Podcast Episode #52: Do You Know What You’re Eating?

In this podcast episode from BenGreenfieldFitness.com we're going to talk about genetically modified foods, anti inflammatories for male cyclists, double bonded protein, running with low back pain, and a pretty amazing update on the Shape 2163 Day Fat Loss Challenge.

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. Whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Hey podcast listeners, I'm going to start by making an apology podcast episode number 51. If you listened into that, that was the episode where John Gilbert and I answered a huge number of Listener Q&As. Fantastic. We had a lot of fun answering those questions and responding to you. However, the audio was a little bad on that podcast. We were using a microphone, experimenting with a new system. In my opinion, there was a bit of a buzz in the background. If you want to listen to that episode, I recommend that you not use an MP3 player with a headset, but that you just listen to it on your computer. You'll notice that it becomes much less annoying, that buzz. Well, it's been a little while since released a normal podcast aside from that freakishly long Q and A last week. So I've got a few special announcements that I'll be introducing you to in just a second. But first of all, let me mention that today's interview again might be a little bit fringe for those of you who like to think that you're eating healthy but not really thinking about the source of the foods that you're eating. It is a pretty explosive expose by a guy named Jeffrey Smith, and in that interview, he's going to document some significant health dangers of genetically modified foods. He describes how biotech companies like Monsanto rig research, hide health dangers, pressure government regulators, basically how some of the world's most powerful agriculture biotech companies bluff and mislead their critics. And you're going to get to hear it all in the interview. And what I would recommend that you look into doing, if this is something that really interests and concerns you, is check out Jeffrey's book. I put a link to it in the show notes. He's not paying me to put the book on there or anything like that, but it's called Seeds of Deception. And even if you're just getting into eating healthy. And you think this stuff is really fringe for hippies or for people who are just living in the deep necks of the woods who don't want any big agricultural company deciding what they're going to put into their mouth. You know what? It really is a pretty serious concern. There's a new movie out too that's pretty good or looks pretty good. I haven't seen it yet. It's called Food Inc. I'd definitely go check it out and listen to this interview and email me if you have questions about this topic. So we're going to go ahead and move into this week's special announcements. Special Announcements okay, first of all, you may remember that a few weeks ago I interviewed Jeff Henderson about the Portland Triathlon, the only green environmentally triathlon in the nation. I decided to register for the race. So I'm going out to Portland to race in the Portland Triathlon and I wanted to put a shout out to any of you Portland listeners. I would love to hook up with you. I'd love to meet you. So shoot me an email if you're down in the Portland area and I'll be rolling in there for the Portland Triathlon on Aug. 22. And then another rather narcissistic and completely personal anecdote, but I entered into a contest on Twitter to give the best cycling performance tip. And if you aren't familiar with Twitter, you got to do that in about 120 characters or less. Or maybe it's 140, I don't know. But it's short. Well, I went ahead and entered in the contest and I put my cycling tip in. But I only win the contest if people people vote for my tip as being the best tip. So I put a link in the show notes to this podcast. It's at the very top of the special announcements section where it says also mentioned in this podcast. I put a link there link to it, read my cycling tip, my super super short cycling tip and then vote for it. Please don't vote for the other guy. That would just be cruel if I sent you there and you gave my enemies votes. Also there is a survey on the show notes it just a very very quick 5 minute survey. Helps me learn a little bit more about you, the listener who's actually listening in to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast and I hope there is someone out there in itunes land listening in. With the number of questions you guys send me. I think that there probably is. Anyways, take the survey just a few minutes. It's very very quick. Now I did put some very amazing photos up on the show. Notes to this podcast because literally the day that you're listening to this podcast, Thursday, July 23rd, my brand new book Shape 21 is being released. And that is the no guesswork involved Exercise and Nutrition Book. It's not an ebook, it's a book DVD package that gets shipped out to your front doorstep. It's been an ebook in the past, but now it is available in physical format and I have completely redesigned the meal plan to be allergy free, 100% holistic. The participants who did the Lean Body Challenge, who