The Poison on My Dinner Table

     As a home cook, culinary student, science enthusiast and mother the type of food I purchase has always

been very important to me.  As a child I became a victim of science and greed.  We ate mostly chicken as our protein at home.  When I reached puberty at  nine years old it came as a surprise to everyone.  I remember to this day telling my mother "Does that mean I can't play with barbies any more?"  She held me close and told me I could play with barbies all I wanted.  I wasn't the only one either.  Many of my friends developed early too.  I left Puerto Rico when I was eleven and a few years later my mother and I heard that they had closed down the factory where we had purchased all of our chicken. Authorities had found that they factory had been using unsafe levels of estrogen on the chickens.   

     This is one of the reasons I am picky about what I buy.  I just finished watching the movie GMO OMG and it reminded me again when one problem is mitigated another arises.  When I was in high school we talked about genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  We talked about the fact that they could help produce more food for a hungry world, we talked about how these new organisms could withstand pests better and therefore save the world from having a food shortage.  There was also a small group of people that were against them.  Who knows what ingesting something like that could do to you?  The only way we were going to know was to wait it out and see.  Now big corporations and greed stand in the way of myself and many other mothers' purchasing decisions.  The only way to get away from GMO's is to purchase organic non-processed foods.  This means that anything that comes out of a box has GMOs unless it is has the USDA's organic seal on it.  My mother and I pride ourselves in making everything from scratch.  We buy fresh produce, meats, dairy and baking ingredients to make everything we eat.  However, I discovered even that is not safe.

     I look at my raw materials including flour, sugar, syrup, milk, cream, cheese, fruit, vegetables and wonder what really is in those products I buy.  Even if I make everything myself my family is not safe.  Can you really be proud of the magnificent meal in front of you if your ingredients possibly contain poison?  One of the points the movie makes is that GMO corn kills pests that try to eat it.  Common sense dictates that if it kills insects it can probably hurt us too.  Yes, we are much bigger but at the end of the day we are part of the animal kingdom and chemicals are dangerous to us also.  Poison in organisms accumulates up the food chain.  If you eat enough of these small things (or eat enough things that eat these small things) they add up in your system until toxic levels are reached and they can hurt or even kill you.  That is a fact, feel free to check me on that one. 

     The only way to get away from this is to buy organic food.  However it is very expensive and unless you make a significant amount of money it can hike up your grocery bill to the point that you can't afford it.  As the movie points out even organic is not totally safe.  Plants reproduce by pollination.  Contaminated pollen can end up somewhere else just the same.  I'm sure organic farmers take their precautions, but even growing my own organic produce I can't be 100% sure that there are not any contaminants out there.  

     At the end of the day it boils down to one thing.  Safety.  Are these GMO's safe?  Many people around the world disagree.  Many European countries refuse to buy US food because of that reason.  It is a fact that if you go to many places in Europe their produce tastes better.  I have experienced this myself.  Even my poor attempts at organic gardening produced the sweetest strawberries I had ever tasted.  One of the chef's at school discussed at length that US produce does not taste as good. Taste buds were created as way for us to distinguish good food from bad food.  Maybe they have been telling us something all these years...

     Who knows in reality, nobody has done a long enough research about it. The movie highlighted a study by a French professor that showed an increase in cancer tumors in rats fed GMO corn and treated with roundup.  In female rats it attacked the mammary glands.  GMO's have been in our food chain for over fifteen years. Could that be the reason that breast cancer in women seems to be growing?  I would like to see somebody prove otherwise.  

     And at the end I am selfish and the real reason the movie hit me hard is because it rung a bell with my childhood experiences. My three year old is hardly talking. Professionals  have been telling me he has red flags for autism.  Autism has been on the rise for years now.  Now one 1 in 68 kids has one form of autism or another compared to 1 in 150 back in 2000.  If you look at the charts on the CDC website the rate of autism is rising.  Could GMO's also be to blame for this?  After all we are what we eat and back when I was a small child they were not on my food chain.  Autism was rare when I was a child.  

    We have been in and out of therapies for months and he is getting better, but I am still wondering if my child is a victim of corporate greed just as I was.  Is his developmental delay caused by the food I have been feeding him?

     So to all of the people that are owners of our food supply.  Look around you, does your wife have cancer?  Will she in the future?  Do you have a child with autism?  Will your babies or grand babies develop normally? Was there a mother missing out of a wedding or graduation? Was there one of your brother's or sister's kids that was not able to make memories with yours because they were different?  Money and greed in this world are powerful, but you can't take them to your grave. Look at your own life.  All you can take is your memories.  Who's memories did you sabotage?  Where you part of your family's own misfortune?

     In the end I am just one person.  And these are just my opinions.  Watch the movie.  More importantly do your own research.  If you have the power to conduct the studies do so.  Let us know for sure if GMO's are safe or not.  Help all mothers' out there put safe food on the table for their children.