Fight Genetically Engineered Foods

Do you believe in your basic right to choose what you and your family eat? There are no labelling requirements for Genetically Engineered (GE) foods in Canada. To date more than 40 GE foods are sold to unsuspecting consumers in this country.

The chemical and pharmaceutical companies who make much money from manipulating the food supply which affects Canadians' health and not beneficially are turning up the heat in Ottawa in favour of GE foods.

So, it's time to change tactics.

Vocal activists have had some effect. McCain's, the largest potato manufacturer in Canada, publicly announced it would accept no more genetically modified potatoes for its food products.

Monsanto, the biggest GE food company to benefit from Ottawa's deaf ear to Canadian's desires for no tampered foods without labels, recently bought out another company and changed its name officially. That is the company that is selling farmers seed to plant that will not produce seeds! The idea is to keep farmers captive to buying their seed every spring, but at what cost to the health of Canadians to produce crops that can't even do their God-given job and produce seeds for future reproduction?

The Farm Scene

Farmers don't even know what to seed. Last fall's issue of Seed.ab.ca, Alberta Agriculture's official seed guide publication, did a story on what a dilemma farmers are in as to what to plant. The seed companies are pushing GE seeds. The publication said in 1999 more than two-thirds of canola acreage in Western Canada was seeded to GE crops.

Angus Reid did another poll in January and found that two-thirds of consumers surveyed wouldn't buy food clearly labeled Genetically Engineered.

There's the rub. The Canadian government has no intention of labeling GE foods unless we rise up and express our opinions en masse. A few hundred letters won't do it. For government to listen to not label two-thirds of Canadians as a small splinter group! we have to be vocal by the thousands.

An anonymous government insider estimates that already 70% of all Canada's food is genetically altered.

The list of GE-approved foods include squash (interestingly enough, it's been approved as safe food for people, but not animals!), soy beans, flax, cotton, potatoes, wheat, corn, many varieties of canola and tomatoes.

But of course, government employees are bound by an oath of secrecy. If they dare tell a truth that a politician doesn't want made public, they lose their jobs. Interesting dilemma for government workers as well as farmers and consumers.

Make a Noise

Let us get on the bandwagon for healthy food in this country. Try a simple sample letter such as "I have the right to choose what I and my family eat. Therefore, I demand a moratorium on all genetically engineered foods produced and sold in Canada."

Call 1(800) 463-6868 to find out the name of your Member of Parliament and write him or her.

Let us remember Mother Teresa's words, "To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it."

Learn more about this author, Gwynn Alcorn.
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