How To Identify Bioengineered Foods When Shopping

November 19, 2023January 28, 2024 Sarah

In 2022 the USDA changed how food must be identified to consumers. This was fought hard against by food manufacturers, which isn’t a shocker.

Never forget much of the food sold in the world is brought to you by 10 multinational food companies.

They would prefer you stay in the dark, because then you don’t start questioning how your food is grown and processed.

A lot of food sold now contains BE or rather, bioengineered ingredients. Or as we used to call them….GMO’s. They just put a new name on them.

The thing about bioengineering is it can be good, and it can be downright horrible – all at the same time. How you look at it depends on a lot of things. Yes, you can make a crop resistant to disease. You can feed a lot more people and animals. But you are also messing with nature and bringing into it food that isn’t natural. Genetic engineering, which is the process used to create GMOs, was first used to make human insulin, a medicine used to treat diabetes. In that, it has saved untold lives across the world and was a marvel of modern life. A lot of medicines now use genetic engineering to work. But on the other hand, most of the soy and corn grown is altered now, designed for high yields. It’s a cheap set of crops, that maybe we are eating far too much of. That is also a truth. And we are altering fruit to change colors, and rice as well. Does that need to exist?

Do we really need salmon that grow faster? That one is beyond creepy when one sits and ponders it. No. We do not. We are not messing with produce, but animals.

Wether or not you consume bioengineered products is up to you. I know I do, no matter how hard I try. If I eat out, it will be in the food. You cannot get away from that. But at home I try my best. It’s not always perfect, but again I am trying to support the companies that don’t use it. I let my food budget speak for me.

And it is a huge issue for why we grow a lot of food on our homestead. So that we know what we are eating.

So What Crops Are GMO/BE?

Alfalfa
Apple (Arctic™)
Canola
Corn
Cotton
Eggplant (BARI Bt Begun varieties)
Papaya (ringspot virus-resistant varieties – Rainbow Payaya)
Pineapple (pink flesh varieties)
Potato
Salmon (AquAdvantage®)
Soybean
Squash (summer)
Sugar Beet
GalSafe Pig (so people with allergies to red meat can eat it)

Not In The US (yet)

Golden Rice (Rice BE with Vitamin A)

Wheat (Approved for commercial in Argentina and Brazil, so far FDA approved for the US, but the USDA hasn’t approved it)

Cavendish Bananas (Being worked on in Australia, to save the variety)

Tomatoes (there has been a GMO variety since 1994 that delays ripening)

Also To Avoid:

Non-local honey (it is often sugar or corn syrup mixed and sold as honey, whitewashed through China). Buy local. Yes, it isn’t cheap. But you are getting the real thing.

The Reality of Crops For Animals:

Most animals are fed GMO crops now (alfalfa, corn, canola meal, and such). Does it transfer? The experts say it doesn’t, but that is open to a lot of deep thoughts. That is one for you to ponder.

How To Identify:

Before this new labeling was required, your only real safety net was knowing your brands, buying US-grown and certified organic food or looking for this third party symbol on your food:

There’s a reason they exist. Look for the logo on food you buy.

Such as cane sugar. Buying sugar labeled “sugar” means you are most likely buying beet sugar, not real cane sugar. 99% of beet sugar is GMO. Look for the 3rd party logo. It’s worth the tiny bit more in money.

Or organic food:

Everything else was a gamble. And it’s easy to believe nothing is an issue if it isn’t marked. So the USDA changed it. However, it isn’t perfect because companies can and do willfully hide it. By following the rules they get away with it.

But remember, your buying organic food is only as good as the company that is selling it. Is the food being imported from trouble regions, that bend rules? (China being the worst example)

Supporting domestic companies and small growers are your best bets.

From USDA’s website.

“Good” companies put this on the label:

Here you know they use BE ingredients. But not what they use (although the corn starch, canola and soybean oils are the biggest chances).

Or just go all out:

I’ll give them this much…they don’t hide it. Can’t say I have any cravings for it…..

Bad companies do this:

This is plain cornstarch. One ingredient. It’s not organic. In the United States corn is one of the top BE crops produced. So you have to assume that it’s going to be modified corn. But there’s no warning.

