Podcast 277: UNtested Genetically Modified Foods

Martin is freaked out of his skull by the movie “Genetic Roulette – The Gamble of Our Lives“.

When the US government ignored repeated warnings by its own scientists and allowed untested genetically modified (GM) crops into our environment and food supply, it was a gamble of unprecedented proportions. The health of all living things and all future generations were put at risk by an infant technology.

After two decades, physicians and scientists have uncovered a grave trend. The same serious health problems found in lab animals, livestock and pets that have been fed GM foods are now on the rise in the US population. And when people and animals stop eating genetically modified organisms (GMOs), their health improves.

This seminal documentary provides compelling evidence to help explain the deteriorating health of Americans, especially among children, and offers a recipe for protecting ourselves and our future.

Click here to see the movie “Genetic Roulette – The Gamble of Our Lives”.

Podcast 277: UNtested Genetically Modified Foods

SCOTT: Welcome back, everybody! You are listening to the Life Enthusiast Podcast, restoring vitality to you and to the planet! I am your co-host, Scott Paton, and joining us, as usual, is the founder of the Life Enthusiast, Martin Pytela. Hey, Martin, how are you doing today?

MARTIN: I am doing good! And I am concerned.

SCOTT: You are concerned?

MARTIN: Yes. I guess maybe I should use a little stronger language: I am freaked out on my skull.

SCOTT: Holy smokes, what happened?

MARTIN: Well, I did end up watching this movie called Genetic Roulette. I really thought that I was reasonably well-informed about what genetically modified organisms are, and how they are used, how they get into my food, I thought I had a clue, but then I watched this movie, and it opened up pathways of thoughts that I previously hadn’t considered. So I am freaked out of my skull.

SCOTT: So this movie, Genetic Roulette, is a documentary, it is a production of the Institute For Responsible Technology, and if you want to watch it, you can go to www.geneticroulettemovie.com. to check it out. So, what happened there?

MARTIN: Well, the major discovery for me was that they revealed that one of the genes that they change was designed to cause the insects that eat GMO corn to experience such discomfort that it blows their guts completely open, so they die.

SCOTT: Okay. That sounds nice.

MARTIN: Well, yeah, totally awful. I mean, we do terrible things to insects, because we don’t want them to eat our food. We’ve done herbicides, we’ve done pesticides, we’ve done all kinds of awful things and caused, untold collateral damage with that.

SCOTT: What we don’t realize is the insects are there for a reason, right?

MARTIN: Yeah. They are supposed to weed out the weak of the species.

SCOTT: You know, you just reminded me of like three of my four uncles’ farms. When I was a kid, I remember one of them taking me out in the field and there was this beautiful wheat field, the wind was swaying these waves of wheat, and I looked down, and there was a little clump of wheat that was obviously sick, and it was just swarmed by ants. And I looked to the wheat that was beside it, and there was nothing on it, it was perfectly healthy. So it was like: “Those ants knew that this was a damaged product, and they were just taking it down. Wow, that is really amazing.” It was very obvious they were hard at work, and this piece of wheat there was very damaged and sickly, but it was pretty cool. So I really get what you are saying about the job of the insects to clear out the weak plants.

MARTIN: We have started growing foods on depleted soils that we have been spraying with the NPK fertilizers, we are pushing the plants to grow quicker, they look good, but they are weak. They are demineralized, undernourished plants. So of course, they are very attractive to the insects, because the insects recognize them as weak. Only the genetically perfect, the strong ones, are supposed to survive for the next generation to be reproduced. These scientists who are working on genetic modifications, the method that they use is sort of like using a shotgun, that they load with this other genetic material, and they shoot it at the tissue of the targets. And then they try to reproduce it and see what happens. And I am thinking: “Well, all right, one of these days, through these random genetic changes, they are going to accidentally create something, that is going to be by fluke really awful, and then it gets out of the lab!” And then I am thinking: “Hold on, the stuff that is out of the lab is already quite awful!”

