Try Monsanto Tumor-Ready™ Corn... Thousands Of Rats Can't Be Wrong!

Once more there's something for foodies to think about when we shop. Via ellroon, from Truth-Out, French Study Finds Tumors and Organ Damage in Rats Fed Monsanto Corn. California has a ballot proposition, Prop. 37 (which Monsanto is fighting), that would require labels on genetically engineered foods. Texas has... um, the corn in stores looks pitiful here this year anyway; I haven't had any this season.

Welcome, Americans, to the new, genetically enhanced version of that old game show, You Bet Your Life! Look: I don't have time or resources to present a fully researched article on GM crop failures, development of pesticide-resistant insects, development of super-weeds, undesired cross-pollination of non-GMO crops by nearby GMO crops, and now... apparently... the emergence of tumor-inducing agents in the GMO food crops themselves or the associated GMO pesticides/weedkillers/etc. But the information is out there to anyone conversant with Google search.

We can either meet the undeniably hostile lawsuit-driven forcible introduction of this company's increasingly clearly dangerous products head-on, or we can watch every other variety of the same plant become hybridized with potentially pathological genetic modifications. All agriculture is in danger. Ask your grocer to carry known organic produce. If they are unwilling to go that far, ask them at least to avoid carrying unlabeled genetically engineered produce. And if you're alive next year, remember to ask them again, because the GMO demons never go away.

Mitt Rmoney And Monsanto: With A Combination Like That, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Palmer's pigweed,
Roundup™-resistant

ellroon points us to an article by Mother Jones's food/ag writer, Tom Philpott. Philpott tells a story of Rmoney, Bain, Monsanto, greed, criminal dumping of toxic chemicals, and superweeds that are Roundup™‑Ready™‑Resistant^(™?). Go ahead and read it; it will make you want to switch to exclusively organically grown produce... that is, if you can find any in this GMO-polluted world...

UPDATE: Enfant, in comments, led me to several related articles. Here are two that I consider well worth your time:

• ThinkProgress: Romney And Bain Boosted Agriculture Giant Monsanto In Spite Of Toxic Past
• The Nation: Mitt Romney, Monsanto Man

The harder you look, the deeper the evil that Mittens represents.

AFTERTHOUGHT: in comparing available ag processes for producing food, I cannot say unequivocally that conventional agriculture (using chemical pesticides and chemical fertilizer) is wholly bad. I eat a certain amount of conventionally grown produce, either because a similar organically grown item is too expensive or is not grown within, say, 100 miles of Houston. (Search for "locavore" for more info on eating locally grown produce... you'll be glad you did.) But I am altogether NOT forgiving of genetically modified organisms (GM or GMO): they have the potential to be hazardous to your health and to the very practices of agriculture that the world's livelihood depends on. When the information is available... and since the presidency of GeeDubya Bush, it has NOT always been required on labels... I avoid GMOs at all costs. Maybe you should, too. Do your own research. Think it over.

'Monsanto Rider' Slipped Into 2013 Ag Bill

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Biotech) wants to kill us all. Actually this bought-and-paid-for congressman for the biotech industry just wants us... and the courts and the USDA... to be rendered incapable of saving ourselves from pretty much anything Monsanto or any other biotech firm wants farmers to plant. Here's Alexis Baden-Mayer at TruthOut:

...

A so-called "Monsanto rider," quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation's food supply.

Unless the Senate or a citizen's army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now.

...

If you like your frankenfood with components you were never engineered to digest, let this pass. Otherwise, sign one of the petitions listed in Ms. Baden-Mayer's post.

(H/T SouthernDragon at FDL.)

UPDATE: all the action links in the FDL article are scrambled. Try these: Organic Consumers Association, Center for Food Safety, FoodDemocracyNow!, the Alliance for Natural Health USA.