Humanity's greatest threat?

This is something that I have been truly worried about lately. Seeing it more frequently on all the news sites. G M food and milk as well. I even thought about drinking soy milk but what would be the difference? They have genetically modified the soy bean too. I know this video is a little long. But please check it out. I 1st saw this on natural news. When and if you have time give that a look too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCFP_Unf6zA&sns=em

I'd be wary of soy, regardless of GM. As i understand it, soy has issues relating to estrogen levels in the body. A link here, indicating, among other things, "The Chinese and Japanese have known about the toxicity of soy for centuries." http://www.drlam.com/opinion/soyandestrogen.asp Google "soy hormonal" and you'll get a whole range of links covering the issues.
In a more general sense, it's gotta be dangerous to trust the generations of scientist who've given us Chernobyl and Fukushima to manipulate biology and our food supplies.

Thanks for that. The last thing I need is to be more hormonal

On a more serious note today strawberries were found with the ecoli strand in Oregon. These were supposed to be organic. How does a whole field of strawberries that are sold at a local farmers market get ecoli? What is safe? Yes we could grow our own food. We don't have enough land to support a family of 5 for the year and that is just veges. Which is probably true for 90% of us. So then what? We just keep eating the same crap they have been feeding us. (No pun intented!) Oh yea, is tofu made out of soy bean curd?

Yep, tofu's made from soy bean curd, via soy milk.
Obviously, it's not practical for everyone, and you'd have connections to people where you are, but if you can find a way to get your own food growing, by relocating, or even looking outside the square - community gardens for example - could be well worth the effort.

That there's a need, perceived or real to...

lisofby wrote:minimise the risk of contamination of non-GM crops.

...surely raises all sorts of questions as to why GM crops are even being allowed for sale in supermarkets, when life changing therapeutic drugs take years to get through an approval process.

Short on time, but wanted to post this site esp. for Owl Feather to follow. They have a lot about Monsanto and genetically modified foods. So here is is:

http://www.naturalnews.com/

Thanks Summerland for posting that site. I am on that site daily. It is very informative, a real eye opeaner on our foods, gmo, natural remedies and everything in between.

OwlFeather- you mentioned not having enough land to grow veggies for a year, but there's a great article in this months Mother Earth News magazine about starting a self sufficient homestead on just one acre of land! http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-homesteading/self-sufficient-homestead-zm0z11zkon.aspx
It seems pretty amazing. If you're good at jarring then it really isn't hard to have plenty of homegrown goods last a whole winter. They do however recommend you have a cow- haha! I know that is unlikely for most people, and I know that many people don't have access to any land, let alone a whole acre. But I think the message that the article is trying to get out there is it's not as difficult as most make it out to be, just daunting, and the knowledge of how to start your own self sufficient home is fairly obscure nowadays- almost a kooky thing to do, even. A few generations ago lessons that a parent would teach to their child about the land and raising crops and animals are now something you need to look up online or find in a book or travel to live with a homesteading community if you want any chance of truly learning it- I mean look at mycology for example. Every one loves mushrooms- well lots of people do. But the same people who might spend 15$ a week on mushrooms from the healthfood store would never go and pick their own. 75 years ago: that was how people got mushrooms. Only now are Americans just beginning to re-explore the magical world of edible fungus something in other countries some consider a family passtime..
Even so- if you wanted to start your own farm and learned all your knowledge however you could- there's still the question of what seeds do you even trust? Most are genetically modified and even if the ones you buy are not- if you have neighbors growing GMOs by the time you're ready to gather your seeds at the end of the season they've already cross pollinated and you no longer have a pure strain. Life is hard, friends. What is the answer?

RT thanks a lot for that site. I have bookmarked that one. Yea can't see myself taking care of a cow though. You are so right in regards to the garden and we don't even know how to that any more. I remember being a young kid (We won't say how long ago that was) and standing at the cherry tomato plant, popping them like candy!!! So very yummy!!! It's become so much easier to go to the store. All in the name of progress. Then is progress really even progress??