Oh yeah….there it is….the “Smart Label” they are allowed to put on the item (the QR code). You have to use your camera on your mobile phone to open the page online for it.

Or call the phone number. Now how many people will see that tiny detail, know how to do it, or even do it? If one clicks it…

And there is your answer. That simple. Why not just own it on the box? But they followed the rules so consumers won’t look that deep.

Here is another can with a QR code.

Oh look. The Smart Label webpage has no information at all on it. And I found I hit this over and over on store brands.

Bread seems safe to many people, after all wheat is not GMO (yet).

What a shocker. It’s not corn syrup, but most likely the sugar used (if it doesn’t say cane sugar, it is nearly always beet sugar).

Gelatin….not that I buy it, but I scanned it.

It’s the sugar. Beet sugar.

The worst offender was this company. They had nothing but a phone number. Yes, I called it. And yes, it is GMO corn syrup. And also every pop company selling liquid corn syrup candy with zero marking on it. Unless it’s marked cane sugar, it’s GMO refreshing.

Wash and repeat.

We at least have choices now. Last week the boys and I walked a grocery store and looked at cans, jars, bags and boxes, over and over. We’d look to see how upfront the companies are (General Mills and Campbells are the most open) (Kraft Heinz was not very open, requiring the QR code to find out anything). Store private brands were the worst, some complaint, others having blank Smart Labels. We spent quite some time in the store, so they could understand how it worked.

It doesn’t matter where you shop. Your only choices are to do the footwork and buy the brands that are not cutting corners. The brands that will tell you upfront, and be certified by 3rd party.

This isn’t easy, but if we are willing to change, we can do it. Use your food budget to support companies working hard.

~Sarah

Polar Opposites: On Who Now Supports GMO’s And Cheap Food

November 10, 2023November 16, 2023 Sarah

It’s 1991. I am a college freshman. I’ve moved to a new town. I am just trying to find who I will be those formative years. So basically like all the Gen Z kids now (of who I have 3 of them), who are approaching and into adulthood. We were 100% Gen X. We had grown up so feral it wasn’t funny. Like so many young, I am leaning more liberal those years – possibly only to annoy my Father so we can scream at each other. By today’s standards I was really middle of the road with that. I will admit I voted for Bill Clinton for President that year, in the basement of a Catholic Church. My eternal shame.

Nah, I voted for him twice. Slick Willy was entertaining. And he wasn’t a crypt keeper, like all the old politicians now. But I digress, back to the story.

It’s fall of 1991 and I suck in my breathe, scared to enter an actual food co-op. It seems so scary. A secret hideaway. It’s in the old town, not at the shiny mall that had opened that year miles away, destroying some of the best farm land there, along the Skagit River in Washington State. It was kind of run down. And it smelled so weird.

Why it scared me? I have no idea. First, I thought you had to be a member to shop. And I guess because the people working there were real hippies, man! They had/were following the Grateful Dead! They had lived in the communes upriver in Magic Skagit! They were everything I had dreamed I would become. The women had flowing hair, not touched with hair dye. No makeup on. They smelled of BO and patchouli oil. I had a boyfriend and he was growing his hair out. We were just toooooo groovy. We had a little apartment on the top floor of a post WWI house, only a few blocks away.

But then I noticed they didn’t chase us away. They knew we were new. Every year you get a new crop of suckers, er, customers, ready to embrace the life. And oh how wonderful it was. I felt so welcome. Even if I couldn’t eat the scary salads they sold in the deli. Everything smelled and tasted like dirt back then. I nicknamed it the Hippy Hut™, and every time I am forced to eat quinoa it’s my joke we are visiting it. Or I reminisce about eating burritos on Shakedown Street at a Dead show.

I think this god awful Toyota Corolla 1980 Sport Wagon I bought for $300 cash says it all. Before Van Life was a thing, I had this crap mobile outfitted to camp in. Drove it up and down the West Coast till one day I went airborne in it and destroyed the transmission.

Back to the story. I was surrounded by people who were truly living the life. These were the older Boomers and some of the younger ones. They truly believed we could make a change.