SCOTT: Yeah. So what we are talking about here is for example taking normal corn, that has been raised and grown for 10,000 years, sticking salmon DNA, or pig DNA, or tomato DNA, or some other DNA, into the corn DNA to create this sort of hybrid that looks like corn, but has properties that corn doesn’t normally have, which then we are supposed to be able to eat, and digest like we did with normal corn.

MARTIN: The claim is that the genetically modified is substantively identical to the regular, old non-GMO stuff, meaning that you cannot tell it apart, your body cannot tell it apart. And for that reason, they don’t have to tell you that it is any different from the non-GMO plants. Here comes the thing that freaked me out. They have created corn, which is supposed to blow up the digestive system of the bugs that are eating it. People that have been eating that genetically modified corn are starting to come up with illnesses that indicate that they have permeable bowel, leaky gut. There is a complete correlation between these two issues: introduction of GMO foods, and the incidence of leaky gut, and illnesses that result from this condition.

SCOTT: So what you are saying is it blows up this insect’s stomach, and our stomach is not really that different.

MARTIN: There is a correlation. I don’t know if there is direct causation. I cannot prove that, I don’t have enough data for that, but there is a correlation. And with that, I must say that the experiment with industrial agriculture is not going so well.

SCOTT: We talk so much about these poor mice that we put cancer on, and then give them something to see if it fixes it. And you would wonder what would happen if we just fed the mice a diet of GMO corn or GMO tomatoes, and then just looked at what happened to their stomachs, right? I mean, we are not talking about something that if we wanted to, it would be hard to find out, because scientists do this all the time in labs. The only reason that nobody is doing it is that nobody really wants to find out.

MARTIN: Well, the people who have the money to do it are definitely not interested in doing it, because it would mean less money in their pockets, less money to the government, the supervisors, the FDA, and the department of agriculture. Those people are supposed to be looking out for us. But now that they are primarily funded by the people who are creating these things, they are actually serving their financial interests, which means that they are actually serving the people who are producing these things. The system has been flipped upside down. It should have been public money financing our supervision organizations, but instead, we have created this monster that is financed by the people who are actually creating these things. In plain speak, we have turned the goat into the gardener.

SCOTT: Right? We have given the keys to the prison to the inmates!

MARTIN: Right. We have trusted the fox with our hen house.

SCOTT: Yes! So back to the movie, you just showed it to me a little while ago, so I haven’t finished watching it yet, but the part that really struck me, because I am a stats guy, as you know, they showed a graph of 15 years of incidence of some sort of stomach disorder, they had this red line going up and down, and it matched the time when GMO foods were introduced, and it kind of dipped down on some of them and then took off again. You would expect that in terms of an introduction to food, we are going to be resistant to it, it is going to take a while for it to break down our stomach. I mean, you don’t have a chocolate bar and wake up 20 pounds heavier the next day, there is always some period of time before it happens. But they showed a clear correlation between GMO introduction and the rise of these stomach disorders. That was the thing that really shocked me.

MARTIN: Right. And then there is the multiplicity of things. For instance, I’ve been preaching about the influence of toxic metals. Heavy metals, like mercury, lead, cadmium, which cause complications, inflammatory issues like autism, fibromyalgia, and all the other ones. Well, it turns out that GMO introduction is also directly correlated with the same problems! So, is it just the heavy metal, or is it also the genetically modified foods making us sick? And when the causes multiply, you get an exponential change. To illustrate, imagine you have the dose of mercury that kills 1 in 100, and you combine it with a dose of lead, that kills 1 to 100, the killer rate isn’t 2 in 100, you kill everyone, 100. So, when we start combining these different things, we are not going to see just a little bit of an increase, we are going to see an exponential increase in trouble. And we are seeing it! We are seeing autism, which is exactly one of those things that are caused by this, the levels are rising dramatically. In the movie, they are showing how people are instructed to completely eliminate all genetically modified foods out of their lives, and they get better only two to three months in, and things that were just horrendously complicated become very simple, and health problems go away.

SCOTT: So we are really running into a couple of issues here. I think one is we have these massive industrial farms, and all they want to do is produce X amount of product per acre, and the way they do it is pump in the fertilizer, pump in the herbicides and pesticides, not really being concerned about the impact it has on the population.

