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The Natural Products Expo Is a Trojan Horse of Genetically Engineered Synbio Frankenfoods
By Alexis Baden-Mayer, Organic Consumers Association:
Farmerless “food” and cashless, workerless grocery stores are here.
How long before companies like Amazon start pulling the plug on retail and agriculture altogether?
That’s what was on my mind as I toured the 2023 Natural Products Expo in Philadelphia, the trade show that has shaped the selection of organic and natural offerings at stores across the U.S. since 1981.
There is an enemy hiding within the Natural Products Expo, but before I describe it to you, I want you to know what you need to do to protect yourself.
It used to be that most of the new synbio GMOs were conspicuously featured in the dairy-free, alt-protein and fake meat sections, easily avoided by anyone wanting to opt for real farms not fake foods. Increasingly, synbio ingredients like fake “whey” are stealthily snuck into protein powders and the like with big front-label claims highlighting different “grass-fed” or “regenerative” ingredients. Buying foods labeled USDA Organic, “made with organic” or Non-GMO Project Verified is the only way to avoid them.
Even better, buy your food in cash, directly from local farmers.
Okay, now that you know what to do, back to our enemies…
They are the corporate billionaires who plan to become even richer and more powerful by profiting from the end of food and farming and the beginning of a Solynt Green era where we have no choice but to eat whatever genetically engineered synthetic Frankenfoods they feel like feeding us.
They are hiding inside a magnificent but hollow horse: the Natural Products Expo.
Snuck into the Expo, under the cover of all the regenerative organic health foods we expect to see there, are genetically modified organisms (GMOs), proteins made from synthetic biology, and lab-grown meats, what the industry calls “molecular farming,” “precision fermentation” and “cultured meat.”
It’s just a few products now, but like the Greeks of Virgil’s ancient tale, once they have penetrated the walls of our organic and natural Troy, they will unlock its doors to let their armies in and burn organic and natural to the ground.
They have a plan and they’ve written it down for all to see:
The current food system “will be replaced with a ‘Food-as-Software’ model, where foods are engineered by scientists at a molecular level and uploaded to databases that can be accessed by food designers anywhere in the world.”
Should we be worried? How risky are synthetic biology techniques?
Read on for the answers to these questions and information about what brands to watch for
Take Action NOW: Ask Your State Legislators to Ban Lab-Grown Meat
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
Organic Rising
Organic Consumers Association and Regeneration International are excited about the upcoming film, Organic Rising! Our own Ronnie Cummins gives a powerful interview and it is a prominent component of the film and we are honored the film is being dedicated to him.
“Organic Rising is the first feature-length film to demystify the U.S. organic movement and industry.
Directed for consumers, the film simplifies the USDA organic processes and regulations while exploring how these methods impact human health and the environment.
Organic Rising simultaneously explains the process and benefits of conventional agriculture through the voices of conventional farmers. However, a closer look reveals the powerful and disturbing research by renowned scientists on the consequences of the most widely used conventional pesticides in the world today.
In the end, Organic Rising allows consumers to make informed food choices and explore avenues of supporting, engaging and maintaining a safe and clean agricultural system.
The film ends on an inspirational note with top chefs and organic farmers working collaboratively, beyond the organic standards, to build soil and grow food used to create tasty ingredients for high-end cuisine.”
October 1st is the release date!
SAVE THE DATE
Don’t miss the Saving Real Organic Conference!
Get ready to immerse yourself in a day of insightful talks and informative break-out sessions. On Saturday, October 14, 2023, starting at 9:00 AM ET, Real Organic Project is hosting a conference at Churchtown Dairy located at 357 County Road 12, Hudson, NY 12534 to celebrate and learn about the real issues surrounding organic farming and food systems. Lunch is also included!
This event is a fantastic opportunity for organic enthusiasts, farmers, eaters and anyone interested in sustainable living. Real Organic Project has curated a diverse program that includes engaging talks, interactive workshops, and demonstrations by experts in the field.
The goal is to educate, inform and help individuals to make conscious choices that benefit both their health and the environment. By coming together, we can create a positive impact and reinvigorate the organic movement.
Please join in on this unique opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals, enjoy lunch on the farm, and gain valuable knowledge. Mark your calendars and join us at the Saving Real Organic event!
HEALING TOGETHER
At Documenting Hope, We’re All About Helping Kids Heal
From DocumentingHope.com
“Documenting Hope Project is our research and media initiative designed to better understand why our kids are impacted by so many health conditions so that we can reverse the impacts and help them heal.
Healing Together is designed for parents who are ready to help their child heal. The healing journey is not an easy one, but Healing Together offers a step-by-step plan and the community support you need to help your child.
