Monsanto is an American biotech/agribusiness company that is responsible for the promotion of genetically modified crops (GMOs) and our country’s reliance on corn as a major staple of its food supply. Over the years, Monsanto and a select few similar corporations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying the US government to influence food policy supporting purely financial aims. Monsanto has also developed intimate relationships with trusted agencies like the FDA and the USDA to promote their interests over the public health of our country.
Last week our government extended even more protection to this corporation by passing what people are calling the “Monsanto Protection Act.” Hidden within a much larger government spending bill, the provision prevents future legal recourse against Monsanto in case GMO crops turn out to be harmful. There is even strong circumstantial evidence that the company itself had a hand in writing the legislation. President Obama signed the bill into law amidst significant public protest, continuing his legacy of deference to Big Corn at the expense of American health.
Why You Should Care
First of all, nobody really knows the long term effects of consuming genetically modified organisms. There is mounting concern that GMO foods pose some danger, though there hasn’t been significant scientific inquiry done up to this point. Guess who funds most of the food research? Some speculate that GMOs can influence DNA expression through altering RNA that can survive digestion. The increasing rates of obesity, cancer, hormone deficiencies, etc. in our society may be purely coincidental, but they are likely linked to our eating habits as a society.
Even factoring out GMOs, the company is at the center of our government’s support of Big Corn. Essentially, Monsanto and similar corporations control both the supply side and demand side of the corn market. Monsanto spends millions to lobby Washington for corn farmer subsidies that end up as corporate welfare for the company. Corn farmers receive further breaks if they use Monsanto’s genetically modified crop seeds to grow their product.
If you’ve opened your eyes in the last 25 years or so, you’ll notice that Americans are incredibly fat. Ever wonder why high fructose corn syrup is the first ingredient in nearly every staple of the standard American diet? Corn and soy are ubiquitous in the standard American diet not because of any nutritional benefits or inherent advantage to the crop, but rather because multinational companies like Monsanto influence legislation that makes them artificially profitable to grow and sell.
Sweeteners such as corn syrup are also addictive and stimulate hunger, causing us to crave and consume more of them in spite of our bodies’ inability to handle them over the long term. A superabundance of dietary sugar is linked to diabetes, hypertension metabolic syndrome, and heart disease. Even the meat you buy at the grocery store is fed on unnatural diet of corn, necessitating the animals to be pumped full of antibiotics near the end of their lives and decimating the nutritional composition of their meat.
What You Can Do
Though it’s probably too late to make any realistic action to diminish the hegemony of Monsanto and Big Corn as arbiters of food policy in our country, you can combat it on an individual level by taking ownership of your diet:
1. Stop eating processed food altogether
2. Buy produce and meat labeled GMO-free, certified 100% organic, or 100% grass-fed
3. Encourage others to do the same
Other than Ancel Keys’s dreadfully inaccurate lipid hypothesis, the Monsanto/Big Corn axis has had perhaps the most deleterious impact on our country’s health of any single agency. People are at least generally aware of tobacco’s bad effects, but most will blindly follow the insidious corporation-controlled governmental recommendations on nutrition. Look around you — the most elementary observation of day-to-day life should tell you that our emphasis on grains, low-fat, and high-carb is completely wrong and represents an epidemic failure of our government’s food policy.
Once you realize that our government actively encourages the production of terrible food and that lawmakers have financial incentive to keep shoving corn and soy down our throats, the clear conclusion is to go Galt with your food. Cut these foods from your diet, and make conscious choices that keep Monsanto out of your kitchen.
Read More: 4 Reasons Your Diet Sucks
Soy lecithin also causes ed belive it or not an thats found in whey gainers. Livestrong.com talks about all the dangers of soy kecithin
Not that this is a new issue. The liberal hippies have been shouting about it for years, which means the conservative right wingers have a huge fucking hard-on for Monsanto and Big Ag. This country is horribly fucked.
When you shout to the world about every corporation being evil people tend to ignore you when actual evil ones pop up.Diluting the message. I think I’m on the Monsanto is evil train though.
Yes, corporatists, many of whom are on the Right, sold us out. But big government, fed by statists (Left and Right), provides the muscle to defeat the market and force feed us Franken garbage.
