Do you know what you’re buying at the grocery store? Chances are you don’t.

Today an estimated 80% of processed foods sold in the U.S. contain ingredients, known as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), that have been genetically engineered in high-tech laboratories and most Americans don’t have a clue!

For the past 20 years Americans have been denied their basic right to know what they’re eating because of a flawed regulatory system that has relied on corporate science without adequate peer-reviewed testing and scientific oversight.

It’s time to for that to change.

Tell the FDA, it’s time to Label GMO foods!

In the past year, the Obama administration has ramped up approval of GMO crops, including seven new crops for commercialization. This spring these crops will be planted and most of them will end up in our food supply.

At the same time, GMO salmon is currently under review at the FDA and awaiting approval, making it the first genetically engineered animal to enter our food supply. The Obama administration may believe they can approve these novel new creations at will, but the American people still have a fundamental right to know what’s in their food and choose what they’re eating!

Already more than 40 countries around the world require labeling of foods that contain GMOs. While Americans who live in the “land of the free” have no idea what’s in their food, citizens in the European Union, Japan, Russia and even China have the legal right to know.

Recent polling has shown that 93% of Americans support mandatory labeling of GMOs.

Even President Obama has said he is in favor of labeling GMOs. In a 2007 campaign speech he promised to “let folks know whether their food has been genetically modified because Americans should know what they’re buying.”

But he hasn’t done it.

Tell President Obama and the FDA to label GMOs!

Earlier this year, Food Democracy Now! joined a coalition of more than 400 businesses, co-ops and organizations named Just Label It, to call on the FDA to immediately implement mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods.

Already more than 900,000 citizens have signed the petition urging the FDA to finally require mandatory labeling of foods that contain ingredients that have been genetically engineered in high tech laboratories. Help us reach 1 million today!

Please join us in making sure that Americans have a right to know what’s in their food.

CLICK HERE to join the petition and Tell the FDA it’s time to label GMOs!

After all, who doesn’t want to know where their food comes from?

When most people think about Agent Orange, they think of the Vietnam war. But now, Big Agro is planning to use it on our food crops! One of the primary chemical ingredients of Agent Orange; 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), is a powerful defoliant that was sprayed over the jungles of Vietnam in order to expose the Viet-Cong (or at least, that was the theory). Many Vietnam war veterans suffer severe, permanent side effects from exposure to this toxin and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese children were born with serious birth defects as a result of its use. 

It has been recently discovered that Dow Chemical (the company that developed Agent Orange in the first place) is coming out with a genetically modified version of corn that is resistant to 3 different types of herbacide, including 2,4-D. This is a possible reaction to the discovery that after heavy use of Monsanto’s Round-Up over the last 15 years, weeds have already developed a resistance to that herbicide and is becoming useless. 

“…weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup, which is used in massive quantities on all genetically engineered Roundup Ready crops. It’s estimated that more than 130 types of weeds spanning 40 U.S. states are now herbicide-resistant, and they’re showing no signs of stopping. In fact, the situation is getting progressively worse.” 

 - Dr. Joseph Mercola

Strangely, the use of 2,4-D as an herbicide is not new, As a matter of fact, it’s one of the most commonly used herbicides world-wide. But if staple crops like corn and soy are engineered to be resistant to 2,4-D, that will open up the floodgates for indiscriminate use on an horrific scale. 

The puzzling thing is; corn is already naturally resistant to 2,4-D. So why would they need to engineer a 2,4-D resistant strain? The more troubling question is; why would anybody in their right mind ever consider spraying our FOOD with Agent Orange?! 

The answer is (as usual); money. 

“Of course, the whole point of engineering resistance to an herbicide within a plant is so that you can “carpet bomb” an entire field, leaving only your GM crop standing. If 2,4-D resistant crops receive approval and eventually replace Monsanto’s failing Roundup-resistant crops as Dow intends, it is likely that billions of pounds of 2, 4-D will be needed, on top of the already insane levels of Roundup being used (1.6 billion lbs were used in 2007 in the US alone!).” 

However, money is never the only objective. When taken into the context of Agenda 21 goals of controlling our food supply and reducing population, it takes on a whole new level of sinister. 

