The Dangers of Genetically Modified Ingredients in Pet Food

Story at-a-glance

• If you’re feeding your dog or cat a commercial pet food containing corn-based ingredients, chances are those ingredients are genetically modified. Over 60 percent of corn grown in the U.S. is genetically modified.
• Studies of rats fed GM corn show evidence of severe kidney and liver disease, negative effects on the heart, spleen, and other organs, massive tumors, and premature death.
• While the impact of GM foods on dogs and cats has not been scientifically studied, many scientists suspect these products have some common toxic effects and may cause disorders of the liver, pancreas and kidneys in humans and animals.
• Dr. Michael W. Fox believes the high number of skin and food allergies, and other allergies associated with GI disorders in dogs and cats are caused or aggravated by novel proteins and other contaminants found in genetically modified crops.
• Even conventionally grown corn is not a biologically appropriate food for dogs or cats. Both corn and soy products are linked to a wide variety of health problems in companion animals.

By Dr. Becker  -  Cross-Posted at Just One More Pet

For those of you still feeding your dog or cat a commercial pet food with corn-based ingredients – which includes most inexpensive pet foods on the market today – here's a big heads-up and another reason to reconsider the diet you're offering your four-legged companion.

Chances are the corn products in your pet's food are genetically modified (GM). This means the seeds have been chemically altered to produce plants that can withstand repeated spraying with Monsanto's Roundup weed killer.

Estimates in 2009 were that over 60 percent of corn grown in the U.S. is genetically modified, and according to more recent information from NaturalNews.com,¹ Monsanto has disclosed that half the sweet corn grown on U.S. farms comes from genetically modified seed.

Genetically Modified Corn and Its Effect on Rats

Previous studies have shown that genetically modified corn causes significant kidney and liver disease in rats after only a 90-day feeding trial,² and has a negative effect on other organs as well, including the heart and spleen.

Now a new lifetime study of rats fed a diet containing GM corn shows they not only died earlier than rats on a standard diet, they developed mammary tumors and severe kidney and liver damage as well.³

According to researchers, half the male rats and 70 percent of females died prematurely, compared with 30 percent of males and 20 percent of females in the control group.

Lead researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen, believes his study involving the full lifespan of rats gives a more comprehensive and realistic view of the risks of GM corn than 90-day feeding trials. A rat at three months is still a young adult.

GM Foods and Your Pet

If you're wondering how GM corn might affect your dog or cat, unfortunately, the specifics have yet to be studied. However, in an article published in 2009 in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition regarding GM foods, the authors, Greek scientists, assert:

"The results of most of the rather few studies conducted with GM foods indicate that they may cause hepatic, pancreatic, renal, and reproductive effects and may alter hematological, biochemical, and immunologic parameters the significance of which remains unknown. The above results indicate that many GM foods have some common toxic effects. Therefore, further studies should be conducted in order to elucidate the mechanism dominating this action. Small amounts of ingested DNA may not be broken down under digestive processes and there is a possibility that this DNA may either enter the bloodstream or be excreted, especially in individuals with abnormal digestion as a result of chronic gastrointestinal disease or with immunodeficiency."⁴

Dr. Michael W. Fox has also compiled an extensive list of the potential risks of genetically modified foods, including:

• The toxic insecticidal agent Bacillus thuringiensis is present in most GM crops in the U.S. that wind up in animal feed and pet food.
• Glufosinate and glyphosate, which are herbicides, are applied to millions of acres of genetically modified crops across the U.S. and other countries. These poisons are absorbed by the crops – which are engineered to be herbicide resistant – while decimating everything else growing in the area and much of the aquatic life in nearby bodies of water.

  These herbicides cause kidney damage in animals, endocrine disruption and birth defects in frogs, and are lethal to many amphibians. Glyphosate has also been linked to miscarriages, premature births, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, in humans.

