Do you know what a Genetically Modified Organism is? It is practically everything you eat and thank goodness for it because without it we would probably be all starving because ll our crops died due to diseases or insect infestation. Scientists have been going nuts recreating seeds and altering our food chain to resist various infestation. The problem is that we have no idea if it will be causing any long term problems since none of it has been tested for a long time. Burp!

The protestors believe that GMO’s should at least be listed on the labels of the foods that we purchase in stores.  We almost lost all of the Papayas in the world when the trees were infested from insects with black dots on the fruit destroying them until a new GMO version was developed and now we are producing beautiful black dot resistant fruit. Burp! The devastating disease was called ring spot and nearly destroyed a 60 million pounds per year industry of Papayas. Within three years the disease was killing all the trees. Then a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca,   New York came to the rescue. A Hawaiian born plant Pathologist, Dennis Gonsalves had a technology that could help develop a virus resistant Papaya.

They took a DNA strand from a destructive Papaya plant and inserted it into the DNA of a Papaya seed. Just as a vaccine for a human, the Papayas became immune to ring spot. In 1997 the test was made. You saw beautiful trees suddenly growing around the dead limbs of the destroyed crops and since then the Papaya industry is thriving. Today American farmers’   grow about 10 different GMO crops including more than 92 per cent of corn and soy. Most are engineered to ward off insects or to resist weed killing herbicides or both.  That means that farmers can drastically reduce insecticide use.  Most of us eat GMO’s in processed foods like soda, cereal, chips and cheese.  This November Salmon joined the list in genetically engineered to grow faster.

There are more foods in the pipe line among them a peanut without the toxin that triggers deadly allergies. It sounds all too good but are we changing life as we know it too soon or too dramatically? Are we playing God? A Billion dollars each year is being spent by large seed companies like Monsanto to develop these new super seeds. They patent and own the new GMO seeds. They also demand that the farmer destroys the seeds each year and purchases new seeds each year to pay for their research. Yes, the seed companies own the farmers.  Consumers are now demanding that foods in places like Whole Foods label GMO free or not for your information. 88% of scientists say that GMO’s are safe. The American Medical Association, The World Health Organization and The National Academy of Scientists say that GMO’s are safe.  Knowledge is power people.