tried out the book, they're starting to send their photos in and they're pretty amazing. I put one photo of a lady she just sent me last night, her photo. She lost 25 pounds over the 63 days. But she's, you know, she's not sluggish, she feels fantastic and her pictures are pretty amazing. You should go, you should go check them out. So congratulations, Malia was the lady who sent those in and you're definitely going to want to take a look at her pictures. And the videos and photos are still rolling in, but the book is now available@shape21.com so definitely check that out. Just a couple more announcements. Cycling season is upon us. The Tour de France is running and I needed to give an alert to you male cyclists out there. If you didn't get the newsletter that I sent out last week about this, I would go back and listen to the podcast that talks about prostate health and some of the nutritional supplements and remedies that you can use to make sure that you are actually staying healthy down under when you're spending a lot of time on the bike. I'm taking about two to three pills that are basically full of a rye pollen extract every single morning because I've been cycling a lot. I'm going to put a link to those in the show notes and a link to a kind of cool little cycling video that shows what they're all about. It's about a 30 second long video. I'm going to put it in the show notes to this podcast. So you're definitely going to want to check that out because taking care of your body, especially when you're being more active in the summer and you got to take care of yourself. That's what this show is all about. I know we do have some listeners in the Spokane area and there is a lecture that I heard about that looks pretty interesting. It's called the Biology of Dairy, Soy Milk and Dairy Alternatives. And it basically covers the history of dairy, pasteurized milk, raw milk, goat milk, powdered milk, hormones and antibiotics, kefir, a lot of the things that we have talked about on this show before. And if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and do a search for dairy or for milk, you'll discover some of the episodes that we've done in the past about this. Anyways, that's at a place called Fresh Abundance. I'll put a link in the show notes with their phone number where you can call and find find out more about that class. But I think it looks really interesting and I am planning on attending that. Now we're going to move on to the listener Q and A. I did not get a lot of listener questions this week and remember, if you want to ask a question I've set up a toll free line for you. 877-209-9439. The other way that you can ask me a question is to just email BenGreenfieldFitness.com I personally think it's a little bit more fun to get your audio questions. Those are always interesting to play back, but simply email me ask. You'll get it on the show. And I always enter the best questions into drawings for cool giveaways like the 100 Ways to Boost your metabolism, the Ben Gruentel fitness T shirts. So definitely write in if you have a question or if you have a comment about something that you don't agree with that I say or that you would like to get out in the public comment on any of the blog postings. It is a blog. You can leave a comment and nothing is really censored unless you are a governor's son from Mumbai who has misplaced the family fortune and needs me to immediately send a check for $200,000 that I will receive paid back in full within two months. Good sir, yeah. Let's go ahead and move on to this week's Q and A.

Listener Q and A.

So the first question this week came from listener Paul who says, I have a question about Mount Capra's new double bonded protein. I'm looking to lean up and put on some muscle. A lot of the other prote protein powders I checked into use some kind of acid treatment and higher heat which I've been told makes the protein dead. How is double bonded protein processed and how much heat is used? Well, I went ahead and asked Mount Capra about this and for those of you who aren't familiar with Mount Capra, Joe Stout, their head researcher, has Been on our show a couple of times comparing cow's milk versus goat's milk. They're basically an organic goats farm based out of Chula, Washington that put out a lot of supplements. And they're really actually getting into the sports performance industry now and putting out some very cool things. Among them this double bonded protein. So basically the idea behind the double bonded protein is that it comes from goat's milk, not cow's milk, and it has a complete protein profile, which means it has a blend of casein and whey. But the thing you need to understand is that when proteins are subjected to heat, they can become denatured. So when you scramble an egg, a lot of the little amino acids that make up the proteins that comprise that egg become denatured. And the egg doesn't ne reform into a complete protein when it is denatured like that. And so there's a little bit of essentially protein damage that can occur. And it's very difficult to completely cold process a protein. But what the double bonded protein means is that they subject that to very low heat processing. So the proteins are