If you were unaware that there’s a war going on over our food supply, or if there has ever been a question your mind, this should be your wake-up call. The FDA is not here to protect the health of the American people. That agency (like so many others) is under the control of corporate interest, where many of its highest ranking officials come in and out through a revolving door between the agency and corporate agricultural and pharmaceutical firms. 

The only agency that’s really speaking up about 2,4-D is the EPA, but they seem impotent to enforce any authority at all over the “corporatocracy”. 

Remember what happened back during the BP oil “spill” when the EPA told British Petroleum they couldn’t dump Corexit on the Gulf of Mexico? 

Yeah… They did it anyway…  Repeatedly…  With no consequences (for BP, anyway). 

Dow has applied for non-regulated status of its 2,4-D-resistant corn, and you have until February 27, 2012 to comment on the petition. Please help bring a loud and clear message that approving more herbicide-tolerant crops is not the solution to ending “super weeds,” rather, the real solution lies in eliminating the genetically modified crops that created them in the first place! 

Approving 2, 4-D-resistant corn will only escalate the weed problem, and worsen already heavy environmental pollution with dangerous chemicals. 

Cornucopia.org also has a “Say No to Dow AgroScience’s GE Corn Petition” on their website. Please sign this petition, which will automatically send a letter to USDA secretary Tom Vilsack and President Obama, voicing your concerns. Part of this petition also asks for labeling of genetically engineered foods. 

“The industry is vehemently resisting that, because they know very well that given a choice – just like in Europe where they do have a choice because of mandatory labeling – consumers will not vote to subject their children to become, in essence, human guinea pigs, because there’s been virtually no human health testing on any of these novel genetically mutated life forms,” Kastel says.   

To read more about this newest assault on our food supply CLICK HERE. 

And listen to Dr. Mercola’s interview about Agent Orange in our food supply with the co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute; Mark Kastel below. 

Nothing is more prominent in the pursuit of self-reliant living and survival than being able to produce your own food. Just about everybody knows this, but not many people have the first clue about gardening or raising their own crops. Many people think it’s as simple as broadcasting your seeds in the ground and letting nature take it from there (including myself, at one time). Well, I can tell you from personal experience (and failures) it’s not all that simple. Now I’m no expert myself, but I’ve learned a few things along the way from friends who are, and I believe all preppers and survivalists should have a seed bank for long-term self reliance.

The first thing that you need to know when starting a seed bank is; what kind of seeds not to get. Among the seed types are: Heirloom, Hybrid and GMO seeds.

GMO seeds should be avoided at all costs. They are the result of genetic manipulation between two or more organisms (for example; there are GMO tomato seeds that are the result of combining tomato DNA with that of a FISH!) and the plants they produce haven’t even been tested as safe for human consumption by the FDA (it is now believed that consumption of GMO plants and meat products from animals that have been fed GMO plants are the cause of increasing in food allergies and other disorders). 

Furthermore, when these plants are introduced into nature, they contaminate and alter natural, organic plants, causing all kinds of chaos to the ecosystem. GMO seeds are designed with a “terminator gene”, which means that the plants produced from these seeds will not produce viable seeds of their own. So if you want more GMO crops, you have to go out and buy more GMO seeds. Which is a highly lucrative plan for Monsanto, but not a very self-sufficient plan for survival.  

For more info about the dangers of GMO foods, watch the video below:

Everything You HAVE TO KNOW about Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods from Jeffrey Smith on Vimeo.

Hybrid seeds are also another non-starter. While not technically genetically modified, hybrid seeds come from plants that have been “inbred” by cross-pollination by another plant variety in order to combine the superior qualities of both plants. This is to optimize size, yield and appearance, as well as produce plants that are resistant to diseases. Hybrid plants are also bred to be less susceptible to damage from mechanical processing and shipping. 

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Well, that’s about where hybrid plants run out of road. While the commercial hybridization of plants has been going on for almost 100 years, and it’s not quite as creepy or dangerous as genetically modified food, hybrid plants do not “breed true” in the second generation. Meaning the seeds produced by the inbred plant will not produce a plant of the same quality – or may not even produce seeds that germinate at all. So you’re right back where you were with GM seeds. In order to grow more hybrid plants, you’ll have to buy more hybrid seeds. And the time and effort that goes into producing hybrid seeds makes them much more expensive.