• Nutritionists and other health experts increasingly are connecting the rise in human allergies, including skin conditions and inflammatory GI disorders to broader consumption of GM foods and food additives – in particular, GM soy products containing novel proteins. Dr. Fox suspects the high number of skin and food allergies, and other allergies associated with GI disorders are caused or aggravated by these novel proteins and other contaminants in genetically modified crops.
• Independent animal feeding safety studies show adverse or unexplained effects of GM foods, including inflammation and abnormal cell growth in the GI tract, as well as in the liver, kidney, testicles, heart, pancreas and brain.
• GM crops have proven to be unstable and prone to unplanned mutations – which means we don't really know whether the food being grown from these plants is safe or nutritious.

Dr. Fox's advice to pet owners is to buy only food with USDA Organic certification. He also advises consumers to avoid all prepared foods, including cooking oils that contain corn and soy products, since these are the products most likely to originate from GM crops.

In addition to Dr. Fox's advice, I recommend omitting grains entirely from your carnivorous pet's diet. Corn and soy ingredients are not biologically appropriate ingredients in dog and cat food, even if they are conventionally grown. Both these ingredients are linked to a wide variety of health problems in companion animals, including allergies, skin disorders, oral disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and cystitis.

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GMO Grass Kills Cows In Texas: Cyanide Gas!

Video:  GMO Grass Kills Cows In Texas: Cyanide Gas!

Technorati Tags: GMO,genetically engineered crops,genetically modified food,food sources,Texas,livestock,cows,Alex Jones,meat,GMO food sources,cyanide gas

Monsanto: A HORRIFYING PICTURE THAT WILL FREEZE THE BLOOD IN YOUR VEINS - UPDATED

Film Review: The World According to Monsanto

Film:  The World According to Monsanto – Full Length

Directed by Marie-Monique Robin
Review by Jeffrey M. Smith

How much outrage can a single multinational corporation inspire? How much damage can they inflict? The breathtaking new film, The World According to Monsanto, features a company that sets the new standard. From Iowa to Paraguay, from England to India, Monsanto is uprooting our food supply and replacing it with their patented genetically engineered creations. And along the way, farmers, communities, and nature become collateral damage.

The Gazette says the movie "will freeze the blood in your veins." The Hour says it's a "horrifying enough picture" to warrant "fury." But most importantly, this critical film opens our eyes just in time.
The film is the work of celebrated award-winning French filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, whose three years of work on four continents exposes why Monsanto has become the world's poster child for malignant corporate influence in government and technology.

Combining secret documents with accounts by victims, scientists and policy makers, she guides us through a web of misleading reports, pressure tactics, collusion, and attempted corruption. And we learn how the company systematically tricked governments into allowing dangerous genetically modified (GM) foods into our diet--with Monsanto in charge of determining if they're safe.

Deception, Deception, Deception

The company's history with some of the most toxic chemicals ever produced, illustrates why they can't be trusted. Ask the folks of Anniston, Alabama, where Monsanto's PCB factory secretly poisoned the neighborhood for decades. PCBs are Monsanto's toxic oils used as coolants and lubricants for over 50 years and are now virtually omnipresent in the blood and tissues of humans and wildlife around the globe. But Anniston residents have levels hundreds or thousands of times the average. They all know their levels, which they carry as death sentences. David Baker, who lost his little brother and most of his friends to PCB-related diseases such as cancer, says Anniston kids used to run up to him, report their PCB level and ask, "How long you think I got?"

Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group says that based on Monsanto documents made public during a trial, the company "knew the truth from the very beginning.

They lied about it. They hid the truth from their neighbors." One Monsanto memo explains their justification: "We can't afford to lose one dollar of business."

Monsanto also produced the infamous Agent Orange, the cancer and birth-defect causing defoliant sprayed over Vietnam. It contaminated more than 3 million civilians and servicemen. But according to William Sanjour, who led the Toxic Waste Division of the Environmental Protection Agency, "thousands of veterans were disallowed benefits" because "Monsanto studies showed that dioxin [the main ingredient in Agent Orange] was not a human carcinogen." But his EPA colleague discovered that Monsanto had allegedly falsified the data in their studies. Sanjour says, "If they were done correctly, [the studies] would have reached just the opposite result."

