What Is Our Tipping Point?

What does it take to make us believe? This is a question I ponder on many levels, in many areas of my life. What makes us believe something we read or see or hear? Why are we skeptical of one statement and not another? Is it a gut thing? Or a heart thing? I think maybe it’s a trust thing.

I need to trust the source from which the information comes. I don’t trust Fox News, pretty much any politician, the check-out clerk at Wal-Mart, or the passionate volunteer on the phone. I don’t trust the crazy right-wing driven blogs or the looney-tunes left-wing e-newsletter. In fact, most times I don’t trust information I’m given until I’ve poked and prodded and tested it myself.

We have an electric fence in our horse pasture. I tell all the kids who visit that it will shock them, but there are always those who must find out first hand.I remember touching fences myself when I was a child. I’d lay a long piece of grass to the wire and listen close. I’d hear that little zzzzpt and know that, yup, it’s hot.

Eight years ago, when my youngest child developed an autoimmune disorder seemingly out of the blue, my world shifted. My heart cracked wide open and my beliefs about what was safe and good and healthy all became suspect. Life seemed more fragile. Almost overnight I saw the world and our food supply in a completely new way. I didn’t trust anything that came in a package or out a drive-thru window. My motivation grew out of a desperation and pain that was all new to me. I would do anything to heal my child. I entertained all manner of wacko experts and obscure studies and stifled my skeptical soul. But sometimes the information I gathered made sense.

Lovely Unnecessary Lawns

I’ve been thinking a lot about grass. My horses also (presumably) think a lot about it. They’re disappointed so far this year because our pasture grass has not truly begun to grow yet. Another frost this morning is just adding to our very late, very cold spring. I stand at the fence and study the grass and worry about it. The grass is the main food source for my critters all summer. Our winter hay ran out early because we had two solid months of snow-covered ground. My hay guy and neighbor keeps bringing me what he can, but it is increasingly less attractive as he digs deep into the recesses of his barn for hay baled nearly a year ago. I toss out a few flakes and the horses sniff it before walking up the hill in search of better food, only to return soon after to pick through the hay. When you’re hungry you’ll eat almost anything.

My husband and two of my kids returned late Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning) from a work project in Honduras. They were helping to build homes for the homeless in a remote village in the mountains where prosperity is judged by whether or not you have any chickens. I asked my son how the food was during their 9 day stay and he said, “I’ve learned to be a lot less picky about my food.”

The horses are figuring this out too while we wait for the grass to grow. I sent a soil sample off to Penn State for analysis and found out that my pasture soil has a perfect ph, plenty of nitrogen, but is low in phosphorus.  This will require a custom blend of fertilizer which is probably more money than I’m willing to throw at this problem. This led to some research on fertilizers.

Did you know that Americans use 90 million pounds of fertilizers and 78 million pounds of pesticides on their lawns each year? And nobody is even depending on that grass for survival. In light of the stories and pictures from my kids’ experience in Honduras, that seems grossly excessive. Those fertilizers do make the grass bright green, but they also contaminate rivers and streams and eventually drinking water. There is a creek at the bottom of my hill and every time it rains we watch as a steady torrent of water runs from our pasture, down our driveway, across the road to the stream below. If I were to apply the fertilizer I’m considering, how much of it would land in Deer Creek? And is it really worth it?

Distracted by a Rat and Disputed GMO Corn Study

All week I’ve been distracted by this picture of a rat with an obscene tumor. It’s been sitting on my desk freaking me out on an hourly basis. The rat in question was part of a French study of GMO round-up ready corn. I’ve written about my own concerns about GMO corn before. In case you aren’t aware (and you wouldn’t be because the USDA refuses to require labeling) about 90% of the corn in the US is GMO corn, and most of it is grown from Monsanto’s Round Up Ready GMO seed. And that corn is all over your grocery store, vending machines, restaurants, and school cafeterias.