They pushed to get recycling become a thing. They grew gardens. They wore second hand clothing. They sewed clothing. They even rolled their own smokes, of actual tobacco. They ate unprocessed food. Bought in bulk. Talked about legal hemp all night. Where I smelled my first essential oils and bought the crocheted pipe holder I wore around my neck, covered in patchouli oil.

I was wearing hemp hiking boots made with soles of recycled pop bottle plastic. I walked every where. I learned to ride the bus. I was making food from scratch. I was growing food on our neighbors roof over a highway. Those Boomers told me to save seeds, to take seeds from them. They were why I first sold at farmer’s markets in my mid-twenties. Their inspiration to me as a young woman fueled an entire destiny for me.

Life moved on, but things stayed with me no matter where I went. Every apartment or home had a garden. I sewed my clothing till my 30’s. I am 50 and I still believe in all of it. It’s why I homestead. It’s why I prefer to walk versus a car when I can. Why I grow food and preserve it. Why I believe in preserving heirloom seeds. Why so much is important to me as I am aging. That I can still be mostly self sufficient. That I can choose to not use those companies if I am willing to work hard, or pay more.

And honestly? I thought so many of them still saw life this way.

Oh I was so wrong. I read them wrong.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Where did that go to? The Boomers loved saying that, over and over. I haven’t seen this logo in so, so long. Gen Z needs to rediscover it. They need to wear hiking boots of hemp, and their soles stamp this into the dirt with every step. Quit dying hair, go natural and till fields. Work for yourself versus asking for the government to do the hard work. I am trying so hard for my children to understand this. Our oldest is 26 now, an Elder Gen Z. The other day I realized…it’s seeped in, he gets it. He finally understands why I ask them to do such hard work. I felt like celebrating loudly on that win.

It was right up there with the other charmer:

The Non GMO Project was started in 2007, so you have to take a calculated guess it was Boomers behind it. Passionate about it. Food in the USA was changing at a rapid pace. Mono crops were taking over, and diversity was dying quickly. Activists were getting scared – they had to act before everything was GMO/bioengineered. And when no consumer would know, unless companies put the logo on their items, to let you know. At first I didn’t see the need, then after our youngest was born, with his severe food allergies…suddenly I needed to care and invest more of myself into our food production.

And it went on this way. The left leaning folk supporting organic food, the socially aware. Out trying to save farmland, supporting diversity in seeds. Many of the conservatives I knew didn’t care about any of this and rolled their eyes at me. They told me I was wrong that the glaciers were shrinking and we got less snow (which I saw every year with my own eyes hiking). They mocked me for growing food, for being a starter prepper. It was that weird line I walked. Vote conservatively, but have liberal views on the other stuff. And yeah, no one likes you when you walk both sides.

Truth is, I have always been a bit “odd”. And I am OK with that. I believe in things others don’t. It’s also why I am firmly politically non-binary these days. I am somewhere in the realm of a libertarian. Do no harm. But you also cannot deny what you see with your own eyes. Farming taught me that. Hiking taught me that. You watch the rain get less, the summers hotter. Then the rain comes at the wrong time. Early summer is cold and wet. I have charted it for over 10 years while growing food. Some days I wish I could go back our first house and the tiny garden I had – because I was so naive then.

And here’s the weirdest thing I have been noticing. First it started with the Pandemic. For me, and my family, very little changed. We had made the jump to a rural lifestyle 2 years before and had years of farming behind us. It was just another day, except our kids were at home with us. I got to work that winter and started growing even more food. I tried to show others why it mattered. I had trained for this! I came out of the closet as a prepper, and had no shame.

Suddenly it was all the conservatives I knew who cared. They came to us and asked us to teach them.

During those years, I noted so many people who I would have described as the people who had cared, they quit caring.

They became scared. They aged overnight. They were trapped by fear in their homes. They lost all their fire. No longer were they worried about loss of farmland, of loss of crop diversity. Instead they started praising multinational companies. They cried and wailed that they were dying and needed a miracle. That they deserved to go first for the vaccines. A lot of them sat alone. Drinking a lot of alcohol and smoking weed in my state. They demanded that the governor shut down state parks, restaurants, stores. But that the weed shops be allowed as a necessity.