basically what are called partially undenatured. So they're in a little bit more complete form. Now the idea behind this is that it supposedly allows the body to produce something called glutathione, which is a key precursor to immune function and basically gives you a slightly higher quality protein than a protein that was, say, subjected to acid and denatured, or a protein that was subjected to heat and denatured. I'm not aware of any other proteins in existence that are double bonded like this. I have to tell you, I haven't actually tried Mount Capra's double bonded protein. After looking into it and reading Paul's question, I do have some on the way. I'm going to try it out and see how it works and I'll give you the update on that. But that's the skinny on Mount Capra's double bonded protein. And then listener Janet asks, is it okay to run with some lower back pain? What things should I be considering before going ahead? Any help would be appreciated. I am very grateful for your help. Okay, so Jen, and it is okay to run with some lower back pain, depending on what's actually producing the pain. If you have something like a herniated disc that could actually be doing quite a bit of damage, if you have a very slight low back strain or sprain and you're doing some gentle running and it's nagging at you a little bit, it's not going to be that big of a deal. But what you should be aware of is, is the problem with the sacroiliac joint and the fact that that presents for most runners a very serious problem. And we see it quite a bit, especially in the sports medicine facility where I work. People come in there very frequently. Runners come in there very frequently with low back pain. And one of the main things that we see is that they either have a hip malrotation, meaning that their hips are rotated one way or the other, or, and. Or actually they have a locked SI joint, which means that the smooth articulating surfaces in the sacroiliac joint down at pelvis, those basically become locks together. At that point, you're unable to actually rotate your hips properly and a lot of the nerves in that area start to become inflamed and you get low back pain when you run. Now, Brian Mather, Dr. Brian Mather, who is a chiropractic physician, he's been on this show a couple of times. I would recommend that you listen to the interview with him where he talks about what you should actually be having a chiropractic physician look at when they're inspecting your low back. Because a lot of chiropractics, they don't understand the mechanism and the idea behind the SI joint causing pain in runners. The other thing that I would look into doing is strengthening your butt muscles and a lot of the muscles that support some of the areas that could be stressed when you're running. I know that's kind of a coverall statement that a lot of personal trainers tell people do, oh, you got weak butts, you're a bad runner. But especially in the case of the SI joint, a weak butt really can be a problem. Things like bridges, and you can do this on a stability ball or on the ground, things like kick outs, things like fire hydrants, a lot of different exercises that you can do out there. I have a website called runwithnopain.com I would surf over to there, check that out as well. I've got some advice on there. I wrote a book called Run with no Pain that takes a lot of the concepts behind adjusting your sacroiliac joint, getting it back into alignment, and then putting together a program that actually solidifies it, that cements it in place. So I would say if you got a herniated disc, I wouldn't be running with that. I would look into getting that fixed and speak with a physician. If you're running with SI joint syndrome, which you can find out if you are by going to that website, runwithnopain.com or visiting a chiropractic, then get it adjusted, strengthen it, and you should be able to run again. And the last thing is starting that butt strengthening protocol. So those are all the questions for this week. I know we went from about 30 questions to two, but we're going to go ahead and move on to this week's special topic. You're not going to want to miss this expose on the dangers of genetically modified foods.

Featured topic. So we're going to talk about what is very likely the most dangerous aspect of food and future of food, but also one of the easiest problems to fix. And we'll talk about that. We'll be sure to come out on a positive note. I'm telling you that's because we're going to go on a journey together on disease, deception, denial, you know, FDA stuff. And we're going to do it together. We're going to come out the other side with a plan and ways to protect ourselves and ways to protect our families. All right, so what are the genetically engineered foods? Well, genetically engineered foods, genes are taken from one species and put into the DNA of another species. That's genetically modified organism. So some fun examples, real life examples, are they've taken genes from spiders and put them into goats in the hopes that they can milk the goat for spider web protein to make bulletproof vests. There's another goat with 15% human genes. There are pigs with jellyfish genes so their noses glow in the dark.

Why?

