12 Steps to Whole Foods

Reaping a Gardener’s Rewards
church parking lot, and suddenly his host carefully locks all his car doors. It’s zucchini season, and you’re
likely to find the back seat full of baseball-bat-sized, unwanted zucchinis from neighbors desperate to “gift”
them when you come out after church services! If nothing else, my family is entertained by how many ways I
can come up with to cook zucchini. I buy some ingredients to add to garden-vegetable recipes, but otherwise
consider it a challenge to see how close to “free” I can make dinners in the late summer and early fall.
Why Heirloom Seeds?
Heirloom seeds are seeds that produce nonhybridized food plants that produce viable seeds. These special
seeds have lineage that has been protected and cultivated for 50 years or more. Pollination occurs with
heirloom crops by insects and wind, natural means rather than artificial.
A frightening and powerful movement is afoot, led by giant biotech company Monsanto, now responsible for
most food production in the U.S., to industrialize and genetically engineer our foods. Monsanto is aggressively
buying up seed companies, acquiring more than 11,000 seed patents, and bullying small farmers out of
business. They have been ruthless in seeking monopolies on seed production in their labs. Virtually all corn and
soy grown in America is genetically engineered.
Monsanto views seeds that are pest resistant, high yield, and do not produce a next generation of seeds as a
positive development. They have developed a glyphosate tolerance gene for plants, which are seeds that will
survive being sprayed with Roundup. The “Terminator Gene” makes plants’ seeds sterile. Thus, agricultural
economies controlled by Monsanto, such as in India, recently devastated by a drought, must buy their seeds
from the giant corporation because the seeds they save do not reproduce the following season.
While Monsanto’s profits are soaring as a consequence, the public health ramifications of increasing
hybridization and genetic modifications of our food are not fully known. But the potential implications of
changing even one gene, in one plant are far reaching. Studies have shown that altering genetics even slightly
can create havoc in the environment and in the organisms that eat the modified plant. I believe that evidence
will soon become so voluminous, mainstream, and undeniable that mass hybridization of grains has led to
widespread gut issues in North Americans and other cultures who have adopted a Western diet. Gluten
intolerance has become an epidemic, and most people are undiagnosed. Grains have been hybridized to
maximize gluten for bread making.
When man tries to outsmart Mother Nature, we must expect consequences. We cannot always control those
consequences or pull them back. Monsanto’s genetic mutations have been found in crops far from anywhere
that their seeds have been planted.
Monsanto produced saccharin, DDT, and Agent Orange in the last century. Documentaries like Food, Inc.
show how relentless and powerful Monsanto’s efforts have become in changing our food supply to further their
agenda. Recently this company has rather successfully lobbied our government to make saving seeds illegal.
As we alter our foods, it can only be to our detriment.
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw 12 Steps to Whole Foods 121