Secret documents stolen from the FDA also reveal serious health effects from Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone, called rBGH or rBST. In particular, the amount of a powerful hormone called IGF-1 is substantially increased in milk from treated cows. Samuel Epstein, Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, says that approximately 60 studies link IGF-1 to "breast, colon, and prostate cancers."

Cancer is also implicated in Monsanto's showcase herbicide, Roundup. According Professor Robert Belle's research showing disrupted cell division, "Roundup provokes the first stages that lead to cancer." Belle, who is with the National Center for Scientific Research and the Pierre and Marie Curie Institute in France, says, "The tested doses were well below those which people normally use."

Monsanto has promoted Roundup as harmless to both humans and the environment. But their advertised environmental claims, such as "biodegradable," "leaves the soil clean," and "respects the environment," were declared false and illegal by judges in both the US and France. In fact, Monsanto's own studies showed that 28 days after application, only 2% of the product had broken down. They were forced to remove "biodegradable" from the label.

Above the law

When Monsanto's transgressions are reported to authorities, somehow the company is magically let off the hook.

When Monsanto finally did share information on PCBs with the government, for example, Ken Cook says "instead of siding with the people who were being poisoned, [the government] sided with the company. . . . It was outrageous!" When William Sanjour's EPA colleague, Cate Jenkins, asked the agency to review Monsanto's flawed Agent Orange studies, Sanjour says, "there was no investigation of Monsanto. . . . What they investigated was Cate Jenkins, the whistleblower! They made her life a hell."

When Richard Burroughs of the FDA held up approval of rBGH by demanding more rigorous and relevant testing, he was fired.

He says, "They figured: 'Well, if you're in the way, we'll get you out of the way. . . One day, I was escorted to the door and told that was it; I was done." Senior government scientists at Health Canada testified that their superiors were pressuring them to approve rBGH and that Monsanto had offered them an alleged bribe of $1-2 million. The scientists were later reprimanded, punished, and eventually  "dismissed for disobedience." rBGH was never approved in Canada, Europe, and most industrialized nations.

When Professor Belle went to his administration "to let the public know about the dangers" of Roundup herbicide, he was "ordered" not to communicate his findings "due to the GMO question lurking in the background." That question about genetically modified organisms was in relation to Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" crops. Monsanto has the patent for 90% of the GMOs grown on the planet, and most of them are genetically modified specifically to tolerate applications of Roundup.

*One of the most frightening things is that Monsanto is practically a U.S. government agency!!*  -  Obama Appoints Monsanto’s Vice President Michael Taylor as Senior Advisor to the Commissioner at the FDA…

Related:

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America’s farmlands to be carpet-bombed with Vietnam-ear Agent Orange chemical if Dow petition approved

Are You Eating, Drinking and Breathing Monsanto’s New ‘Agent Orange’?

Monsanto Battle Continues After Suing Midwest Farmers for Saving Seeds

GM Foods Not Served in Monsanto Cafeteria

Would You Vote for a Food Bill Monsanto Supports?

George Soros and Food Safety

PDF File
Liar, Liar: FDA Secrets, Scandals & Slip Ups!

Dumbing Down Society Part 1: Foods, Beverages, and Meds (Media and Education)

Senate Bill S.510 Passed… Quickly Explained Here

UPDATED:

President Obama appointed former Monsanto vice president and lobbyist Michael Taylor as senior advisor to the Food and Drug Administration commissioner.

This is a classic example of the fox guarding the henhouse. President Obama should isolate the FDA from corporate influence by asking Taylor to step down immediately.

That's why I created a petition to President Obama on SignOn.org. Click here to add your name, and then pass it along to your friends:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=269891&id=35461-19004089-AN_n6Yx&t=2

The petition says:

President Obama, I oppose your appointment of Michael Taylor, a former VP and lobbyist for Monsanto, the widely criticized genetically modified (GM) food multinational, as senior advisor to the commissioner at the FDA. Taylor is the same person who as a high ranking official at the FDA in the 1990s promoted allowing genetically modified organisms into the U.S. food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety or risks. This is a travesty.