Yes, and now Monsanto is utilizing third world Latin American countries, like Panama, to grow its fuckin’ poison. I guess, this is just a preventive measure, just in case the US government one day decides to shut down its domestic operations.
Fuck Monsanto. Long live the revolution.
One of my dad’s friends is allergic to corn. Not “deadly allergic” like some peanut allergies, but I hear it’s bad enough that he’d only eat corn if there were no other option.
It is a HUGE pain in the ass for him to find something to eat that he didn’t cook on his own. When he travels, he brings a large cooler of corn-free meals and snacks.
Based on what I’ve read, I don’t think GMO foods are dangerous. But I’m TOTALLY IN FAVOR of labeling requirements. Got GMO grain in your food? LABEL THAT SHIT, and let the customer decide. We have labels for certified organic foods, labels for rBST milk, and labels for kosher foods, some voluntary, some standardized. I don’t care about kosher or GMO, but a lot of people do, and everyone has a right to know what is or is not in their food.
You mentioned how people know smoking is bad. I find it kind of fucked-up that tobacco companies freely add horribly toxic things like formaldehyde and acetone to their cigarettes with no requirement to inform the customer. Nice job, ATF. At least American Spirit has taken some initiative on their own to make additive-free cigs.
Fun fact: By law, tobacco grown in the US must be fertilized with industrial fertilizer (organic fertilizer is prohibited) that contains radioactive isotopes of phosphorous. These isotopes emit only alpha radiation, which cannot penetrate through skin or even a sheet of paper, so it poses no risk to your health if you’re just growing flowers with it. But when you’re smoking plants that were fertilized with it, the delicate tissue in your lungs won’t stop the alpha radiation, and you increase your odds of getting lung cancer.
Let’s not forget that Monsanto engineered the “terminator gene” (aka suicide seeds) which causes the second generation of seeds to be sterile. They literally succeeded in rolling back thousands of years of agriculture and nature. What person with any shred of morality designs less productive crops?
The fun part will be when the terminator gene “accidentally” escapes the lab and starts cross pollinating with current crops. Any prepper worth his salt should have a large and diverse supply of seeds in his stockpile.
Everybody here should watch the documentaries on Monsanto that are available. They are absolutely the most unethical corporation in existence today.
Yeah and the terminator seed has never been mass produced or made it to market.
Why should it even exist? What kind of monster even tries to bring such things into existence?
I don’t know, go ask the USDA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology
Because this essentially puts the farmer back in the market to purchase more seeds from …. Monssnto.
Ironic how the seeds are sterile and there is a fertility epidemic across the globe.
“Let’s not forget that Monsanto engineered the “terminator gene” (aka suicide seeds) which causes the second generation of seeds to be sterile. They literally succeeded in rolling back thousands of years of agriculture and nature. What person with any shred of morality designs less productive crops?”
I read this somewhere too. This essentially puts the farmer back in the market to purchase more seeds from …. Monssnto.
Well, at least for investors who hold Monsanto stock can jump for joy…
There’s strict labeling requirement on GMOs in Europe for a reason.
Seriously fucking around with food crops is something I oppose, crops are too vital, they need to stop being concerned with food production yield, and start accounting for quality as well.
How are GMO food of lower “quality?”
If they were not of lower quality, would Monsanto have to force them into the food chain?
Beware of corporate owned or sponsored shills and astroturfers with dozens of social media accounts and IP addresses to match.
Beware of liberals that can’t stand dissenting views and who have to act like people who do dissent are paid to. I thought RoK would be one place to have a freeer discussion on the matter.
Europe doing something is not evidence of that something being good prima facie.
Monsanto doesn’t have to force anything on us, there’s an anti-scientific liberal movement against GMO’s and who uses propaganda terms like “frankenfood” as if it meant something.
The same forces against food science are the ones who push feminism and cultural marxism on the nation. The same reason rational views of gender can’t be had, is the same reason rational discussion and legislation of GMO’s can’t be had.
