We Have Goliath in our Midst: Monsanto is it's Name

I teach a health class at our homeschool enrichment group, and this year has been hard. Mainly because I have had to do so much studying about GMO's that it continues to make me very depressed.

People seem to care when I tell them that our countries agricultural practices are dangerous, and the food that is being produced is poisoned. But when it comes down to it, most people just continue to eat the way they have eaten for years. Most people, I believe, think I am just being crazy. How could this be, we have so many laws and the government is supposed to protect us, right?

I drive into the country to pick up milk from a farm, and this spring I have actually watched the farmers spraying glyphosate on the land.  How do I know, because a week later everything is DEAD. This is just the beginning for the season of GMO (Round-Up ready crops). Now, in some fields I see the little corn plants all growing in straight little lines, with no competition from weeds, because of the glyphosate.

But soon, there will be competition, because weeds are becoming tolerant to the chemical (known as super-weeds). The farmers are going to have to spray the little plants several times to keep them at bay. The chemical will soak into the plant, several times  What doesn't soak into the plant will soak into the ground and seep into the groundwater, and the rest will just wash away into the sewers and rivers when it rains, and ending up where our tap water is processed. It is true that this chemical is not removed in the water when it is treated, and if we don't have water filters that specifically remove this poison it will get into our bodies.


Some farmers use BT corn, which is actually registered as a pesticide, because it has a bacteria within it that kills insects. It destroys their gut from the inside out. Imagine what it does to yours, you eat more than a kernel of corn. It is a shame that since this type of corn and soy has grown that we have lost over 1 billion Monarch butterflies.  They are now on the endangered species list.  Bee collapse disorder is destroying bee colonies across the nation. Yes, I know that these crops are wind pollinating, but bees and butterflies eat pollen, and any kind they can find. Studies have shown that this pollen will blow onto neighboring milk weed plants and destroy the caterpillars of butterflies before they even get to be butterflies. Glyphosate will kill milkweed plants so there aren't any to feed on.

A lot of this corn, as well as GMO soy, is used for animal feed. Cows, chickens, and pigs are fed this GMO corn and soy (and don't forget your dog and cat food). Cows were meant to eat grass, not corn or soy. They have digestive problems when they eat this feed, so many farmers supplement with alfalfa. Oh yeah,  that doesn't matter because that is also a GMO crop. So, when I go to the store to get food, I am buying GMO beef, chicken, pork, milk, cheese, and butter.

Many farmers have seen the detrimental effects of this feed on their livestock. Since the inception of GMO feed, there are high miscarriage rates, infertility, and birth defects; the average is around 30%. Is it coincidental that America now has a 30% rate of infertility? These animals consistently have digestive problems, and are constantly on antibiotics, which are known to be harmful to humans. That is why there is so much advertising about it. "Our chickens are never fed antibiotics", they say. America also has higher rates of intestinal diseases. Problems like IBS, and Chrohn's disease. For information on how much glyphosate is actually in our food and their health effects, read the report.

Most of this GMO corn, soy, canola, and sugar go into our food supply. Corn is found in cereals that we feed our kids every morning (corn flakes, etc.), and snacks that we munch on all day (corm chips, potato chips, etc.). I also wanted to explain that sugar from sugar beets is a GMO crop,  if you buy sugar from sugar cane, it is not. But in America, most companies use sugar beet sugar because it is more cost effective.
If you buy anything that is prepackaged, and it has sugar, corn syrup, corn starch, soy, soybean oil, canola oil, cottonseed oil,  or any derivative of these crops, you are eating more GMO's and glyphosate.

One day I took my students to the cafeteria, and we read the labels of all the snack foods there.  Only one was not GMO, the sugar free gum. Everything they had to choose from was GMO, and it is more of a problem than you realize.

To make matters even worse, even though wheat is not a GMO crop, it is heavily sprayed with glyphosate. The reason is, that we collect the seeds of the wheat to use for flour.  If it all dies simultaneously, we can collect more seeds. The farmers have realized that if they spray the crops with glyphosate, it will all die at the same time and seeds will be produced all at once. So even though wheat is not GMO, it is still covered in glyphosate. Could that be why we have such a rise in the amount of people becoming gluten insensitive? People have been eating wheat for millennia, and now all of a sudden it is causing food intolerance in more and more of the population? Read up on how Your GLUTEN problem may actually be caused by GLYPHOSATE.