Taylor was in charge of policy for Monsanto's now-discredited GM bovine growth hormone (rBGH), which is opposed by many medical and hospital organizations. It was Michael Taylor who pursued a policy that milk from rBGH-treated cows should not be labeled with disclosures. Michael Taylor and Monsanto do not belong in our government.

President Obama, Monsanto has been seen as a foe to family-based agriculture, the backbone of America, by introducing dangerous changes to plants and animals and by using strong-arm legal tactics against farmers for decades. Naturally occurring plant and animal species are permanently threatened by the introduction of DNA and hormonal modification, Monsanto's core businesses.

FDA scientists once regarded genetic modification of the food supply as the single most radical and potentially dangerous threat to public health in history. As early as the 1991, a body of scientific research began to form which now includes articles in over 600 journals. As a whole, these offer scientific evidence that GM foods, hormones, and related pesticides are the root cause for the increase of many serious diseases in the U.S. Since GM foods were introduced, diagnosis of multiple chronic illnesses in the U.S. has skyrocketed. These illnesses include changes in major organs and in hormonal, immune, digestive, and reproductive systems. These modifications to foods and food production may also be contributors to colon, breast, lymphatic, and prostate cancers.

Experts are discouraged that regulators and GM companies systematically overlook potential side effects of GM. Monsanto's objective to use biotechnology to change the world's food supply is the opposite policy direction your administration should pursue. Your legacy of supporting Monsanto to have free rein in U.S. food policy is a nightmare scenario that is against the interest of all Americans and world citizens.

Will you sign the petition? Click here to add your name, and then pass it along to your friends:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=269891&id=35461-19004089-AN_n6Yx&t=3

How Swedes Stopped GMO Potatoes

After being arrested twice, dedicated activists tie themselves to tractors to stop plantings of GM potatoes

IN SOME AREAS GREENPEACE HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY UNWANTED ELEMENTS, BUT IN SWEDEN, THEY SEEM TO BE DOING A GREAT JOB.

HERE IS THE LINK IS PICTURES OF THEM, DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY TO STOP THE PLANTING OF POTATOES WITH A MODIFIED GENE THAT IS RESISTANT TO ANTIBIOTICS. 

Friday, June 17, 2011 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer

(NaturalNews) When petitions, protests, and even sit-ins were not enough to stop the biotechnology giant BASF from planting its genetically-modified (GM) Amflora potato in Sweden, Greenpeace activists there "walked their talk," so to speak, by literally tying themselves to the tractor plows that were about to be used to spread the GM seeds throughout fields.

As we recently reported here on NaturalNews, an initial group of activists, for the second year in a row, had been blocking the entrance to the BASF warehouse near the field where Amflora was to be planted, that is until police came and arrested them (http://www.naturalnews.com/032544_B...).

Now, a new group has taken their place to continue the efforts of the first by doing whatever it takes to stop BASF from planting the crops in violation of EU law, even if it means going directly after the company's planting equipment.

Amflora potatoes contain an artificially added gene that is resistant to antibiotics, which opponents say is contributing to the rising epidemic of antibiotic resistance around the world.

Amflora was also never properly investigated for safety, nor was it subjected to a rigorous environmental impact review as it should have been -- the Swedish government basically just allowed the European Commission to approve the "Frankencrop" arbitrarily without so much as a peep of opposition.

So activists have decided to take matters into their own hands once again, this time directly accosting BASF tractor plows, which were actually accompanied by a police escort in expectation of the activists. Police arrested seven members of the group early on, but a number of others made it through the blockade where they proceeded to tie themselves to the plows.

You can view photos of Greenpeace's efforts here: https://info.greenpeace.se/a_mediarelease/?openfolder=110519_Haparanda_Sweden_GMO_repository_blockade/

"What we see here happening is that the profit interests of a company like BASF is ranked higher than the health interests of the European public who by large majority rejects the cultivation of GMOs," said Ludvig Tillman of Greenpeace Sweden. "The Commission rubberstamped the approval of risky Amflora and the Swedish government did nothing but watching [sic]. So if they do not act, we have to act."