Yes idiot , Monsanto doesn´t need force anything to the public and that´s why almost no one but them and the government can perform studies on their so called “healthy” seeds…Beware of idiots who think everything the government or corporations say is the Word of God. So far there IS NOT A SINGLE LONGTERM study of the impacts of GMOs in the human body or in animals (long term >20 years). By the way the same forces that finance feminism, favour discriminatory policies against males are the ones behind the push for GMOs everywhere without the consent of the public and without scientifc prove of the GMO safety (Big business, Gig government ).
Google Seralini and the story of the introduction of GMOs in the market. If GMOs were the blessing they are trying to sell us, no stealthy methods would be needed.
I am conservative (possibly more so than you). I am, however, not in favor of corporate (or union) ownership of our political process. Unlike ideologues on the right, I admit when conservatives are wrong.
Republicans (fake conservatives) have sold small farmers, our health, and free market capitalism down the river. They have also erected government-enforced protections for large corporate entities; protections that protect them from competition, and protections that give them state-sanctioned monopolies on life (your DNA, my DNA, etc. are all corporate owned). The fact that the Democrats have done the similar for unions doesn’t make corporatism right (correct).
How is opposing corporatist enslavement not conservative?
Right,
They need to be stealthy because of people like you being fear mongerers.
http://fracturedparadigm.com/2013/04/02/boycott-monsanto-a-simple-list-of-companies-to-avoid/
You’ll recognize every name on the list. Yikes!
This is Boycott Monsantolist – A Simple List of Companies to Avoid
Whole Foods Market, a corporation founded by a libertarian (John Mackey), is one of the last sources of unpolluted food.
Aren’t all organisms genetically modified?
Aren’t all punanis made of molecules?
“that GMOs can influence DNA expression through altering RNA that can survive digestion.”
Bullshit.
“they are likely linked to our eating habits as a society.”
Umm, yes, and that relates to GMO food how?
Yeah, that’s what the shills said about BSE (mad cow disease). Thanks for playing, now log on with another account.
…weird. It’s like its this core group of people who have deep enough pockets to push something like this, enough legislative control to get a bill like this passed, enough sway over the media to make sure you never hear about it, and embedded in academia deep enough to push it on kids as a good idea….I bet a group like that would have a long history of pissing off people they live around.
You’re saying Monsanto is run by Jews?
I don’t know shit about Monsanto. I know about wildly liberal academia, media manipulation, and non-stop political leveraging. …so if the yamuka fits…
The market will fix it…
Another corporate troll. Keep it up; the more comments, the greater the attention. Time to use another name, troll.
Ok, let’s bite. How does this happen? As info spreads about GMO foods, people resist buying them. How does the info spread? Well – right here (and elsewhere)! These discussions are the mechanisms of the market in action.
I’ve been practicing my 1850s diet, if its ingredients weren’t around before 1850 it is off the menu. I went from 210- 170lbs in a few months, eating like a man. Bacon, butter, steak, turkey, chicken, fish, whole milk, if I eat something it’s going to be real. That combined with proper balance, half my diet is pretty much veggies, and I eat about the tastiest food you can and have moved towards optimal health. It’s a diet that doesn’t look like one, or taste like one and all I’ve eliminated is the “PROCESSED FOOD INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX” from my life. I’ve been doing this for a few months and if I go back and eat processed food I get ill.
I got into this diet after a tour in Iraq with the army. I developed GERD, I believe this was from the crap processed food the army contracted out for us to be fed (the british army eats 100x better than the US army btw), it’s been a few years since I’ve been back and since I’ve adopted the diet my GERD symptoms have disappeared completely. It’s not some ingredients you need to watch for, simply dont eat “food products,” learn how to cook.
Failed to mention that means eating only organic foods, from the best source I can find, it’s more expensive, but tell me what’s more worthy an investment than your health, well being and enjoyment?
God bless you for your service. I will try that 1850 diet sometime.
I’ll eat like my ancestors did in the 1850’s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29
They ate local, and they ate non-gmo, non-corporatist and totally organic. I’m sure Monsanto is to blame some how.
Hate the effect of what Monsanto does, but I would love to work there.
I agree nothing should be subsidized, but to complain about GMOs is simply bad science. There is no, I repeat no, evidence of a problem with any GMO food yet created. I expect more critical thinking from this web site.