The study has gotten an awful lot of official people, agencies, and lobbyists in a tizzy. They are busy pointing out all the errors in the methodology of the study. If you read a few of their postings on line, you will soon be thoroughly confused and certain that the study has nothing to do with GMO corn, rats, or cancer. They’ll have your head spinning so fast you’ll begin to doubt global warming, gravity, and whether you put your socks on this morning.

In honor of this poor mouse who is still gazing my way as I write, let me break it down for you.

Me Thinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much

All week I keep running in to the recent study being widely heralded across our nation declaring that organic fruit, vegetables, and meat are no more nutritious than conventional fruit, vegetables, and meat. So? I think the study completely misses the point on organics. I don’t eat organic because I think the food is better for me nutritionally, I eat it because it doesn’t have pesticides, GMO engineering, artificial additives, preservatives, and God knows what else in it.  

As a parent of a child with an incurable auto immune disorder which has an environmental trigger that has yet to be identified, I’m all about avoiding unnecessary chemicals. My leanings aside, there have been MANY studies indicating the potential danger of pesticides, artificial food dyes, and GMO engineered foods. Beyond that, no person with a fully functioning brain needs a study to tell them that chemicals meant to kill insects are not something they want to be ingesting. 

Beyond the nutrition and the chemicals avoided, I eat organic fruits, vegetables, and meat because they taste better. I’ve done my own studies, and the four other participants in my extremely local study agree with me. Organic food tastes exceedingly better and we don’t need a multi-million dollar study to tell us that. 

Now, if you want to compare the nutritional value of locally grown fruits and veggies with conventionally grown veggies shipped to me from across the country, I would hypothesize that the local stuff is more nutritious simply because it’s fresh. It hasn’t lost valuable nutrients in the process of being stored and shipped.

I’ve come across this Stanford study in basically every newspaper, periodical, and news web page I’ve opened this week. Which begs the question, who’s paying for all this publicity? (And who funded the study to begin with?) Could it be that conventional farming lobbyiests and food industry advocates are desperate to turn the tide of public opinion? At my house, the party that protests the loudest is typically the guilty party. Just a thought.

The Fly War

I have been waging war with the flies for over a month now. I’m happy to say I have been victorious, but it’s been a long and costly campaign.

Initially, it was only a few flies hovering on the stone porch taking shelter from the sun. They were tiny; in fact, at first I thought they were large gnats. They rarely landed long enough to get a good look.

Apparently, these first flies were the scout flies, because within the week there were swarms of flies on my porch.

To be honest, these flies weren’t harming anyone. They didn’t land, they made no sound, they simply gathered for some kind of fly conference. But I don’t like flies on principle. I associate them with stink and filth and dead things.

Because they were so mild mannered, I simply asked the flies to leave by waving a large 2x2 foot colorful foam floor pad at them, creating a wind that carried them off the porch. It was great to have a use for these interlocking foam pads stacked on our porch. They’d recently been unearthed from our basement floor after ten years of ineffectiveness. They were originally installed to brighten up our tiny, dark basement and make it an inviting place for children to play (and make their mess). Instead, the colorful floor soon became lost amid the boxes, clutter, exercise equipment, and other leftovers of life. Since the new cat has been using the basement as his private litter box, we’ve been motivated to clean out the space. Lots of junk is being passed along per freecycle, and I’ve been swept up in nostalgic hours of picture sorting and journal reading. Needless to say, it’s taking awhile, but – back to the fly battle.

The flies scooted out of the way of the crazy woman with the foam pads and returned as soon as she set down her weapons. Great arm exercise, but not effective in the long term.

It was planting time anyway, so my next move was to put pots of smelly herbs on the porch and plant creeping thyme in the garden surrounding it. The flies were not offended by the odorous effort in the slightest way. In fact, it seemed to attract even more flies to the party. There is the smallest hint of a children’s book in this experience (A dog party? Up on the roof? Do you like my hat? I do not like your hat! Okay, Go, Dog, Go, once committed to memory, is fading with my children’s appreciation for my story-reading voice.)

