Saying “No” to GMO’s

     The full length documentary, Genetic Roulette--The Gamble of Our Lives, details the negative health effects of GMO's, genetically modified organisms (the above video is a 10 minute remix). GMO’s are created by taking a DNA from the cell of one species and inserting it into another species to create a desirable trait.  In food, those traits include longer shelf life, pest resistance, and herbicide resistance. This scientific manipulation is widely used; it affects much of our food supply and, as mounting evidence indicates, our health.

     As consumers, we have the power to force the food industry to reject genetically modified foods, by simply refusing to buy them.  The "Non-GMO Project" offers four ways to avoid GMO’s in our food:

Buy Organic

Certified organic products cannot intentionally include any GMO ingredients.

Look for "Non-GMO Project" verified seals.

This independent groups verifies that individual products have not been genetically modified. 

    

Buy Products listed in the Non GMO Shopping Guide 

                                                        "Avoid at-risk ingredients including: 

                                                                          soybeans

                                                                            canola

                                                                         cottonseed

                                                                              corn

                                                                sugar from sugar beets

If a non-organic product made in North America lists “sugar” as an ingredient (and NOT pure cane sugar), then it is almost certainly a combination of sugar from both sugar cane and GM sugar beets. 

 GM alfalfa is also fed to livestock.
Dairy products may be from cows injected with GM bovine growth hormone,
look for labels stating No rbGH, rbST, or artificial hormones."*

*http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com

The Sustainability of India's Modernization

                Akash Kapur, an Indian born Rhodes Scholar, addresses sustainability on a national level. After living and working in New York City, he returns to India in his twenties with the hope of raising a family in the idyllic Indian countryside of his childhood.  He describes the economic and cultural changes that have taken place during the decade he was away through interviews with people of differing ages, lifestyles, and locations.  Although he acknowledges the recent economic development has brought some benefits: less caste discrimination, more non-agricultural jobs, wealth for some, and improved infrastructure, he questions the development’s sustainability.   The impacts of over population, air and water pollution, economic inequity, loss of tradition, and geographic separation of families are significant, as people rush blindly toward modernization.

The author comes to terms with how India’s development is impacting the environment and the health of the people he is studying, as well as his own young family’s.  He wonders if the growth is, “built on the backs of the poor and the ruins of the environment,” rather than, “economically inclusive and environmentally sustainable.”  He realizes that the new materialistic attitudes in India have created serious waste issues.  Product life cycles are not taken into consideration when the new found wealth encourages people to purchase more and more, adding tons of non-biodegradable garbage to overfull landfills.  He is torn between his enthusiasm and excitement over India’s short term modernization, and the concern he has for the country’s future.