I stayed outside and weeded rows on my farm. I sold plants. I traded seeds and plants. My energy was like a fever dream. I had come alive. It was what I had trained for, thanks to all those old hippies 30 years before. 18 year old Sarah had no clue 48 year old Sarah would spend days harvesting seeds. And filing them away to trade to others.

These people then started demanding everything come in plastic. Single use only. Otherwise it might be contaminated. No longer did they care where or how their food was processed. They wanted it dropped on their doorstep. And for the dropper off to be wearing gloves and a mask and to disappear just as quickly.

Now corporations were suddenly good, and to be praised. After all, they were promising new medicines and new foods! Just attach some kind of social justice to it, and they jumped in line to be first. It was like they regressed to a child, watching tv while Mom brought out a jug of Kool-Aid and Twinkies. It felt good. Hard work didn’t make them feel safe anymore.

What??

And that is where it got so weird.

And in the last year particularly bad. I note how social media shows me things they want me to follow. How I should think. I am not shown often homesteading, self sufficiency skills, Trad Wives, gardening, prepping, preserving food and such. Instead I am constantly shown “suggested posts” of things I have no interest in.

Things like shopping at Target/Amazon, polyamory relationships, people who despise children, socialism, and more. Then more recently I am being shown almost nothing about food growing, and instead I get shown Threads “I should check out” (and no, I am not on Threads thank you very much) of things I have zero desire to see/read.

Today this one took the award:

With that intro….OK, let us delve in a bit. She’s cool with GMO’s and we should trust her because she has a PHD (hahahaha….that just means you showed and did your work to get that title – and tons of debt).

Oh, you call her out? Well, you’re an idiot.

Man, they are sucking on that GMO nozzle. “GMO’s are awesome!”

My hero, Mr. TomSawyer. He asks the most important question.

But don’t worry…Mr. Reallynothingtotell there, he’s a firm GMO’s ARE A GIFT nozzle huffer. His photo says scared younger Boomer or similar. They want things to be like when they were kids. And the world felt safer to them, while they drank Tang orange drink and ate Wonder Bread.

The Truth Is:

Back in the mid 2010’s when blogging was taking off, many bloggers were approached by Monsanto (now Bayer). They tried to offer as many bloggers as they could money to write puff pieces. I got multiple offers on my previous site, that was about cooking at home. I was offered up to $500 to do a piece, spewing how great Round Up and similar was. Well, except for they put in a survey…and if they saw you gardened you didn’t get an email back. Some bloggers made a lot (yes, this is searchable) and were even flown out to attend events. Those women sold their souls to Big Ag to get a small paycheck. Of course, some of these women also took paid gigs for $300 to model in adult diapers (and no, I am not joking…..these women were shameless). Bloggers were a catty lot back then. I used to go to blogger conferences just for the tea.

Examples?

This one was major in exposing how they bought people to write positive things about products and GMO’s.

Let’s get out and learn from the experts (and reading this article reminded of the way BlogHer, an important site back then, heavily promoted GMO’s and Monsanto. Those pages don’t exist anymore…huh, what a shocker. I actually quit BlogHer back then over the promoted junk they were pulling).

Turned out all those elder Millennials would sell out for a tiny pittance. It was a harbinger of things to come. (And yes, I am right on the ages here – while I am Gen X, I was considered older as a female blogger in the “mommy blogger” years. But I had been an older mom. Most the women were younger than me.)

In 2014 this was a truth:

“Monsanto is the world’s largest seed company. They produce seeds for more than 20 crops, 4,000 varieties, and are sold in more than 160 countries. They boast 55 research-breeding stations around the globe. In the GMO realm, eight crops are approved in the United States: alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, papaya, soybean, sugar beets, and squash. Monsanto dominates the market on two counts: It controls 80 percent of the seed market for GM corn and 93 percent of the GM soy seed market, according to Food and Water Watch.”

And while on paper Monsanto doesn’t exist anymore, it’s quite alive, as Bayer.