In my wanderings I came across this thread so I will put my $1.50 (2c plus inflation) in.

1 acre isn't really enough for a self sustaining patch, especially when you have a cow and/or goats. To have a cow on there you would need to import foodstock for the cow. You wouldn't have enough food from the patch to feed the cow properly and a family too. Need at least 5 acres for that.

As for fertilizer, the easiest fertilizer to obtain is human urine. Because most of us are omnivores our urine is rich in nitrogen in a form that plants can absorb easily. Just water it down 50/50, it's too strong otherwise. And pour it around the roots not on the leaves (burns them!). Human manure is good too but needs to be processed to destroy pathogens. A methane digester would work for that.

Mo'earthnews has been around for a long time and has a lot of useful info.

The whole purpose of GM foods is to get control of the food supply, it's got nothing to do with improving food. In fact there is no GM food that produces better than it's natural counterpart.

For me the bigest threat to humanity is the lack of love in lifes of many people...

You have a good point there Luis. I think the biggest threat is war, which could be solved a lot more easily if everybody had more love in their hearts

Stirky wrote:You have a good point there Luis. I think the biggest threat is war, which could be solved a lot more easily if everybody had more love in their hearts

If you think a bit you will see that the heart of all problems is the lack of love!

NaturalNews) Artificial Sweetener Disease (ASD) is sweeping across America, affecting tens of thousands of consumers, and Western medicine calls it anything but what it really is, so that doctors can prescribe expensive pharmaceuticals and set up "check up" appointments for the following weeks.

Call it recurring headaches, unbearable migraines, depression, anxiety, muscle pain, arthritis flare ups, buzzing or ringing in the ears, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn's disease, inflammation, even acid reflux, but don't call it ASD, or the patient may stop consuming synthetic sweeteners, and then not schedule more doctor visits.

The symptoms of ASD can change overnight, depending on how much chemical sweetener you consume, and which ones. Some combinations are especially toxic. Consumers can go from a migraine headache to vomiting or from vision problems to an upset stomach. Many people experience central nervous system disorders, cramping, nervous twitches and abnormal reflexes. (http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/)

It all started when Ronald Reagan took office in 1980. He immediately fired the head of the FDA, under advisement from Donald Rumsfeld (CEO of Searle Pharmaceutical at the time), and hired Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., who auspiciously approved aspartame. It was the decade of the diet craze, and Rumsfeld and his constituents made a fortune off the artificial sweetener which had been banned for decades due to laboratory testing results proving it was carcinogenic. The same FDA tainted approval process gave way to sucralose in 1991, and then sorbitol in 2003. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/donald-rumsfeld-and-the-s...)

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034378_artificial_sweetener_disease_ASD_aspartame.html#ixzz1u2Wjasi8

So next time you go to pick up a bottle of liquid to drink, choose the kind with sugar, if you must, but stay away from the artificial sweeteners

Dang. I wish many of the worlds' human follies could be undone. Many of them coming from the 60s 70s and 80s....

ReticentThemis wrote:Dang. I wish many of the worlds' human follies could be undone. Many of them coming from the 60s 70s and 80s....

Nice to be back, isn't it?
I think that we were headed in the right direction mid 60-s to early 70's and then something shifted again.

Aspartame is dangerous alright. It is a relative of Cyanide and attacks the nervous system. Steer well clear of it. I think that Dandy Donny Rumsfeld should be tied down and force fed aspertame.

If you need a sweetener use a natural one. Sugar beet can be grown in colder climes and sugar cane can be grown in cool temp. areas.

I have grown S.Beet here in the past. Chop the beet up and put it into a blender, then pour boiling water over it. The light syrup that comes out is very sweet. Use that.

If you need or want an artificial sweetener, use genuine sacharin. It's made from coal and is not so poisonous. Hard to get now though.