Because they can do it. They have pigs that have cowhides. They have corn with a human gene in it that produces a spermicide. They have rice growing in Kansas with human genes to produce pharmaceuticals for children. So they're mixing and matching across the species barriers, turning animals and plants into whatever and factories. Among the foods that we eat are soy, corn, cotton and canola, all genetically engineered soy, corn, cotton, canola, all of them used for vegetable oil. Now, these are the minor crops, Hawaiian papaya, a little bit of zucchini, a little bit of crookneck squash. Some alfalfa was approved and then denied, but some is out there already and it's perennial. It'll just stay out there. There's also Quest brand tobacco. Now, for the food side, in order to avoid eating genetically engineered foods, you have to either buy organic, buy products that say non GMO or specifically avoid the ingredients on the label. And that's particularly difficult with soy and corn because their derivatives are practically omnipresent in the US diet. I'm guessing that 90% of packaged processed foods contain at least some small amount of genetically engineered ingredients. If you go to a fast food restaurant, forget it, you're cooked. It's GMO city. But if you go to a restaurant that cooks food from scratch, it's pretty easy to identify if there's GMOs in the food or not. Corn and soy in whole foods. Tofu, soy sauce, corn tortillas, corn chips, corn on the cob, popcorn is not gmo. White corn, blue corn, not gmo. And the percentage of soy I've expenditure the percentage of corn that's on the cob is less than the percentage overall. But it's easy to avoid the whole foods when it's mostly soy or mostly corn. But if it's a processed food, it likely has it in that ingredient. But if they cook from scratch, what's hidden from view is the vegetable oil. So you go into the restaurant and say, what kind of oil do you cook here? And if they say vegetable oil, you can say, can you cook mine in olive oil or butter or no oil? And then you can pretty much avoid eating genetically engineered foods in restaurants unless they're having some kind of teriyaki sauce or things like that that are pre processed. All right, the crops. Let's talk about the crops. The reason why I'm here talking about genetically engineered foods is because of a single sentence in the FDA policy. And that sentence claims that the agency is not aware of any information showing that the foods created from these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way. That is the reason why we're here. Because on the basis of that sentence, the FDA said no testing is necessary. If Monsanto and Syngenta and Bayer and Dow and dupont and basf, the six big agricultural biotechnology companies, if they want to introduce a genetically modified food into your diet, they don't have to tell the fda, because the FDA is not aware of any information showing that the foods are different. So no testing is necessary. This is the 1992 policy which continues to exist today. However, secret documents made public from a lawsuit show that those that that sentiment was a lie. 44,000 internal documents were made public. And when people started going through them, they realized these scientists as a whole were uniform. Overwhelming consensus that these foods could create allergies, toxins, new diseases, nutritional problems, that these foods can create problems which would be hard to detect. So what did they recommend? Long term safety studies required for each product. What did they get? They got that sentence. The sentence was a lie. So who overruled the scientists? Well, the White House had told the FDA, promote biotechnology. So the FDA created a new position, the Deputy Commissioner of Policy. And put into that position Michael Taylor, Monsanto's former attorney. And while he was in charge, and you can see this in the documents, every rewrite of the policy systematically removed the concerns of the scientists. One scientist commented, what's become of this policy? It's basically a political document. There's no science in it and it does not discuss the unpredicted side effects. So Michael Taylor worked at the FDA in charge of policy. Then he worked at the USDA on biotech issues. And then of course he became Monsanto's vice president for a job well done. Now, the first genetically engineered crop that was part of the voluntary review process, that is that supposedly all the genetically engineered crops have gone through with the fda, was the Flavor Saver tomato, engineered for longer shelf life. And this was the very first dossier presented to the fda and the only one in which raw feeding study data was presented. Everything since has been summaries basically worthless. But this one had raw feeding study data from a rat study. And it turns out the rats refused to eat the tomato. What do they know? You know it's not just rats that refuse to eat the genetically engineered tomato, but farmers and scientists and reporters report that when given a choice, a whole slew of animals have avoided eating the genetically engineered choice. Cows, pigs, elk, deer, raccoons, geese, squirrels, mice and rats have all shown a preference or a complete