And this might be nearly 10 years old, it is far scarier now.

Today, four corporations — Bayer, Corteva, ChemChina and Limagrain — control more than 50% of the world’s seeds. These staggering monopolies dominate the global food supply. Bayer is still in the top 3.

So how did it become that less liberal folk suddenly became those who cared? And why is we are shouted down at so loudly? Told we are wrong! When we are right.

All I can say is: Please don’t quit caring. Don’t fold up like the heroes of my youth, who taught me the pathway. Keep growing food. Keep saving seed. Say no to GMO’s. No to herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides. Fight for a healthier world for our children and grandchildren.

Don’t be an unpaid schill for multi-national companies that care nothing about the Earth we exist in and on.

Don’t hate me for what I say. You know it’s the truth. No one will care for you (and your family) like you will. Eat as close to nature as you can.

~Sarah

Bioengineered Foods · Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Eating Local Matters

March 12, 2023February 24, 2024 Sarah

Sometimes I need a trip to clear my mind. And maybe going on the largest carbon footprint trip of my life really opened my eyes. I traveled somewhere between 18,000 and 19,000 miles by plane and ship to reach the Antarctica Peninsula the past 2 weeks. It was a glorious trip, a life bucket trip. And I enjoyed my time there. Until I started thinking halfway through. About the actual cost of my coming there – of anyone coming there.

I preach a lot about “eating local” and supporting local growers producers (because you will eat in season, eat fresher and keep your local people in business instead of supporting Big Ag) but even I don’t always follow my advice/nagging. Because it isn’t easy to provide/find everything you want (note I said want, not need……). Those Cheetos are not needed. Even when 2 boys look at me with sad eyes at the store. And it’s easy to give in to them.

But I will admit this: I had become burnt out in preaching it. It just didn’t seem to hit home with those I write or talk to in the past year.

I was VERY disappointed before the trip. I didn’t want to work on our farm/homestead. I had held a seed swap in the weeks before I left. I was bitter, even salty over it. The year before, in 2022, the turnout had been huge. This year, same crowd, and almost no one showed up. That hurt deeply. I had more people driving by, who saw the signs, who popped in as random strangers. I run a seed swap that is more a seed giveaway. I WANT people to grow food. I felt it like a slap. To my soul. Who I thought was my people, they didn’t care anymore.

But how I felt? That with the pandemic run out mostly, people are back to their “normal”. They don’t see any reason to grow food anymore. It’s too much work, takes up their time, is messy. And they feel secure in that food is at the stores again (it isn’t, but it isn’t as obvious). They have sucked up to the rampant inflation and just buy what they want again.

It left me not excited about the coming spring. I just wanted to sit inside, in the dark. Where the days slip by.

I went on vacation. On the most over-the-top vacation I have ever gone on. I parked myself on a ship that was only a couple months old, where it was touted as a luxury expedition to Antarctica, where you were pampered. Being South America is still in summer, it did improve my mood to see the sun once again.

Oh you were pampered. That wasn’t a lie. I’ve been on multiple adventure cruises (where the numbers are low, and it’s about the outdoors) and this one was a 5 star hotel floating, where before they were more utilitarian ships. And for those first days, I relaxed in bougie-ville and enjoyed it.

Did I want a frappe made for me 18 hours a day? Well, there it was. Also, be sure to eat donuts, croissants, and gourmet muffins too!

But then I wrecked it for myself. So easily.

For I had brought along with me Peter Zeihan’s latest book “The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning: Mapping The Collapse Of Globalization“. Peter is a Geopolitical Analyst, and to say I am a fangirl is putting it lightly. And as the days stretched on, I read further. And further. And I was reminded about what really matters. And I learned a far deeper history lesson than I had expected.

As I sat trapped on a floating luxe hotel, at the end of the world. And reading further, having far too many deep talks with Kirk. He was listening to it on an audiobook. as the icebergs floated by we talked about the coming food insecurity and so much more.

Maybe bring a romance novel next time? Probably. I was told nastily by a nosy shipmate, upon seeing the title of the book, that “Why would you read such a depressing book!” She glowered at me and then went back to playing cards with her group of friends she had come with.