Failing in my first few battles, I did what all desperate women do when they need a different answer than their common sense or their husband give them – I turned to the internet. Several sites proclaimed the powers of plastic bags filled with water. I thought it was a joke, until I stumbled upon it repeatedly. Apparently suspending plastic bags of water on the porch would repel the flies like magic!

I enlisted my husband’s skeptical help to install hooks on the porch and hang Ziploc bags half full of water. And I waited. The flies scattered during the installation, but soon returned to laugh at my silly bags.

At the Farmer’s Market the next day, I was explaining my fly troubles to a few friends. I told them about the silly plastic bags. One man overheard me and said, “But you have to put pennies in the bags – that’s what makes them work!” He was insistent, and everyone else listened in all seriousness, so I hurried home and added pennies to my bags.

And…..nothing. The flies were not affected in the least and I wondered if this wasn’t just some giant joke set up by a secret society of people trying to see how many idiots they can con in to hanging plastic bags of water and pennies on their porches.

Having not learned my lesson, I turned to the internet once again. This time I read some boards from England, figuring English people have been doing the garden/fly/porch thing much longer than the rest of us. One woman swore by fresh mint. Well, if there’s one thing I have in spades, it’s fresh mint.

I quickly cut down five large bunches and hung them all over my porch on the hooks where the baggies used to be. The flies were a bit frantic from my frenzied action (and maybe the curse words I hurled at them), but soon settled down and accepted the mint like an overly fragrant roommate.

All through this entire adventure, my husband had been quietly suggesting we buy some fly strips. To me there is nothing more ugly and disgusting than a fly strip. There had to be a natural way to chase these flies. Ever helpful, my hubby brought out an electric bug zapper and hung it on the porch. The basic premise of an electric bug zapper is that bugs are attracted to their light. They work best at night. My flies sleep quietly on the ceiling at night and treated the bug zapper as an expensive night light. No dice.

As the number of flies grew, it became necessary to force anyone wanting to enter the house to “run the fly gauntlet” as quickly as possible and slam the door behind them before they could be followed. Obviously, it was only a matter of time before someone was followed.

I’m not naming names, but one of my darling offspring eventually left the kitchen door open and a swirling mass of flies took up residence above my kitchen island. This was the final straw. I lost it. These flies don’t ever land, so I couldn’t even swat them.

I marched to the barn and returned with fly spray. Yes, I am an organic believer. Yes, I publicly lament the use of poisons on plants and pests alike. But, I blindly toss those beliefs aside when it comes to flies and horses. I can’t stand to be around the flies and I can’t stand to see my horses tortured by them. So, I buy an awful toxic concoction that works miracles, dispelling flies from my horses.

In a sad, desperate move I sprayed the toxic fly spray at the flies on the porch and then coated the posts and ceiling. They flies fled.

By the next morning the flies were back and my beloved, exasperated husband was angry at the obvious oil stains from the fly spray on the porch stones. These were no ordinary flies.

This led to an even more desperate move. I went to Wal-Mart. I crept in the garden entrance, where I picked up some cheap basil plants (another internet suggestion) and an “all natural fly trap.” I set the basil plants up on the church pew under the biggest fly swarm and hung the fly trap dead center (directly in front of my front door).

I felt like part of a Monty Python skit, certain the flies were simply laughing, “I scoff at your little trap and your silly plants!”

Deadened by the ordeal of this unholy war, I finally went to Tractor Supply and bought some fly strips. My humiliation was complete when I neglected to read the directions on how to unwind the fly strip and ended up with it affixed to my forearm. I carefully peeled it off (coating my hands in the nasty “scented” glue that doesn’t wash off without the industrial hand soap my husband uses that must be seven kinds of toxic), only to have it stick to itself. Frustrated and littering all kinds of non-motherly vocabulary, I picked it back apart and tried to tie it to the bottom of the empty All-natural Fly Trap. In my flailing efforts at keeping the strip out of my hair, I tore off the small string meant to hang the strip, so I retrieved a piece of bailing twine from the barn and tied what was left of the strip to the fly trap. This looks lovely.

