Also, they

> convert

> more of the food into body-building material. Altered nutrients or added

> toxins can result in developmental problems. For this reason, animal

> nutrition

> studies are typically conducted on young, developing animals. After the

> feeding

> trial, organs are weighed and often studied under magnification. If

> scientists used mature animals instead of young ones, even severe

> nutritional

> problems might not be detected. The Monsanto study used mature animals

> instead of

> young ones.

>

> They also diluted their GM soy with non-GM protein 10- or 12 & shy;fold

> before

> feeding the animals. And they never weighed the organs or examined them

> under a microscope. The study, which is the only major animal feeding study

> on GM

> soy ever published, is dismissed by critics as rigged to avoid finding

> problems.

>

> Unfortunately, there is a much bigger experiment going on one which we are

> all a part of. We're being fed GM foods daily, without knowing the impact

> of

> these foods on our health, our behavior, or our children. Thousands of

> schools

> around the world, particularly in Europe, have decided not to let their

> kids

> be used as guinea pigs. They have banned GM foods.

>

> The impact of changes in the composition of GM foods is only one of several

>

> reasons why these foods may be dangerous. Other reasons may be far worse

> (see

> _http://www.seedsofdeception.com_ (http://www.seedsofdeception.com) ).

>

> With the epidemic of obesity and diabetes and with the results in Appleton,

>

> parents and schools are waking up to the critical role that diet plays.

> When

> making changes in what kids eat, removing GM foods should be a priority.

>

>

>

>

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