But then something else happened.

And yes, it relates to food. While the food was delicious and varied, it was nearly all European. Which made sense as the boat was built in Portugal and based out of there.

So much bread. And pastries. All French influenced. Don’t get me wrong, it was very good. But the flour’s foot print was massive.

Everything was from there it seemed, outside of the imported-in Japanese Waygu burgers you could order whenever, it seemed.

Like this….love the flag font? It’s only a what….6,000 mile haul for this to show up. Between it and the lone bottle of Tabasco sauce offered, it was the only North American options I noted.

Near the end of the trip, the cruise director and the hotel director had a casual talk you could attend.

A question was posed about where did the food come from. It was answered that….most of it was literally shipped across the ocean to Ushaia, Argentina from Portugal. Only the fresh produce was acquired locally due to rules. And the small amount of Argentina beef served. A distance of over 7,000 miles one way, so you could eat fresh baked bread daily.

Gah.

Total buzzkill.

I felt like an awful person at that moment. It was bad enough I had traveled that far, but to know the food I was gorging on mindlessly had come yet another 7,000 miles away?

But then, it was also a jarring feeling that outside of the produce and a bit of beef, the local countries of Argentina and Chile were barely being used, yet they grow amazing food. They have wine production, but the “premium” wine offered came from the United States – stuff I can buy at the local Safeway if I wanted to 7 days a week. Some of it was actually Washington State wines!

It’s easy to not notice where your food comes from. We are a world dependent on globalization. At the grocery store I can pull my head out and actually read – I know who owns what company and such after all. But it was easy to pretend all that food/drinks was magically “locally sourced” while on the ship.

I lost my appetite to be honest after that talk and it dimmed the last day on the ship. As we flew home, on 3 long flights, I thought so much about it all. I came home, caught up on sleep.

And then walked outside, to my land. To my homestead. And had never been so happy to be home. Feeling ready to go.

And realizing how important it all is.

I tried to eat eggs on the ship. They were flavorless. And being a Euro-centric menu, there was no salsa and 1 lonely bottle of Tabasco sauce offered. I gave up eating eggs, because they just had little flavor. They were just sad Big Ag eggs.

As I made breakfast on Friday morning, not functioning well from jet lag, I cracked eggs from our hens. The yolks were firm, and they were so yellow. I could smell them cooking and it had me hungry. I opened up a jar of salsa I canned last summer, and spooned some on.

And I thought to myself, as my mouth was so happy, that this is why eating local matters.

The taste. The smell. The knowing my hard labor mattered. I had a piece of bread I had frozen after baking weeks ago, with strawberry jam I made with our honey, that I canned.

The work IS worth it. For I knew where my food had come from. Who had touched it. Who had preserved it.

Yesterday I worked hard outside in the cold. Work hard enough and you start stripping down. I heard a bird song and realized I had just heard the first Robin calling out for the year. I planted pea starts I had left in the greenhouse before the trips, the garlic I had missed last summer during harvest, and saw shooting up randomly in beds I need to start planting – it’s in a new home now. I weeded beds. Got soil ready for upcoming planting. Visited the chickens and cleaned.

I came inside, and felt it. I had done something that mattered. I was providing for my family. I was in tune with nature once again. And I found my way back to having desire again to do this work.

And knowing that even if others don’t care, I do. And that is all that matters.

Eating local matters. For our health, for the world, for food security. For watching the massive global carbon foot print we can cause. Will it actually help if only a few of us opt out? No, it won’t globally. But it will when the day comes that those ships don’t show up, or the planes don’t touch down. For we need to eat locally for so many reasons. To eat more mindfully, to eat in season. To be connected to the Earth. To be less reliant on other countries.

As Spring arrives embrace the returning sun. Plant your seeds. Weed your beds. Add compost. Watch as the first leaves unfurl in the coming weeks, and the blossoms happen on the fruit trees.

I don’t regret my trip, for it showed me something I needed to see. It doesn’t matter what others do – it’s what I do. I feel alive again!

~Sarah