The small feathers are from a little bird that got caught!

The next day – no flies. Well, that’s not completely true. There are plenty of flies, but they are stiff and dead and stuck to the beautiful fly strip that now welcomes all my guests. Like most wars, there is much lost in winning.

O Christmas Tree!

We found the perfect tree!

As I was merrily surfing the other day, I came across an entire new organic issue for me to worry about! Christmas trees! Cue the eye roll from my husband. See, I thought we’d settled this issue long ago when we chose a real Christmas tree rather than a fake one. We didn’t want that big plastic conifer outgassing PVC all through our house, so we developed our tradition of selecting a tree at a nearby farm and cutting it down ourselves. A fresh, live (for now) tree! Love the pine scent, don’t mind the needles too much. We always have fun picking the tree and gather plenty of pictures and memories. But now a shadow has been cast over this lovely family adventure.

Is this pungent pine beauty scenting our house not only with its own perfume, but also pesticides? Or for that matter, has anyone applied a toxic fire retardant spray to prevent it from igniting in my house? These questions had never occurred to me.

When I was a child, I have vague memories of returning from our Christmas tree harvest and waiting impatiently while my father (the chemical engineer) applied some kind of fire retardant spray to our tree. That was just what you did. When my husband and I bought our first tree (from a neighbor), we never even thought to douse our prize with chemicals even though we lived in a 150 year old farm house (that hadn’t been updated). Was I naive not to worry?

The National Christmas Tree Association has this to say about the danger of real trees igniting in your home:

A) Less than 0.0004% of Real Christmas Trees used each year are ignited in home fires and NEVER has a Real Christmas Tree caused or started a fire. Even though the chance of a Christmas Tree fire is very slim, you can ensure that your Real Christmas Tree stays fresh and safe by following the NCTA recommended care tips. Anyone who has ever tried to start a camp fire with green wood understands how flame resistant a properly watered tree is.

Don't believe us? Watch this clip shown on the NBC Tonight Show with Jay Leno in December, 2004

The clip is kind of fuzzy, but it’s funny. Every year, the press warns us about the danger of Christmas trees and fire, but I have to wonder how much of that hype isn’t generated by the Artificial Christmas Tree manufacturers. Seriously. I never realized that the real vs fake tree dilemma is such a battleground. I found two sites while looking in to this Christmas tree issue – The National Christmas Tree Association, which takes the side of live trees, and the American Christmas Tree Association, which promotes the use of artificial trees.

The American Christmas Tree Association website is a pretty scary place to visit if you’re planning on a live tree this year. There are all kinds of dire warnings about the hazard of a real tree inside your home. Still, I can’t help wondering why my dead, dry tree (their words, not mine) is any more a fire hazard than the papers my kids leave everywhere. When I light the fires in our woodstoves, I never having any trouble getting paper to light, but I’ve spent some pretty frustratingly cold mornings struggling to light the 2 year old dead wood placed in the stove. There is enough intrigue, deceit, and raw material here for a movie, or at least a Michael Moore documentary. But I’ll leave these issues, fun as they are, so I can get back to discussing organic Christmas trees.

Most Christmas tree farms use some kinds of pesticides, although the only way to know for sure what and how dangerous they are, is to ask the grower. You can also buy Christmas trees infused with other scents (orange, spice, etc.), although I’m not sure why you wouldn’t want that refreshing pine scent the tree produces naturally. There’s no data on how scents are ‘infused” or whether they are natural or artificial. You do have the option of certified organic Christmas trees (of course!), but I’m willing to bet they don’t come cheap. You can find a local organic tree farmer through Local Harvest.