MARTIN: Right. They are not measured by what happens downstream, the only thing they measure is pounds per acre or bushels per acre.

SCOTT: And then on the other side, we have this organic farmer, the guy that is doing it the way his grandfather did it, but he has a problem because the bee that fertilizes the corn in the GMO field comes over to cross-pollinate this organic crop. It happens even by the wind if these two fields are close to each other. So even if you take something that is supposed to be organic, we don’t know for sure if it hasn’t been genetically modified by pollination.

MARTIN: That is exactly correct. And we are possibly past the point of no return. But anyway, here is an interesting point, currently, in California, it is under review, something called Proposition 37, it is meant to require foods that contain genetically modified organisms to be labeled as such, so you can’t say just ‘corn,’ you have to say ‘genetically modified corn’ on the label. And gigantic amounts of money are being spent by corporate interests, starting with the developers like Monsanto, but also a whole bunch of the large food manufacturers, they are actually spending big money on convincing voters to not vote for this proposition, so it doesn’t pass, so they don’t have to put the ‘GMO’ label on their food.

SCOTT: Yeah, other states have tried to pass similar measures and failed, but California is taking the issue directly to voters, who have largely been in favor of labeling. And one of the things that are really quite interesting is that in Europe, and in lots of other countries in the world, they already have laws where you have to tell the consumer that it is GMO food.

MARTIN: Absolutely. Like there are no genetically modified tomatoes or corn in Europe. They just won’t have it. There were some fields in Hungary or Poland, they started testing some genetically modified foods there, and there was a major uproar, I don’t know what they were thinking, bringing it into the country. So yes, the Europeans don’t want it. And perhaps they will be a little less unhealthy for that than we are here in North America.

SCOTT: It is interesting how this all works. There is a new group called ‘No on 37,’ a coalition against the deceptive food labeling scheme, they are launching a full-court press against the measure beginning this month. I mean, who wouldn’t be against deceptive food labeling, right? But these guys are against it, and the major donors are Monsanto, DuPont, grocery manufacturers association…

MARTIN: Yes, and Kraft, General Foods, Nabisco…

SCOTT: …Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Bayer…

MARTIN: We know who they are! And everything that is sitting on the grocery shelves in our stores is their product.

SCOTT: I just realized this, because you have often said: “When you go to a grocery store, stick to the perimeter, so you go through the produce, the bakery, the meats, the deli, and get out.” And of course, everything inside, I’ll bet you, everything inside is going to have a GMO label on it.

MARTIN: Yeah! But there are products available that do not have GMOs in them, people just have to look for them! Just an example, in the Exsula Superfoods manufacturing, we have used lecithin, which comes from soy. So previously we were able to specify that there is non-GMO soy in it. We had it on the label. That product is no longer available. The only thing that they are able to sell us now is known as the ‘species-specific,’ meaning that they test the batch to be sure that there is no presence of the genetically modified gene, and if it is not present, then they can go ahead and make the stuff and declare that whole batch with ‘no presence of GMO found,’ but they no longer are able to start with a seed that is non-GMO. It is all imported from Europe these days because that is the only place where we can find it, where there is actually no GMO. And it is sort of like slowly closing the doors, we keep losing pieces of the planet, which is being overrun by this, it is like a virus, it is like cancer. It steps in, establishes a foothold, and then it starts spreading.

SCOTT: So, 50 other countries require labeling of GMOs, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), their president, Pamela Bailey said in a recent speech that “the defeating of Proposition 37 in California is a single highest priority this year.” GMA for GMO.

MARTIN: These people simply don’t want to have to keep things separate.

SCOTT: Yeah, they don’t want to tell you what they are putting in

MARTIN: Let’s just say that you are producing breakfast cereal. It is so convenient to just simply make one breakfast cereal. If you are required to label, you now have to run two lines, you can’t even bring the GMO stuff into the production line that makes the non-GMO stuff, so it is expensive, you would have to make two factories, one GMO and one non-GMO, so you avoid the cross-contamination.

