Tag: Agriculture

Junk Food Posted on

The Dark Side of McDonald’s World-Famous Fries

,he pesticides used on potato farms in rural Minnesota are harming human health and the environment. There’s no doubt that McDonald’s french fries are, as the company regularly trumpets, “world famous.” But like many who are touched by fame, those legendary taters have a dark side that remains largely hidden from public view. And this dark side has nothing to do with the obesity crisis. McDonald’s purchases more than 3.4 billion pounds of potatoes grown in the United States every year. The company’s preferred variety is Russet Burbank. While certainly delicious to the “billions served,” the problem with this 130-year-old variety is its susceptibility to rot and other diseases, which means farmers regularly employ a significant amount of pesticides on their crops. Rural communities in […] Read More

Processed Foods Posted on

What to Consider When Buying a Can of Tuna

Anastasia Pantsios Canned tuna is one of the world’s most popular packaged fish, but it has also long been controversial. Between issues of overfishing resulting in fishery depletion and bycatch that threatens other species including the much-publicized incidental capture of dolphins by tuna fishermen, it has gotten a bad name. With the increased awareness of the harm tuna fishing can cause, companies have stepped up to try to reassure consumers that they are paying attention to the health of our oceans. Seafood companies are responding to the public’s increased interest in whether fishing practices deplete tuna populations. Photo credit: David Hano/International Sustainable Seafood Foundation San Diego-based Chicken of the Sea, one of the largest U.S. distributors of packaged seafood, recently issued its corporate sustainability report. The […] Read More

Food Posted on

Epigenomics and How Natural Nutrients Heal Genes

Pao L. Chang, Guest Since the emergence of epigenomics, which is the study of how epigenetic modifications affect the genetic material of cells or the entire organism, geneticists have discovered that the human genome is a lot more complex than they have ever imagined. For example, DNA sequencing technologies that are currently available to mainstream geneticists can only decode roughly 21,000 known genes that are involved in protein synthesis in the human body. This only decodes a very small percentage of the human genome. The 21,000 known genes that are involved in protein synthesis make up nearly 1.5 percent of the human body’s DNA. This means that roughly 98.5 percent of the human DNA structure, which is often referred to as “junk DNA”, is yet […] Read More

GMO Coverup Posted on

7 Ways GMOs are Destroying Humanity and the Planet

By Jonathan Benson, contributing writer to Natural News No matter what personal views you might have on genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), these relatively new biological creations are wreaking havoc on both the environment and human health, as thoroughly demonstrated in the scientific literature. And here are seven concrete examples of why: 1) GMOs lead to superbugs and superweeds. There is no denying the massive ecological changes that occur as a result of GMOs and their respective growing chemicals. Farmers all across North America now face a steadily increasing onslaught of “superweeds” and “superpests” that have spawned as a direct result of biotechnology. Among 13 major pests examined as part of a 2011 study published in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe, five of them were found to be […] Read More

GMO Coverup Posted on

2013: Monsanto’s Bt-Toxins Found To Kill Human Embryo Cells

By Christina Sarich Natural Society   Many individuals have heard it a million times, but for the uninformed, or those just looking to fuel their 2014 fire to finally defeat Monsanto and their cronies, you’ll be interested to know that Monsanto’s Bt-toxin is far from ‘safe’ as the chemical company claimed it would be when filing their papers with the FDA. New research from Canada show that BT toxins are showing up in pregnant women, and low and behold – they are killing human embryo cells. 2014 is the year of the horse, but we’re not through beating this one to death. It’s called reproductive toxicology, and just like their suicide seeds, these Bt toxins are starting to kill our own unborn children. This is no exaggeration. Hopefully reading […] Read More

Nanotechnology Posted on

Nanotechnology the new threat to food

Reprinted from “Clean Food Organic“. Following on from genetic engineering, nanotechnology represents the latest high technology attempt to infiltrate our food supply. Senior scientists have warned that nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter at the scale of atoms and molecules, introduces serious new risks to human and environmental health. Yet in the absence of public debate, or oversight from regulators, unlabelled foods manufactured using nanotechnology have begun to appear on our supermarket shelves. Around the world there is an increase in interest in our food, health and environment. Where are products produced, how, why, by whom, how far have they travelled, how long have they been stored etc. The organic and local food movements have emerged as an intuitive and practical response to the increasing use […] Read More