I’m still committed to a live Christmas tree. I just can’t imagine a plastic one, convenience or not. And it’s not just the outgassing or the fact that plastic trees are not recyclable, it’s the smell. I love the smell of a pine tree in my living room. And I love trooping all over the tree farm arguing about the perfect tree. And I love coming home and decorating it together. This is one of the few things we do as a family anymore.

This year I might ask my tree grower a few questions. But he seems like a nice guy and the trees are literally in his front yard, plus the yard is definitely not weed free and the trees are cheap ($40 bucks any size), so I can’t imagine he’s heavily invested in expensive chemical pesticides.

Like so many other organic issues, it comes down to trust and your best speculation. You have to trust the person you’re buying from and you have to speculate just how much risk there is in bringing a live, possibly pesticide-coated, tree in to your house. We can’t know for sure that pesticides are a definitive danger to the health of your home’s inhabitants, but we can’t know for sure that they aren’t. I’m not sure we will ever sort out the effects of the chemical soup ingested by all of us over the years.

I suppose the only way to truly know that my Christmas tree doesn’t pose a danger to my family is to grow it myself. I’m sure my husband is groaning as he reads this, but next spring you know what will be gracing the back edge of our property.

Us Versus The Ants; No More Mr. Nice Guy

We’ve been invaded. There are teeny-tiny ants all over my counters and running up and down the cabinets and walls in my kitchen. Now, I’m not afraid of bugs. I lived on the Eastern Shore and I understand what a serious bug problem is, but this has gotten out of hand. In the beginning there were only a handful and I merrily squished them with my pinky finger (told you I’m not freaked out by bugs). But either my careless murders were reported back to the starship and reinforcements have been sent in, or word got out that we have crummy counters. Either way, we have been swarmed by these tiny ants that seem to be in hurry to get somewhere at all times.


This morning I watched them as they scurried over the counter, up the walls, across the cabinets and along the backsplash. They aren’t carrying anything. They aren’t even really stopping to inspect the chunk of hard pretzel that lies ignored on the counter (don’t worry, Mom’ll get that!). So what is there point? And besides the obvious – oh-ants-are-disgusting – are they harming anyone?

I looked on the internet. The consensus seems to be that ants aren’t really going to hurt you, they’re just yucky. Sure they carry a few germs around on their itty-bitty feet, but not any more than you are exposed to floating in the air. One writer even pointed out that ants can be a good thing – cleaning up crumbs you miss. Hmm. I liked that idea until I arrived back in the kitchen to see them coating my cutting board. Enough.

A recent guest to our house advised we go to “the Depot” and buy some serious poison. He even told us what kind worked best and explained that all you need to do is spray the entire outside bottom edge of your house. Right. Ring my house in industrial poison. Got it.

Back to the internet for some green guidance. Once armed, I set to work on the kitchen and by the time the kids were up things looked a little different on the counter. Granted there were still a few ants stumbling around in confused circles (all their regular trade routes had been cluttered with baking soda, chalk, vinegar, and/or lemons. So we’ll see what happens. I’m fairly pleased with the results so far.

As I fixed my lunch, I occasionally grabbed the vinegar spray bottle (my regular house cleaner) to douse unsuspecting ants. My oldest son watched me and chuckled when I told him I’d just firebombed the happy little ant with acid. Lately he’s in to reading horror, so this is right up his ally. I’m going to put him on the job soon.

Thinking about what our well-meaning friend had said about the outer edges of the house, I did a quick perimeter check and sure enough there seemed to be a mass of ants rallying around the porch door. I quick upended a bottle of lemon juice all along that edge and by early afternoon – no ants! I explained to my son that one was more like a nuclear attack. Another chuckle. So much for his peace-loving mama. I feel the same way about the bunny who seems to be dodging my lazy cats and avoiding my not-so-bright dog on its way to eating all of my French filet green beans. Doubt vinegar or lemon juice will do the trick on that one.

Just in case you have an ant problem too, here are some of the suggestions from the internet site Green Eco Services.

I’ve noted the ones I’ve tried and the results.