Epidemic Answers is our outreach initiative with an extensive library of free resources, including our popular monthly webinars where we interview an expert in the field of children’s health. Epidemic Answers also offers a paid, accredited Health Coach Training Course for those wishing to further deepen their knowledge. The Documenting Hope Project is the cornerstone research program of Epidemic Answers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention and reversal of chronic health and developmental conditions in children. The project features an innovative and groundbreaking research program coupled with education, outreach, and media initiatives. “
Learn more about the important work amazing organization is doing
BOOK CORNER
The Age of Resilience: A Second Chance to Flourish On Earth
Reimagining Existence on a Rewilding Earth by Jeremy Rifkin, Macmillan.com
“The viruses keep coming, the climate is warming, and the Earth is rewilding. Our human family has no playbook to address the mayhem unfolding around us. If there is a change to reckon with, argues the renowned economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin, it’s that we are beginning to realize that the human race never had dominion over the Earth and that nature is far more formidable than we thought, while our species seems much smaller and less significant in the bigger picture of life on Earth, undermining our long-cherished worldview. The Age of Progress, once considered sacrosanct, is on a deathwatch while a powerful new narrative, the Age of Resilience, is ascending.
In The Age of Resilience, Rifkin takes us on a new journey beginning with how we reconceptualize time and navigate space. During the Age of Progress, efficiency was the gold standard for organizing time, locking our species into the quest to optimize the expropriation, commodification, and consumption of the Earth’s bounty, at ever-greater speeds and in ever-shrinking time intervals, with the objective of increasing the opulence of human society, but at the expense of the depletion of nature. Space, observes Rifkin, became synonymous with passive natural resources, while a principal role of government and the economy was to manage nature as property. This long adhered to temporal-spatial orientation, writes Rifkin, has taken humanity to the commanding heights as the dominant species on Earth and to the ruin of the natural world.
At a moment when the human family is deeply despairing of the future, Rifkin gives us a window into a promising new world and a radically different future that can bring us back into nature’s fold, giving life a second chance to flourish on Earth.”
NATURAL HYDRATION
Switchel: Nourish and Hydrate!
Pam Melby, Finnskogen Farm and Organic Consumers Association, writes:
On Minnesota’s North Shore, we don’t get as hot as other spots. There isn’t an urban heat bubble that occurs in larger cities, and we get a nice breeze off the lake that keeps us relatively cool. But lately, we’ve been having high heat with a bunch of humidity, and that equals one cranky mama!
I’ve been attempting to keep myself (and the family) hydrated, but it’s hard to keep up. On top of that, drinking so much plain water is getting monotonous. Ugh, it’s boring!
I could easily reach for a ‘water enhancer’, or a ‘sports drink’. But both are terrible options for your health. Both contain a ton of sugar, or worse artificial sweeteners. If you consume sports drinks after exercising, you’re likely to drink more calories than you burned off! Neither of which are good for you if you are trying to stay hydrated. Sports drinks are actually worse for your teeth than soda, and water enhancers commonly include the chemical propylene glycol, which is also used in antifreeze and deicers. I work very hard to keep chemicals like this out of my family’s diet, and the thought of guzzling it down just to avoid water sends shivers down my spine.
I want to keep my family from becoming dehydrated, but I’m sick of hounding them about water!
So I turned to an old folk beverage that I learned about a few years ago: Switchel.
Pam’s version of Switchel contains apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, honey, ginger, turmeric, and cinnamon.
ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE
U.S. Forest Service Logging Makes a Mockery of Biden’s Climate Pledge
Mike Garrity, executive director for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, writes in The Daily Montanan:
“Once again, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Center for Biological Diversity and Council for Wildlife and Fish are challenging the Biden administration’s Forest Service on yet another massive clearcutting. This time it’s the South Plateau Project, right on the border of Yellowstone National Park. Yes, you read that right – Biden’s Forest Service is planning to clearcut the national forests surrounding Yellowstone and our only hope of stopping them is going to court to force this rogue, law-breaking agency to follow the law.
For wildlife, there is no “boundary” around Yellowstone National Park. The forests in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which extends well beyond the park boundaries, provide critical habitat for wildlife. But these forests also store significant amounts of carbon dioxide to slow the rapidly escalating climate emergency – and make no mistake, it is an emergency that President Biden has vowed to address. But how can the President address it when his Forest Service continues massive deforestation by logging even more than the Trump administration?”
SUPPORT OCA
Spread the Message of Peace, Justice, Tolerance, Hope, and Regeneration
Now is the time to educate, search out new friends and allies, even in the most unlikely places, improve our health, strengthen our resolve, and prepare for any eventuality. A new 21st Century populist counter-culture and politics, potentially strong enough to overturn business as usual, is starting to emerge.