To help stop BASF's efforts to plant GM Amflora in Sweden, visit:
http://www.naturalnews.com/032585_G...

Sources for this story include: http://gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-...

Natural News

h/t to: Claudia Johnson

Related:

Greenpeace calls for global ban on American rice after GM contamination discovered

Would You Vote For A Food Bill That Monsanto Supports?  -  Your Government Did!

Top 6 Ways to Identify and Avoid GMO Foods

Genetically Modified Foods Engineered to Make Mankind ‘Retarded’ Already in 21st Century

The E.coli Outbreak in Europe is BioWar???

Meet your Science Czar! – A Must Read

Quote: 

Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control.

VOICE: The Glenn Beck program presents Spotlight on Science.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: We will restore science to its rightful place.

VOICE: A series dedicated to President Obama's passion for everything science.

GLENN: Yeah, we're going to put science back where she belongs and what a better place to start, what a better way to show the American people that we're serious about science than appointing a science czar. Now, some people are just a little troubled by the whole czar title but don't worry about that. It's just, really just a figure of speech. The administration would never appoint a czar, you know, somebody who doesn't have to answer to anyone who has crazy, way out of the mainstream viewpoints. John Holdren is Obama's new science czar. He's quite an accomplished guy. He's done an awful lot of stuff. For instance, he was the Teresa and John Heinz professor at environmental policy at the Kennedy school of government at Harvard University. I mean, what could go wrong there? The Teresa and John Heinz professor of environmental policy at the Kennedy school of government at Harvard. At some point shouldn't all of that cancel each other out? He also coauthored a book in 1977 on population control called Eco science. He wrote it with Ann and Paul Ehrlich. Paul Ehrlich, I was trying to think this morning, where have I heard that name before. And then I remembered: An Inconvenient Book. We did this, what, is this two years old now? These are the quotes that I found from the inconvenient book this morning. Quote: It would take I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000. He said that in 1969. In 1970 he said, ten years, in ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of the coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. Do you remember that in 1980? That was crazy. In 1978 he said, giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. He wrote these, he wrote this last thing. He said this last thing a year after he coauthored a book with our new science czar. Now, what has our new science czar done? Well, of course, the big scientific consensus during the Seventies was that overpopulation was going to destroy the Earth. So what was Holdren really thinking? What was he thinking back then? What was he saying? Quote, this is our new science czar, quote: Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods. I want you to know that I am in fact, let me pull up my notebook here. I'm looking up something and I'm going to give it to you here in the next few days. I'm working on, I'm working on some I'm bothered by some things lately that just, that bother me. One is Epicyte. Stu, do you have that story about Epicyte? I'm going to give you a story in the next half hour about Epicyte. It's a biotech company that was putting sterilization into food. They were putting it in. They were making genetically modified corn here in America that if you ate it or you crushed it up into pill form, it would be, you know, it would be corn that would attack a man's sperm cell. And so it would be birth control through food. I looked this up and it's leading me some other places. But I looked for the story and what I found in the news story, there's a reason you haven't heard about this and there's no conspiracy to it. But when I give you the story, you'll say, oh, my gosh. This is huge because what Holdren has said, adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that horrifies people than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. There's somebody who's been working on it, a big company, Epicyte, which no longer exists but follow the trail. He says, seems to horrify in that statement as if it's surprising that some people would be opposed to this idea. Seems to horrify people. He says, quote: Indeed this would pose some very difficult political, legal and social questions to say nothing of the technical problems. Does anybody notice that the one problem that he leaves out is the ethical problems? He says it would be politically tough, it would be legally tough. It would lead to some social questions and it's technically tough, but there's no discussion. Our new science czar of political I mean ethical problems. He says, quote: No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. Oh, that's too bad. Unfortunately he's wrong. He says, quote: To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements. It must be uniformly effective. In other words, you can't kill one race of people and not another. Despite widely varying doses received by individuals and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals, it also must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects and it must not affect members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock. So God forbid we put it in the drinking water and cows go sterile.