1. Keep a small spray bottle handy, and spray the ants with a bit of soapy water. (haven’t tried this one, seemed too kind, but in the interest of cleaning up all the vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda scattered all over my kitchen, it will be my final attack)

2. Set out cucumber peels or slices in the kitchen or at the ants’ point of entry. Many ants have a natural aversion to cucumber. Bitter cucumbers work best. (couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice any of my fresh cucumbers that just ripened this week)

3. Leave a few tea bags of mint tea near areas where the ants seem most active. Dry, crushed mint leaves or cloves also work as ant deterrents. (this seems like it might be a good maintenance plan – I’m going to pick some mint today)

4. Trace the ant column back to their point of entry. Set any of the following items at the entry area in a small line, which ants will not cross: cayenne pepper, citrus oil (can be soaked into a piece of string), lemon juice, cinnamon or coffee grounds. (lemon juice seems to really work the best, but I also scattered lemon slices on the counter, in the cabinets, and around the sink)

5. Mix a half teaspoon each of honey, borox, and aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet, etc.), in small bottles. Place bottles on their sides, with lids off, in areas of most ant activity. Ants will carry the bait back to their colonies. Important: use indoors only; must be kept away from pets and children. (don’t own any aspartame and can’t bring myself to support the sale of unhealthy chemicals in any form, so I haven’t tried this one. Plus, there are way too many pets and children roaming the premises that cannot be kept away from)

6. Leave a small, low wattage night light on for a few nights in the area of most ant activity. The change in light can disrupt and discourage their foraging patterns. (yeah, right.)

7. Ants on the deck? Slip a few cut up cloves of garlic between the cracks. (Nice. And then who wants to sit on the deck with me and breath in the sent of rotting garlic?)

8. Liquid peppermint soap, diluted in a squirt bottle will kill them. It will also prevent them from coming back. (where do you buy liquid peppermint soap?? Sounds divine. I’d like to have some for my smelly kids.)

9. Citrasolve works wonderfully! Just mop or wipe with it and spread it around at entry point. ants will die in house, and won’t come back in again. (if the ants die in your house they aren’t going anywhere are they? Haven’t seen this in my stores)

10. Ring your house with used coffee grounds and other acidic natural byproducts. (I think this is what I did by dousing the porch in lemon juice – worked great so far)

11. Spray bottle with vinegar works too. (Yes! And it’s great fun too!)

12. Dr. Bronners peppermint soap (and do what with it exactly?)

13. Try Boric Acid. It’s natural, safe and it works. (I’d try this, but don’t have any on hand)

14. Peppermint oil–a few drops in a spray bottle of water. (same as boric acid)

15. Pouring lemon juice around areas ants frequent (seems to work but is kind of messy and sticky)

16. Baking soda can deter ants – pour a solid line in areas of activity and they won’t cross it. (this seems to be working! Added bonus that it soaks up bad smells – always a good thing)

17. A puree blend of orange peel and water can be applied to an area to discourage ants from crossing. (too much work and mess and more stickiness)

18. Baby powder stopped them dead in their tracks. (no longer have babies or baby powder, but I might be tempted to try the powder just to remember)

19. Use a piece of chalk to draw a line over trails – again, the ants won’t cross it. Chalk also has the advantage of being able to be used on vertical surfaces (I tried this and the ants just laughed)

20. We up here in Alaska work a lot with carpenter ants. I use the original Listerine the brown one. Full strength and we spray it in there tracks and this kills them. I also find that they do not like the peppermint castile soap. (Now carpenter ants are scary – I’d definitely give this a try if that’s what I was dealing with. Those guys are big enough to carry away a small cat!)

21. Several readers have had success with using powdered yeast. The ants usually disappear within one day! (not sure what “powdered” yeast is, but I’m not wasting my good yeast on ants)

Good luck with your own ant attack. Let me know what works!

Are We Round Up Ready?