People around the world are starting to realize the dangers of the chemicals and pesticides on our food, but in America, not so much. When I ask people if they know what GMO's are, I get no answers. It is hidden in our food and no one knows. In other countries, GMO's are labelled, or illegal. But not here, why?

It is because of the giant - Goliath.  In America he doesn't go by that name, here he is called Monsanto.  He is very rich, and has many friends, like Dow, Syngenta,and Bayer. He pays whoever he wishes to do his bidding.

He hires detectives to check out farmers, to see if any are secretly using their patented plants. Even when they are not, it doesn't matter, because wind from a GMO corn plant may blow into another farm and turn his plants GMO. Then when GMO plants are found on a farm that hasn't signed their life away to Monsanto, they will sue, unless you buy their seeds and sign their contracts. Read the articles Patenting Death as well as Finally... Solo Farmer Fights Monsanto and Wins.

Monsanto has many friends in congress too, and they repeatedly pass laws to protect this company.   Laws like the Monsanto Protection Act.  They are now protected against litigation. How about the new one, called the Monsanto Promotion Act?  Our government wishes to give Monsanto money to promote their dangerous products as good choices.

In July, Vermont will be the first state that has successfully passed a labeling law. Since January, congress has tried to preempt it twice. They tried to pass laws making it ILLEGAL to label GMO's in any state. Yes, you heard that right, ILLEGAL. The last time was right before Easter break, and it failed by only 8 votes. They might be working on a new law, and I only hope it will fail too. This was known to us as the Dark Act, because it stood for "Deny Americans the Right to Know."

As if their friends in congress weren't enough, this giant has friends in the media. Just recently the MAA tested 10 wines from California and found glyphosate in all of them, even the organic one. They were from several different places. View this short video from ABC:



But on April 29th, ABC was supposed to do a follow up investigation, and mysteriously it got pulled. The follow up investigation was about how you can grow plants without the weed killer, and how to get rid of glyphosate. I'm guessing they were threatened by the giant.

It has happened before, as Monsanto is also the maker of the Bovine Growth Hormone that is given to cows to make them produce more milk. This time it was FOX who did an investigation on the health effects of this hormone. The two reporters found evidence that the milk from cows that had been using this hormone was dangerous for human consumption. They were ready to put it on the air when Monsanto threatened the station. The two reporters were told that they must keep silent about what they found out, or they would be fired. They wouldn't, and got fired. See the Huffington Post article Monsanto Forced Fox TV to Censor Coverage of Dangerous Milk Drug.

How long do we just sit here as American citizens and do nothing? Target says transgenders can go to any bathroom, and we riot and boycott the store. Our families are being poisoned daily by eating food they think is safe, and even when people know, they keep buying it, claiming they can't afford organic food.

We all know that arsenic is poisonous, but it takes a long while to work. People who are poisoned don't realize that they are actually being poisoned. They just slowly get sicker and sicker, until they actually die. It is like that with glyphosate. It builds up in our systems and causes different symptoms that are hard to pinpoint. If we treated Monsanto like Target, or any other company we feel is unjust, then maybe we could actually defeat the giant.

We don't always have to buy organic, some food is labeled as GMO free. I urge all of you who took the time to read this post to do something about it. Do it one step at a time. Get educated, and find replacements for the snacks or junk we are feeding our family. Fresh fruit or veggies instead of  chips, or maybe buy at least what you can that is organic. Eat out at places like Chipotles, and make it a habit to ask restaurants if they have GMO free choices. The more they get asked, the more likely they will begin investigating offering such options. Hitting companies in the wallet is one of the most effective ways to promote change. They will not continue producing the trash if no one is buying it.

Sign the petitions, and get on email lists from groups like Moms Across America. Glyphosate has been found in the urine of people across the country, in amounts that are deemed to be unsafe in the water supply. It has even been found in breast milk.  Let us keep our kids safe, and our planet. Let's defeat the giant, once and for all.