SCOTT: Right, and if they had to have a ‘GMO’ on the label, they would sell nothing. So then they’d say: “Well, we are going to have to make an alternative to this because nobody is buying it.” And that would cause a major disruption to their whole process.

MARTIN: Maybe not, that would be easy, they could just have one factory, and they could quit selling the GMO!

SCOTT: They have the same problem you have with the lecithin, they can’t find a corn syrup that is not GMO! Can they find these ingredients that aren’t GMOs? I would bet the answer is no.

MARTIN: Well, how long would it take for the farmers to get the message that they can’t sell their GMO corn?

SCOTT: That becomes a huge problem, right?

MARTIN: It is, it is a retooling of the entire agricultural economy.

SCOTT: Which is probably a good thing, given that what we are seeing downstream is huge increases in tummies blowing up, because in this case, our tummy is basically a bigger version of an insect’s tummy.

MARTIN: Well, there is certainly some similarity. Maybe we don’t completely blow up, but you create microscopic holes, bad enough that it creates a permeable gut, so all the under-digested proteins get through the barrier. It is like taking a nylon stocking and stretching it, all of a sudden, instead of looking thick, it starts looking like a colander, it has holes in it, and that is how proteins that are not completely separated into individual amino acids get into the bloodstream, and your immune system starts to attack it. It is sort of like shooting your gun inside of an aircraft, pretty soon you are going to damage something vital.

SCOTT: I think it is important to say that the people that are deciding things are not being truthful. The FDA has said: “Oh no, there is no problem with genetically modified foods.” Yet then, when you pull out, and they force the FDA to release to the public e-mails between their scientists, it becomes very clear that nobody is in agreement on whether GMO is good, bad, or indifferent. You know, it took a long time for us all to agree that smoking was probably not a good idea.

MARTIN: Yeah. And how long did it take us to realize that DDT was actually somewhat not good, right?

SCOTT: Yeah, they have this old commercial, where everybody is smiling and happy and the tagline is: “DDT is good for you.”

MARTIN: Yeah. (laughing) Well, that is probably a spoof! The point is that they say it is inconclusive to say that GMOs are harmful. Well, that is just simply not good enough! I was afraid to get political here, but this is not a political issue, this is a species elimination. If we don’t get this right, there is going to be a mass extinction on the planet, and it will probably include the majority of humanity, too. At least the ones that are living out in these rich industrial countries. I guess the Africans will take over, and we’ll go back to the way it started.

SCOTT: Yeah. Actually, it is kind of interesting you bring that up, because when we had the big meltdown in 2008 and 2009, financially, around the world, the one place on the planet that didn’t notice was Africa, because…

MARTIN: (laughing) Sure, they are so broke, they don’t even notice…

SCOTT: They are a cash society still, so they had nobody that had huge, massive debts that they had to service. I don’t know about the governments, but the people were quite fine, and they continued living the way they always did, nobody was repossessing huts, tigers, or anything like that. The people that are closest to nature, and live a simple life, are the ones that, long-term, are going to have the advantages I am beginning to see.

MARTIN: Yes. Anybody who has anything to do with California, if you have any chance to influence anyone, please, if you value your health, and the health of your children, and their children, please make this Proposition 37 pass.

SCOTT: There you go! So you’ve been listening to the Life Enthusiast Podcast, restoring vitality to you and the planet. And this is probably one of the most important messages we’ve ever put out! Martin, if somebody wanted to know more about things that they can do to improve their health, what should they do?

MARTIN: Well, check around the blog. We have blog posts, we have podcasts. Check the movie we just talked about, the Genetic Roulette documentary. Check their website. And of course, you can call me directly at (866) 534 3388. If you want to support us while also supporting your health, by all means, check out the products we sell, we only carry high quality, high-grade tools, that help people to restore vitality. That is why we always say ‘restoring vitality to you and to the planet.’

SCOTT: I look forward to having you with us next time, Martin! Thank you for listening, everybody!

Note: the information provided are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with your medical professional(s) if you are dealing with a specific medical issue.

Author: Martin Pytela