avoidance when given a choice between the GM and the non gm. So it's my job to raise people to the level of animals. So they force fed these rats the tomato. Seven of 20 females developed stomach lesions. Seven of 40 died within two weeks and were replaced in the stomach. Now there's no more Flavor Saver tomato on the market. It was taken off for marketing reasons. Tomatoes are gone, there's no more potatoes on the market. They were here and then they also left for marketing reasons. There was another set of potatoes that were very famous and that came out of the UK's desire to create long term safety studies, the same type of studies that the FDA scientists had asked for but were denied. But the UK government very pro gm, they wanted to prove to bolster the confidence of consumers about GMOs. So they offered a grant of about $3 million and gave it to this man. Dr. Arpad Puztai, the world's leading expert in his field, worked at the top nutritional research institute at the UK and he was working with 20 scientists over three different institutes to create the long term safety testing protocol that was to be implemented as policy for the UK government and was eventually planned to be implemented EU wide. Now, what Dr. Poustaille did is he created some potatoes with his team, genetically engineered to produce an insecticide. They took a gene from a snowdrop plant, they put it into the potato and the potato was supposed to kill certain insects that tried to eat the potato plant. But he put his potatoes through the protocol and he fed it to rats. And he fed with a complete and balanced diet the genetically engineered potato raw, baked and boiled three different groups. He also took natural potatoes as a control. Then he took a third control, natural potatoes spiked with the pesticide that the genetically engineered potatoes were engineered to produce. So this was natural potato plus insecticide. This was GM potato creating the same insecticide in the same quantity. And then there was natural. It turns out only this group got sick. Only the group eating the genetically engineered potatoes showed significant damage in 10 days. The groups that ate the potato or the potatoes spiked with the insecticide did not show that damage. So what caused the problem? Somehow it was the process of genetically engineering the potato that apparently created changes in the potatoes that caused damage to the rats. Now, Dr. Poustai, soon after discovering this, was invited to speak on television in the UK and he was given permission by his director to discuss a bit about his research, not the details because it hadn't been published yet. And so he was interviewed and it went on for two and a half minutes and he said he didn't think it was appropriate for the companies to be treating the population as guinea pigs. Well, when this came out in Europe, it was very significant. The top researcher in his field, working at the top research institute, working on the protocols for testing that was going to be part of the EU and the UK government's protocols were saying that GM foods were unsafe. Well, he was a hero at his prestigious institute. The director took all the phone calls, actually rerouted the calls so they wouldn't actually get to Arpad Bushtai. It all came to the director. He wrote his own press release that this is very world class studies. He was expecting that a lot of money would be starting to pour into the institute to repeat this, however, he was a little naive, right? In retrospect. The TV show was played Monday night, Tuesday night, Tuesday afternoon, two phone calls were allegedly placed from the UK Prime Minister's office, forwarded through the receptionist to that director. The next morning, Dr. Pustai was fired from his job after 35 years he was silenced with threats of a lawsuit. The 20 member research team was disbanded. They never implemented the long term safety protocols. Instead, the Institute started putting out a series of statements designed to destroy the reputation of Dr. Pustai and in particular his study and to bolster the reputation of the Biotechnology Institute industry. And for seven months they continued a tirade and he was unable to speak until in the seventh month he was invited to speak to the Parliament. And that lifted the gag order and allowed him to get his data back, which was then submitted and published in the Lancet. And it remains the most in depth animal feeding study yet on genetically engineered food, showing that it's the process that is likely dangerous. Now, I asked Dr. Poustai, I said, what was your most shocking moment? Can anyone guess why I asked that question? Because I was writing a book. I'm looking for shocking moments. I don't want this to be boring. I figured I needed to get the X File stuff, you know, And I got it. I got it. I got UC Berkeley professor who says the senior Mexican government official threatened him, claiming we know where your children go to school, trying to get them not to publish, publish evidence that GM corn had contaminated the indigenous corn varieties in Mexico. I got Fox TV News reporters shut up by Monsanto's attorney, promising dire consequences to Fox News and Rupert Murdoch if they blew the