So we’re left with what are called Non-Hybrid, or Heirloom seeds. These seeds are the result of “open pollination” going back to the days before humans started messing around with hybrids and GMOs. The
lineage of some heirloom seeds may go back hundreds or thousands of years. They’re unmodified and unadulterated, just the way nature made them! They’re called “heirloom” because back in the days before commercial farming, people would literally pass down seeds from one generation to the next. 

Heirloom seeds breed true, and each subsequent generation of seeds will product the same plant that came before it. When buying heirloom seeds, make sure they are proven heirloom varieties, and look for germination rates on the packaging. This will indicate that the seeds are fresh. 

Some fruits and vegetables that come from hybrid seeds may look a little strange to folks who have bought their produce from the supermarket all their lives (such as the tomatoes and the carrots shown). This is because they haven’t had their natural characteristics bred out of them as hybridized produce has. But regardless of what they look like, produce grown from heirloom seeds are tastier and more nutritious than hybrids. 

“A lot of the breeding programs for modern hybrids have sacrificed taste and nutrition,” says George DeVault, executive director of Seed Savers Exchange, the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom and other rare seeds.

“The standard Florida tomato is a good example. Instead of old-time juicy tangy tomatoes, it tastes like cardboard. It was bred to be picked green and gas-ripened because that’s what was needed for commercial growing and shipping.”

Knowing how to grow your own food is vital for your survival and there’s no time to keep putting off learning how.  Even if you don’t have a lot of land for gardening, you can still grow fruits and vegetables in the space you have through container gardening.

To read more about the benefits of heirloom seeds and produce, check out: Heirloom Vegetables: 6 Advantages Compared to Hybrids and Industrial Farming is Giving us Less Nutritious Food from Mother Earth News.

Farmers are standing up to Big Agro giant; Monsanto, launching a landmark lawsuit against the mega corporation for widespread genetic contamination of our food crops.

This coalition, known as the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) are concerned that Monsanto’s aggressive agenda to genetically alter the planet will ultimately result in a severe threat to the organic integrity of farms worldwide. It’s easy to see that many ‘organic’ farms have already been contaminated with GMO crops, as nearly 93% of all soybeans are now admittedly genetically modified.

You can’t stop the wind! Once you introduce a contaminant into the eco-system, it’s going to proliferate. It’s not going to stop at the perimeters of the factory farms where GM crops are grown… Evidence of genetically modified corn has been found as far as 1000 miles away from any “farm” growing GM corn.

But that doesn’t stop Monsanto from rolling up and suing the life out of every organic farmer whose crops have been contaminated by their mutant, genetically modified frankenfoods and calling it a violation of their “intellectual property rights”, as Monsanto has a patent on every genetic abomination they concoct.

In fact, between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto filed 144 lawsuits against American family farmers. Another 700 lawsuits were settled out of court for undisclosed amounts. And that’s just in the United States. Monsanto has the same MO when it comes to their GMOs all over the world. Driving literally thousands of farmers out of business (and in some cases – to suicide) while the cash keeps rolling in!

Monsanto has an agenda to take out American family farms and dominate the global agricultural industry with their own mutant seeds. Or as the derisive slogan that someone came up with goes: “Monsanto – No Food Grown That We Don’t Own”.

Here’s more about the case from the Prepper Podcast Network News:

The Public Patent Foundation originally filed the lawsuit in March of 2011 in a case known as Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al v. Monsanto.

The organization launched the suit in the name of the very individuals and organizations threatened by Monsanto’s widespread GMO crops: family farmers, farming organizations, and seed businesses.

The intent of the case is to dispute Monsanto’s patents on GMO seeds and ultimately safeguard farmers from Monsanto’s own vicious lawsuits.

The first phase of the case began January 31^st. Over 50 farmers and plaintiffs arrived in Manhattan to listen to verbal debates as Monsanto attempted to dismiss the validity of the lawsuit.

Monsanto has been destroying our food supply, ruining organic farmers both here in the U.S., and all over the world for over a decade. To say that they’ve earned my deepest, darkest contempt over the last several years would be a massive understatement!

You can take action now by voicing your opposition to Monsanto and their insidious practices. Your submissions will be shared with farmers around the globe who will ultimately play a vital role in the determination of whether Monsanto will be able to continue its mass manipulation of the food supply.

Click this link to show your support!