So the ridiculous idea of our new science czar is not dismissed. It's just not ready to go yet. I mean, it might hurt the livestock or the pets. Since that idea is just ridiculous, here's another one he had. Quote: Of course, a government might require only implantation of a contraceptive capsule. So in other words, the government can require the implantation of some sort of a capsule in you that sterilizes you or is a contraceptive, leaving the removal to the individual's discretion but requiring reimplantation after childbirth. So in other words, they are going to they can require you to have something put in you so you cannot have children. You then, if you want, God knows under universal healthcare how you are going to be able to afford to have that taken out or what the procedure would be like. But you can do it on your own time. You can dig it out of you but then the government will require that that is put back in after childbirth. Since having a child would require positive action, removal of the capsule, many more births would be prevented than in the reverse situation. Oh, the good old opt in, opt out game. That's great. Nothing that would connect with a president who's, you know, must read book in his administration is Animal Spirits that specifically talks about devices like opt in and opt out as effective ways to make the population do exactly what you want them to do. But it gets worse. Quote from our new science czar: Responsible parenthood ought to be encouraged and illegitimate child bearing should be strongly discouraged. One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption, especially those born to minors who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. It would be even it would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have an abortion perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption depending on the society.

So what do we have from our new science czar? Something that is so far out of the mainstream, it's hair raising. Forced adoptions. Sterilant in the drinking water or crops. Contraceptive capsules that are required to be implanted. You can then take out and then they would require you after one child to reimplant. Gosh, I hope all this is available in universal healthcare.

When will this country wake up and see where we are headed? We have accepted how many people around this guy and said, "Well, he didn't know. Well, he's not a radical." The people how many communists do we have? I mean, avowed communists? How many people do we have that are internationalists, transnationalists that believe in a global government that are now in our government. How many radicals do we have that are way out of the mainstream?

This is a scary man!!  Now that this information has come to the surface, Holdren stepped up to give a very unconvincing press conference saying, like Sotomayor, that somehow he now doesn’t believe in or really didn’t mean all the things he has always said?!?! Makes you wonder how all these things keep happening in the Obama administration and their appointees, doesn’t it?

Related Resources:

• Is Global Governance or a New World Order the Real Goal???
• American Progressivism
• Liberal Fascism
• Saving Freedom
• Catastrophe
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense
• NWO
• Czar Watch
• After the "Special Master of Compensation"
• Czarred and Featherd
• We Warned You About Czars – Jim Harper and Fox’s Neil Cavuto Discuss “Cyber Czar”
• Dancing with the Czars ... Check Out This Video! | The FOX Nation

Unconscionable Police Raid on Family's Home and Organic Food Co-Op

Video - The Stowers tell their story

Steps have been taken to start legal action against the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) and the Lorain County Health Department for violating the constitutional rights of John and Jacqueline Stowers of LaGrange, Ohio.

The Stowers operate an organic food cooperative called Manna Storehouse. ODA and Lorain County Health Department agents forcefully raided their home and seized the family's personal food supply, cell phones and personal computers.

On the morning of December 1, 2008, law enforcement officers forcefully entered the Stowers' residence without first announcing they were police or stating the purpose of the visit. With guns drawn, they swiftly and immediately moved to the upstairs of the home, where ten children were in the middle of a home-schooling lesson. Officers then moved Jacqueline Stowers and her children to their living room, where they were held for more than six hours.

There has never been a complaint filed against Manna Storehouse or the Stowers related to the quality or healthfulness of the food distributed through the co-op.

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Seems I’ve been reporting on ever increasing, and downright shocking losses of freedom in the U.S. over the past couple of years, and listening to the Stowers’ personal account in the video above shows that this is no exception.

This is simply inexcusable government intrusion on the freedom of choice of American consumers – your right to chose nutritious, organic and locally grown foods, and to save money by buying in bulk through a community co-op.

Was the Raid on Manna Storehouse Justified?

In December last year, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) joined forces with the Buckeye Institute’s 1851 Center for Constitutional Law in filing a civil lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Lorrain County Health Department for performing an illegal raid on the Stowers family residence in La Grange, Ohio.