As we were riding our bikes past the farm fields near our house this weekend, my husband commented, “Look! Round Up resistant corn growing in the Round Up resistant soybeans!” Sure enough, there were corn stalks here and there within the neat rows of soybeans. No weeds, but occasional corn stalks. Round Up resistant seeds are GMO seeds engineered to survive applications of Round Up. That way, the farmer can spray his fields with Round Up and kill everything but the seeds which just soak it in. Pretty neat, huh? 91% of soybeans, 85% of corn and 88% of cotton in the US are grown from GMO seeds according to the USDA Economic Research Service. Must work great as it’s so popular.

It does work great, but at what cost? I’ve been reading Maria Rodale’s book Organic Manifesto and learning enough to become alarmed at our government’s complicity, the ignorance in the general population (I’m one of those ignorami), and the rock and hard place that farmers are caught between. Here’s the thing with Round Up – it’s not just ON the plants, it’s IN the plants. So when you eat that soy product (and believe me you do eat soy products since soy is added to nearly everything, just ask someone who’s allergic to it!), you’re eating some lovely Round Up altered cells. You can’t just wash off the pesticide because it’s now part of the genetic make up of the plant. Dr. Warren Porter, a zoology and environmental toxicology professor at the University of Wisconsin points out, Round Up is “in the plant, not just on the plant. Fat soluble chemicals in Round Up have the master entry key into the plant and into our bodies, because every cell in our body is a fatty membrane. So anything that is fat soluble can cross the blood-brain barrier and also the placental barrier.”

I must confess that there is Round Up in my garage. My husband, like all of us, has been convinced that Round Up is safe for home use. Monsanto (imagine me invoking this name with a very cynical and disgusted voice as I believe their ethics are right on par with Enron management), the maker of Round Up, has a powerful marketing department and even more powerful government lobbyists. Before Roundup Ready soybeans were on the market, the acceptable ppm (parts per million) was 3, but the new Round Up Ready soybeans had something in the neighborhood of 20ppm. Somehow that year the EPA decided that 20ppm was a more appropriate limit. Hmmmm. Makes you scratch your head, doesn’t it? It’s a bit of a bait and switch – we’re all worried about run-off from the fields and the toxins in the air from the Round Up as it is sprayed and here what we really need to be worried about is the Round Up in the food we eat. As Maria Rodale points out, we may not just be exterminating weeds and pests, we may just be exterminating ourselves.

So what’s so bad about Roundup Ready Seeds and GMOs anyway? I mean, the government allows its use, so it must be safe. Tell that to the European Union where GMO seeds are currently banned. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine has called for an immediate “moratorium on genetically modified food.” The reason? “Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.” But I’m not sure we really need a doctor to tell us this if the food we’re eating got to our table because it’s toxic to weeds and pests. It is only logical that it is toxic to us also.

So how do we avoid GMO foods?

Check out the sticker on the produce you buy, if it’s organic it will have a five digit number that starts with 9, but if it has five digits and the number begins with 8, put it back in the bin because it is a GM product. Conventionally grown (non-organic) produce has four digit numbers.

Most processed food contains GMO ingredients, no way around that and because our government hasn’t done the research to determine if GMO food is safe, you’re taking the risk yourself. I know I always come back to this, but make it yourself – avoid processed food. Know what you’re putting in your body.

If you insist (or can’t avoid) eating processed foods, read the label carefully, if any of the following ingredients are found and aren’t specifically labeled as organic, you are most likely holding a food that contains GMO ingredients:

Soybeans (including oil, flour, protein, and concentrates), corn (including oil, syrup, starch, flour), canola oil, dairy products, and meat products.

I highly, highly, highly recommend the book Organic Manifesto by Maria Rodale as important reading for all of us. She is sounding an alarm and her carefully researched and thoughtfully expressed opinions could shape our futures – if we let them. It’s a short book, she keeps to the point and it’s a fascinating read – I promise you’ll have trouble putting it down. I can’t promise it will help you sleep at night.