Of course the corporations with an interest in keeping Americans in the dark (and unconcerned) about what is going on spent 3x (or more) on very slick and convincing media to get that result. But we the people are not completely ignorant or apathetic. So we vote with our dollars. I have cut out several items from my regular shopping list, and am finding good alternatives. Being flexible gives us power. Our ability to BOYCOTT companies that resist labeling laws makes it possible for influence the market. Teach your family about this, and you increase your influence.

Quite a few of the manufacturers that oppose labeling GMOs also make items that are labeled “organic”. GMO food ingredients are mostly grains grown by large scale agricultural businesses that use millions of tons of herbicides and pesticides. "Organic" foods are supposed to be free of GMO ingredients. We can reduce our intake of toxic pesticides and herbicides by eating "organic" foods, however if these GMO supporters have brands labeled organic, we need to pick and choose in order to hit them in their pocketbooks the way we want to.

I just knew that "o" organics (at safeway) wasn't a brand I wanted to buy. I am disappointed to stop buying Larabars (I was in on that when it was still a small company). There are a few others that I would sometimes buy, so this list has influenced my grocery expenditures. I hope it does too.

A few brands and products to avoid: • PepsiCo: Naked Juice, Tostito's Organic, Tropicana Organic • Kraft: Boca Burgers and Back to Nature • Safeway:"O" Organics • Coca-Cola: Honest Tea, Odwalla • General Mills: Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Larabar (I’ve switched to Kind bars) • Con-Agra: Orville Redenbacher's Organic, Hunt's Organic, Lightlife, Alexia • Kellogg's: Kashi, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms, Gardenburger • Smuckers: R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic • Unilever: Ben & Jerry's • Dean Foods: Horizon, Silk, White Wave.

If you see something in that short list that you buy every time you go to the grocery store, maybe it is time to do a little research and figure out an alternative that suits you.

Worldwide 4-H has over 6.8 million members in 80 countries. Now Monsanto is funding 4-H--I would suspect in exchange for the chance to mold young minds. So far they have provided the children with pro-GMO booklets about the "benefits" of genetically modified organisms. If Monsanto can get inside the heads of youth, they can change attitudes about GMO's society-wide. It will work if there is not an equal and opposite force educating the children about the hazards of genetic modification of our food supply. You can be part of that force. The last thing we need is an entire planet beholden to an evil empire which makes seeds infertile.

SOURCE
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/31/monsanto-4-h-programs.aspx

I hold the most archaic values on earth; the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.
--Gary Snyder

"The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol. In a community lacking pure-water supplies, the closest thing to "pure" fluid was alcohol. Whatever health risks were posed by beer (and later wine) in the early days of agrarian settlements were more than offset by alcohol's antibacterial properties. Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties. Many genetically minded historians believe that the confluence of urban living and the discovery of alcohol created a massive selection pressure on the genes of all humans who abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Alcohol, after all, is a deadly poison and notoriously addictive. To digest large quantities of it, you need to be able to boost production of enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases, a trait regulated by a set of genes on chromosome four in human DNA. Many early agrarians lacked that trait, and thus were genetically incapable of "holding their liquor." Consequently, many of them died childless at an early age, either from alcohol abuse or from waterborne diseases. Over generations, the gene pool of the first farmers became increasingly dominated by individuals who could drink beer on a regular basis. Most of the world population today is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol. (The same is true of lactose tolerance, which went from a rare genetic trait to the mainstream among descendants of the herders, thanks to domestication of livestock.) The descendants of hunter gatherers--like many Native Americans or Australian Aborigines--were never forced through this genetic bottleneck, and so today they show disproportionate rates of alcoholism. The chronic drinking problem in Native American populations has been blamed on everything from the weak "Indian constitution" to the humiliating abuses of the U.S. reservation system. But their alcohol intolerance most likely has another explanation: their ancestors didn't live in towns."
--Steven Johnson, in The Ghost Map, pages 103-4.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE RICE FINDING
**eat less rice
**vary rice products with other grains
**eat a varied diet and don't fret
**rinse before cooking
**cook differently: boil in excess water and then strain (removes 30% of inorganic)
**limit cereals to one serving/day esp for babies
**avoid baby formula containing domestic rice
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Did you know that they have genetically engineered corn to produce insecticides? Yes. You can't wash THAT off.

Here's a list of the Food and Beverage Companies which sell organic/natural products while simultaneously giving mountains of cash to the Monsanto-driven campaign opposing GMO labeling in California (Prop 37):

Kellogg’s (Kashi, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms)
General Mills (Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Larabar)
Dean Foods (Horizon, Silk, White Wave)
Smucker’s (R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic)
Coca-Cola (Honest Tea, Odwalla)
Safeway (“O” Organics)
Kraft (Boca Burgers and Back to Nature)
Con-Agra (Orville Redenbacher’s Organic, Hunt’s Organic, Lightlife)
PepsiCo (Naked Juice, Tostito’s Organic, Tropicana Organic)

Let's bust 'em one where it counts: in the pocket book. The only trustworthy organic product is the one you make in your kitchen from known whole food sources. OCA and Mercola are both calling for this boycott, and I for one am going to participate. It's a good season to eat from the garden anyway. My only concern is what I'm going to mix with my bourbon. =-]

Pamela is going to build one of these. There are pictures and instructions on how to build one here:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/birddawgs-chicken-coop-tractor

Just because
you can eat it,
doesn't mean it's food
--Paul Bergner

Pesticides, etc.
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