Left and right, liberal and conservative, green, red, and blue, have suddenly lost their meanings. Corrupt and cowardly politicians from both major parties have destroyed their credibility, along with all the major institutions.
Accepting diversity and building a society of participatory democracy in a diverse nation (and world) of different cultures and traditions doesn’t mean we all have to love one another. But we must come to grips with the life or death issues that are pressing down on all of us. We have no choice but to break down the walls and the single issue silos (my issue is more important than your issue, my constituency is more oppressed or more important than yours) that divide and enslave us. Now is the time to spread the message of peace, justice, tolerance, hope, and Regeneration to all who are willing to listen. Now is the time to move beyond the technocratic dystopia and regenerate our health, environment, and politics.
OCA, Regeneration International and our Mexico affiliate Via Organica. are making progress in terms of organizing our resistance and building new regenerative projects, relationships and networks, but like many nonprofits, we are in need of funding.
Please make a donation in any amount, it will help keep us moving forward, in forging new connections and strengthening our existing network.
Make a tax-deductible donation to Organic Consumers Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
Support Citizens Regeneration Lobby, OCA’s 501(c)(4) lobbying arm (not tax-deductible)
Make a tax-deductible donation to Regeneration International, our international sister organization
MENTAL HEALTH
The Profound Power of a Simple Hello
Vanessa LoBue Ph.D., writes in Psychology Today:
• Even though it might sound painful to strike up a conversation with a stranger, research suggests we should.
• Most people generally predict that such a conversation would be awkward and unpleasant.
• It turns out that these conversations are generally pleasant and well-received, and helps us feel connected.
• This research suggests that we consistently underestimate the value of small kindnesses, for us and strangers.
With all of this loneliness around us, it makes even more sense to smile at passers-by, wave to your neighbors, and reach out to old friends just to say hello. Sometimes just a simple act of kindness can go a long way.
ENVIRONMENTAL PRESERVATION
If Nothing Changes, Everything Changes
Daniel Ritz writes in Fly Fishing:
“Historically, millions of adult salmon and steelhead have returned to Idaho’s rivers each year. But Snake River fisheries crashed after the construction of the lower Snake River dams—Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite—in the 1960s and ’70s.
More than $19 billion of Bonneville Power Administration ratepayer and taxpayer dollars have been spent as fish stocks continue to decline in what can only be described as a catastrophic failure to mitigate the impact of the dams.
In Idaho, the line between extinction and existence is not a line in the sand. It’s four concrete monoliths spanning the Snake River’s black basalt canyon from wall to wall.
‘Restoring Idaho’s salmon and steelhead, shaping the future of the Northwest with climate and tribal justice will be the largest-scale conservation project in history, and being like salmon is how we’ll get there.’
—Shiva Rajbhandari”
NATURAL HEALTH
Lavender Oil Vs. Hair Growth Pharmaceutical: Which One Won?
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola:
• Researchers from Korea compared lavender oil’s effects as a hair growth stimulant to the drug minoxidil (Rogaine)
• Lavender oil worked as well as minoxidil to significantly increase the number of hair follicles, deepen hair follicle depth and thicken the dermal layer
• In another study, massaging a mixture of essential oils, including lavender, into the scalp daily led to improvements in 44% of alopecia areata patients, compared to 15% of those in the control group
• Traditionally, lavender oil is used for stress relief and fatigue, and evidence suggests it may be effective for cellular growth, skin reproduction and alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss
• Peppermint oil also works “remarkably” well to promote hair growth compared to saline and jojoba oil, and regrows hair “even faster than” minoxidil
With hair loss having effects that are more than skin deep, researchers have been on the hunt for products to stimulate hair growth. Here nature once again provides, with lavender oil coming out on top against the hair loss drug minoxidil (Rogaine).
LITTLE BYTES
Other Essential Reading and Videos for the Week
5 Tips for Living to 100 From a Top Longevity Researcher
The Artist-Activists Ushering In a New Energy Democracy
Nick Offerman Gets Down and Dirty for Regenerative Agriculture
How to Save Seeds: Seed Saving Tips and Examples
Kindness Has Persisted in a Competitive World – Cultural Evolution Can Explain Why
Signal’s Meredith Whittaker: AI Is Fundamentally ‘A Surveillance Technology’
A Simple Process Solves the Problem of Polyester Recycling
Make Dukkah: A Mixture of Nuts, Seeds and Spices Blended Together to Make a Rich Fusion
Shining a Light on the Digital Dark Age
Coffee Compound Improves Age-Related Decline in Memory and Learning