The only way to do conclusive studies about GMO food is to label that shit and see what happens to the people who eat it. Guess which company lobbied the government to prevent labeling of GMO foods? Mon Santo.
It’s kind of fucking fishy when the company which makes GMO foods passes legislation preventing anyone from actually doing any science about the effects of their product.
I haven’t looked into the literature myself but I certainly would not put it past Monsanto to have a heavy influence in the results of any studies. They have way too much money and control in the food industry. Corporate interests influence study results more often than people would believe, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Anyways, if GMOs are not an issue, why not label them?
What is this, the HuffPost now? GMO’s are good, the same people that hate Monsanto are the Marxist feminists ruining America. Don’t believe the hype. GMO = good.
Dude:
American Feminism, Marxism and GMO are three different things. It is like saying: “Don’t buy hemp-made clothes because they are manufactured with the fibers of a green herb that makes AC/DC sound great when it is consumed it in the form of brownies prepared with synthetic chocolate mass-produced in a state-owned factory subsidized by a communist government that is threatening to drop a nuclear bomb on a kindergarten that recently raised t
…that recently raised the tuition fees thanks to the real estate bubble created by narco-trafficking financiers that I met in Macau the other day while gambling away the jewels of my sister who got married to a tranvestite jew on a boat that recently got hijacked by Somali pirates.
In other words. They are unrelated.
…the tuition fees thanks to real estate market bubble created by narco trafficking financiers that I met the other day in Macau while gambling away the jewels of my sister, who got married to a jewish transvestite on a boat that was recently hijacked by Somali pirates with water guns designed by Mattel.
In other words, they are unrelated.
Liar!
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Tea Party lashes out at ‘Monsanto Protection Act’
Members of the Tea Party have joined protesters standing up against the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’, calling the provision a ‘special interest loophole’ for friends of Congress.
The provision has now sparked so much outrage that both the far right and the far left are uniting in their condemnation of Section 735 of the Agricultural Appropriations Bill, which President Barack Obama signed into law last week.
This section, which critics refer to as the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’, safeguards the biotech company from any sort of litigation. Buried within the 78-page bill, the provision allows agriculture companies to plant and sell genetically modified seeds and genetically modified organisms, without facing the risk of litigation.
rt.com/usa/tea-party-monsanto-act-281/
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Monsanto is relentless. This moron is a paid shill who is posting and voting with multiple personas on multiple sites. For him, it’s a fulltime job.
Don’t believe the shill. Says this anti-feminist conservative, GMO = bad.
If gmo is so great, why not label? Why preemptively immunize yourself to future litigation? Just like DDT was the breakfast of chamipions, right?
DDT is actually very safe, and its funny you mention breakfast of champions, because the government conducted a study where it was fed to prisoners every single day for years, and they had no negative health effects.
And yes you heard that right. They were fed the powder every single day, and they were fine.
I do think GMO foods need to be labeled and researched though. Modern dwarf wheat is pretty fucking awful for you, and it needs to be researched more extensively, along with other GMO crops.
Important to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE-H__aIEFE
Go home, you dirty hippie.
What i cant stand are those zombified wannabe technocrats that attack anyone who questions gmo. They claim its the next big innovation that will end world hunger. Since when are they giving away free food? I just dont understand how people can blindly trust the same company that told us DDT was safe. Just stay asleep, parrot mainstream media, they’ll do the thinking for you. That what all the smart tech is for, to think for you. Critical thinking is obsolete, resistance is futile.
Sorry, GMO foods have had no discernible negative effects on the humans that consume them. While I’m open to solid science that suggest otherwise, in general GMO foods have been a boon to the human race.
Some sort of limit on trial lawyers seeking a big payday through bogus law suits and legal extortion is well-advised
That said, is Monsanto practicing crony capitalism and rent-seeking? Is the Pope Catholic?
Whenever I get the flu I’m reminded of the story of the Commies genetically modifying the flu virus so that it produced cobra venom. It helps to be sick to believe it!