The Stowers had run a community co-op called Manna Storehouse since 1999. The 60 regular members pooled their resources and bought food in bulk from organic growers across the state of Ohio, which enabled them get discounts on the healthiest foods available, such as grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, organic eggs and produce, raw milk and cheese —all produced without man-made chemicals, hormones, pesticides, dyes, or additives.

Those of you who read this newsletter on a regular basis are well aware that this type of diet is a powerful way for many to achieve and maintain optimal health and longevity, especially if you eat according to your nutritional type. It’s even more important if you suffer with any type of food allergies, intolerance to chemical additives, or chronic illness.

The problem, according to the Feds, stems from the fact that the Stowers were selling foods without a retail license. However, they were not selling to the general public, only to co-op members who pay a membership fee and agree to take full responsibility for the food they purchase, which exempts them from requiring a license, according to the FTCLDF and the Buckeye Institute who are now defending them.

Said FTCLDF President Pete Kennedy,

 “We joined in this suit because it furthers the mission of the Fund, which is to protect and defend the rights of farmers and consumers to have direct commerce with each other free from governmental interference and harassment.

We hope that the Lorrain County Court of Common Pleas recognizes that government is overreaching in this case and is basically engaged in intimidation tactics to frighten people into believing that they cannot provide food for themselves.”

FTCLDF General Counsel Gary Cox added,

“This is an example where, once again, the government is trying to deny people their inalienable, fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice. The purpose of our complaint is to correct that wrong.”

Violating Constitutional Rights in the Name of… What?

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and Section 14, Article 1 of the Ohio Constitution, guarantees the right of peaceful citizens to be free from paramilitary police raids, searches and seizures. And yet these types of constitutional breaches over food, nutritional supplements, and wholesome alternative remedies are performed at an ever increasing rate.

For example, just as the consumption of raw milk is growing in America, so are heavy-handed attempts by state officials in some states to kill it. They've confiscated thousands of dollars worth of food, which is often all it takes to bankrupt a business and squelch a movement.

You’re not even safe carrying organic personal care products across state or country borders, as getting caught with certain products can lead to being thrown in jail for possession of illegal drugs, due to flawed drug testing kits.

Forceful raids and sweeping searches and seizures are not “routine,” and exceed the authority granted to Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) and county health departments.

The lawsuit filed by the Buckeye Institute and FTCLDF maintains that the paramilitary style execution of a search warrant against a peaceful family whose only alleged crime was failure to obtain a permit – which is a third degree misdemeanor under state law – is clearly unconstitutional.

The armed agents from the ODA, the Loraine County Department of Health, and the local police carried the type of search warrant used to bust potentially violent and dangerous drug dealers!

How You Can Help Protect Your Rights  

The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization made up of farmers and consumers joining together and pooling resources to:

• Protect the constitutional right of the nation’s family farms to provide processed and unprocessed farm foods directly to consumers through any legal means
• Protect the constitutional right of consumers to obtain unprocessed and processed farm foods directly from family farms
• Protect the nation’s family farms from harassment by federal, state, and local government interference with food production and on-farm food

If you want to help the fund carry out their mission, and help farmers and citizens like the Stowers with their legal defense costs, you can make a donation to the fund by going to this site.

Remember, today, conventional agriculture uses an arsenal of more than 600 pesticides – enough to ensure that about three pounds of it ends up on your plate every year, if you consume conventionally-grown produce. 

And the routine use of antibiotics, synthetic hormones, and genetically modified organisms to beef up yields has created a number of serious health concerns, including early puberty and an array of new allergies.

If you want to be optimally healthy, knowing what you eat and where it comes from is of prime importance, and belonging to a co-op is a great way to save money while ensuring your family eats well.  

For more information on where to find wholesome, organic and locally grown foods, please check out my Sustainable Agriculture page.

Source: Dr. Mercola - Posted 05.02.09

Posted:  True Health Is True Wealth

Related Resources:

• Sanoviv Medical Center