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Keep saying no to GMO

Dear editor, After reading Lorne Hepworth’s letter to the editor (Record, June 4) edition of the Record, I became angry!

Dear editor,

I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. After reading Lorne Hepworth’s letter to the editor (Record, June 4) edition of the Record I became angry!

I am just a regular guy with no agenda, who happens to have a passion for healthy food and supporting the local economy. After breaking free of the industrial food system, I have lost 50 pounds, regained my health and quality of life.

My eyes were opened to the atrocious agricultural model several years ago, and I can’t stand having a biotech lobby group stating such blatant lies in our local paper.

I wish to encourage people, especially in an area where we are blessed with such diversity in our local food shed, to smarten up and to stop supporting the huge chemical companies that are essentially calling the shots in the food we consume.

I would like to clear up a few things for folks who may not understand what is going on. I am no scientist, but I do understand how the natural world works.

GMO (genetically modified organisms) foods are not food. They have been altered in a laboratory, at a genetic level, by people in white coats.

Now if there were people in lab coats selling tomatoes at the farmers' market, good chance they would not have a very successful business.

These seeds are sold (marketed) to the farmers by the wonders of the seed being herbicide-resistant and the ability to be sprayed with Round-Up to kill all the weeds (which aren’t actually weeds, but pioneer species trying to rebuild damaged systems) so the product will have less competition.

The chemical company also says the herbicide is inert once it hits the soil. I call a big BS on that claim!

The claim by CropLife that not tilling is good for the soil is true, but spraying pesticides and herbicides in definitely not!

Soil that is treated right is full of amazing life, minerals, and beneficial beings. Our soils are so depleted that the food we get from a mono-culture is essentially dead.

Couple this killed earth with top soil loss from erosion and the catastrophic collapse of bee colonies, the food system as we know it is doomed.

I am also very concerned with animals being fed GMO feeds.

Cows are unnaturally fed GMO corn and soy in horrible conditions in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO), getting sick and fed anti-biotic.

What is changing inside their bodies that are detrimental to our heath? The stress hormones course through the animals blood streams, passing on the consumer. Pork, and poultry are not any better of an option in the industrial model.

Eating a completely vegetable diet, in my opinion, isn’t with our its own set of issues, mostly because of the way vegetable proteins are grown.

We must get animals back onto the pasture, locking in carbon, building soil and creating the safest, healthiest and sustainable food possible.

Take charge of you own life; don’t listen to the advertisements. Only you can fix this, and if enough of us fix ourselves then the awful situation will change.

Please don’t wait for the government to change anything. That is an exercise in futility.

Buy organic, buy local, and get to know your farmer. And say no to GMO!

Blayne Prowse,

Cumberland