GMO’s

Our family is not obese, and we have always avoided food dyes, preservatives, artificial ingredients etc. Prior to being in the cosmetic industry, I was in the natural foods industry which prompted me to make these choices. Yet my kid was born with life-threatening food allergies to peanuts, tree nuts and sesame seeds. Maybe it’s because as a kid in Florida, I ran in the cloud behind the mosquito trucks, or played with the pesticides my father stored in the shed for our garden and then passed those chemicals from my system to my daughter’s. Or maybe it’s because I thought soy was healthy and supplemented breast milk with soy formula in a BPA-laden bottle. Many of us (including myself) unwittingly ate glyphosate-laced/GMO foods thinking the label “natural” was enough – organic wasn’t a thing a couple decades ago. The same is true for the use of the plastics made to help parents, like baby bottles and sippy cups. To each his own is not true if the consumer is unaware that the products we choose contain harmful chemicals and more so if toxic substances show up in our organic products. Regardless of our personal choices, we are exposed and I will never know why my child has this malady. Overall, I do the best I can to reduce our toxic load but it seems a losing battle. I do not choose to slather myself in toxic chemicals or pour them into my yard. Having been in the cosmetic industry for 23 years I can tell you that personal care products are manufactured with 10,500 chemical ingredients, some known or suspected carcinogens, toxic to the reproductive system and known to disrupt the endocrine system. As far as food is concerned, the greater yield argument and the cost/benefit argument has been negated, although I’m sure both sides can produce studies supporting their argument. From my point of view, GMO advantages are marginal at best, and the downside should be alarming to farmers for a number of reasons, one being that if consumers cannot tolerate what is being produced, the market will shrink. I am not necessarily anti-GMO according to how the technology is used. A GMO that tolerates round-up is not the same as a GMO containing more beta-carotene. I also acknowledge that GMO technology could potentially reduce pesticide/herbicide use. If our solutions to the problem of feeding the world thus far yield negative results in the way of health and environmental problems, we can come up with other, better solutions.