You can ignore the topic.
You can tiptoe around the subject if you want to.
You can pretend it doesn’t matter that in a 2007 campaign speech to Iowa farmers, then candidate Obama said that Americans had the right to know about the foods they eat. You can pretend it doesn’t matter he went on to say that if elected, he would label genetically modified food.
Listen to that audio.
(He didn’t and hasn’t done so.)
You can pretend it doesn’t matter that as president, Mr. Obama has appointed two men, Michael Taylor and Tom Vilsack to the most important food safety/food supply positions in the country. Both had ties to Monsanto. You can pretend the President and the First Lady are not part of one administration and one agenda that sometimes chooses big corporate interests over those of your children.
The overriding feeling is, it’s all YOUR fault, parents, some of your children are overweight. You are the ones feeding your kids foods considered by most to be unhealthy, like high fructose corn syrup, candy made with beet sugar (from genetically modified sources), and allowing your children to gain weight. The administration takes no responsibility for any of that, whatsoever. At the Childhood Obesity Summit in 2010, the First Lady said, “Our kids didn’t do this to themselves.” She’s right. The administration and Congress helped.
The issue of processed food and huge subsidies in the Farm Bill for companies producing corn for corn syrup, sugar beets for sugary foods and other less healthy foods is one that travels on both sides of the aisle. Some groups say it’s up to us, as parents and as voters to tell politicians we expect better for our kids. At the same time, one of the amendments to the Farm Bill would cut funding for school lunch. The Farm Bill in its current form is stalled in Congress, at this writing, until sometime next month.
A new study on genetically modified food conducted over ten years by Austrian, Turkish, Australian, Irish and Norwegian researchers was released in July of this year. The main focus of the study was corn and soy. Scientists found a correlation between consumption of GM corn and soy and increased weight gain among pigs, rodents and fish. The test subjects who ate the modified food experienced changes in their intestines as well, causing them to digest less protein from the food they consumed. Adverse effects to the immune system were also noted.
The most concerning outcome in the test subjects was organ changes to the liver and kidneys. Also, genes from the modified food were found in the blood. GMO proponents have maintained there is no danger in consuming genetically modified food since it “doesn’t stay in the body”. Hmm.
If parents want the best advice on feeding kids healthy school lunches this school year, the best plan is to seek out organic, local, whole foods from farms and grocers they trust. Stay away from processed food, food dyes, known allergens and non-organic soy, corn, sugar beets, canola, alfalfa and animals fed non-organic soy, corn or alfalfa in their feed.
Until these foods are properly labeled, as promised by the President, and parents know what they are feeding their children, it’s unfair to make parents feel guilty for the weight gain of their kids. The finger points right back at the hypocrisy of the current White House administration.
Chew on that for a while.
Calls made to the White House requesting President Obama’s current position on labeling GMOs were not returned.