Im sure the farmers in India agree with gmo being a “boon to the human race.” Keep eating that gmo, its great for your testicles. http://www.responsibletechnology.org/article-gmo-soy-linked-to-sterility
to each their own
I saw one those ‘docu-reality tv’ shows the other day about a woman who saved a lot of money through couponing. I thought, with that much money saved, she must be eating healthy. But holy fuck, she was fat! She had a whole warehouse of canned food, chips and snack bars. Seriously, what are you Americans thinking? The worst part is, your shit is flowing into Asia.
Once again, anyone stupid enough to eat GMO foods deserves to get fucked.
Anyway, what can we do as one man to fight Monsanto? Go put a bullet through the CEO’s head? I’m sure he has a shitload of security and bodyguards.
GMOs promote infertility, which is GOOD. The people who are stupid enough to be eating GMOs are the same people who should NOT be having children.
In the end, it’s all karma. The common man, the ignorant masses, DESERVE to get poisoned like this. The Illuminati is correct to want to kill off 90 percent of the human race. Heil Lucifer, the glorious Light Bringer
I do not support these ideas, but the way you express them deserves a badass thumbs up.
Make the world safe: Kill a Monsanto executive. . .
Now, let us boycott Monsanto. You will find clear instructions here:
http://fracturedparadigm.com/2013/04/02/boycott-monsanto-a-simple-list-of-companies-to-avoid/
The problem that you’re dealing with is not so much as price as the lack of availability in many places when it comes to grass-fed meat. Sure, you can get at Whole Foods for a much much higher price, but if you want to feed at least 70% of the country using this method, it’s much more difficult.
Probably the most evil corporation out there. This article touched on a couple of many horrible facets of this shitty company. The only thing more evil than the company are the lobbyists and politicians that are paid off by the hitler of the food industry. There’s no mystery on how this company holds whoever uses their seeds as hostage to their seed subscription scam not to say how they’ve patented their one use seeds. They also let their seeds contaminate natural farms crops.If they find that another farm has the genetic traces of their seed contamination they send a small army of lawyers to sue the farm for copywrite infringement effectively coercing that farmer to either accept Monsanto or be run out of business. China and Mexico dont want anything to do with Monsanto. Lets put it this way, if an amoral country like China doesnt want anything to do with you, you know your a fucking evil company.
Thanks for getting the word out about Monsanto. There is more evidence coming out everyday that GMOs are harmful. I have always kept a healthy weight (within normal BMI recommendations). But when I moved to Europe, I couldn’t help but indulge in the full fat cheese, quality steaks, and French wine. I ate a diet that would make Americans fat, but I justified that my bad eating habits were temporary. I was afraid of the scale though because of the weight gain I was sure to see. But then, I also walked a lot or took public transport. One day I noticed my jeans were looking better than before and so I weighed myself. I had dropped about 15 pounds. That’s right– I ate all that bad stuff like red meat, cream, full fat cheese and even ate a lot of carbs. (Hello, real Italian food!) I went from a BMI of 23 to a much lower BMI. This was in the late 90’s during college. Pretty soon, I developed a hypothesis that there must be something in our food in the U.S. So, I started telling everyone what I believed and many didn’t believe me. I started looking for organic stuff knowing that one day the research would come out. Right now our food sources are poison. I grow an organic garden with non GMO (heirloom) seeds. I avoid plastic. I avoid chemical laden beauty products and use more natural ones. We bathe in chemicals each day and it’s alm impossible to escape them. But it’s worth trying. Grow an organic patio garden or plant in a community garden. Tell everyone you know. Ever noticed how the more illnesses we get the more big pharma benefits? It’s some to think about.
Leptin is triggered by eating a good healthy meal. Fish and green leafy vegetables.
The problem is fruit and grains! Not just GMO but any artificial domesticated plant variety that has been loaded with sugar. A candy bar is better for you than a banana.
Unless you live in the USA where candy bars use High Fructose Corn Syrup. Then they are much the same.
Fructose (fruit sugar) is converted to fat in the liver and deposits on your body. Candy bars (outside of the USA) use regular sugar which you “can” burn during exercise.
Fruits were seasonal (a week or two per year) and the body is designed to store fruit sugar for later use as fat. Now they are available in the supermarket year round which means obesity.