whistle on their genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. I got threats from Monsanto's attorney that canceled books, that caused shredded magazines, that rigged research, hidden evidence that was made public, stolen documents from the FDA that were published. Here's one. When Monsanto wanted to show that injections of bovine growth hormone did not interfere with fertility of cows, they apparently added cows to the study that were pregnant before they were injected. That was from stolen documents from the fda, later published. So I was looking for X File type stuff and I got it and I was asking a question. And this is because. Yeah, yeah. And this has become the world's best selling book on GMOs because people like to read that kind of stuff. So I wove into those stories why this stuff is dangerous and the science. So people don't necessarily read it for the science, but they get it by the time the story is over. So I was the only one that asked Dr. Poustai that question because I was the only one that reported on it. And it turns out it wasn't being fired from his job. That was the most shocking moment. It wasn't discovering the damage to the rats. It was months earlier when he was still a pro GM scientist working in his office. The director of Professor Philip James walked in, put a stack of about 700 pages on the desk, and they invited ARPD's wife Susan into the room. She was a senior researcher there. Professor said, these are the submissions from the six or seven biotech companies for their crops submitted to the committee to approve them. He was on the committee with 11 others. The minister of agriculture is a meeting in Brussels and wants a scientific opinion on these pages. Now. Arpad Pustai looked at these pages on his desk. He looked at his director, who he had known for years, and looked back at the pages and realized this man would never read these many pages, nor would the other 11 members of the committee. They were committee men. They were not working scientists. He and his wife, however, had been part of the team designing the ideal testing protocol for more than two years. They were among the most qualified humans on earth to evaluate the stock. Said, how much time do we have? Professor said, two and a half hours. Those two and a half hours were the most shocking moments. He said to me, Jeffrey, it was a turning point in my life. I realized what I was doing, and what they were doing was diametrically opposed. I was doing safety studies. They were doing as little as possible to get their foods on the market as quickly as possible. He said, it was flimsy, superficial, poor. He said, you know what bad science is, and this was bad science. So he called the minister and said, I wasn't planning to give you a strong recommendation after only 2 and a half hours, but there's definitely not enough information to allow these foods to be fed to human beings. The minister said, well, I don't know why you're telling me this. Those foods are already approved. They've been on the market for two years. So it was a shock also to find out that the committee just let it fly by and that the foods that none of the scientists knew that the GM foods had already been on the market. The people in the UK didn't know. But what Arpod Puztai realized was that his potatoes would have made it onto the market also if industry had done their studies on his potatoes, because they didn't check for the things he checked for. What was worse, however, was that the soy and corn and tomatoes that made it to the market had never been tested for those things and were created from the same process that he used to create the potatoes. Remember, it was the process, it caused the problem, not the insecticide. So what happened to those rats? Well, they had potentially Precancerous cell growth in the digestive tract, smaller brains, livers and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, damaged immune system, among others. Here's a picture of the intestinal wall with the GM fed right, GM fed rats on the right and the non GM on the left showing proliferative cell growth. Here's a picture of the stomach wall of the rats to scale. This is potentially precancerous. They didn't find tumors, but this was 10 days. And this kind of reaction might be happening in us, but we don't know because the soy and corn and cotton and canola and all that, they've never been tested to the extent that our Pod Poustai's tests had tested. So this is the first possible problem, that the process itself can cause significant damage to the DNA and to the composition of plants. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to change channels here a bit. I told you that my first book was about shocking moments. It's a storybook. So that was a story. The first chapter of the book is about Arpad Pustai. There's a chapter about this. There's different chapters about different stories, but this. And then I wrote the book. I traveled around the world, 30 countries, six continents, and was speaking to a lot of senior political leaders. And I realized I was giving them my book and I was hoping that they'd actually read a book. Now I know that some have and I know it's made a big difference. For example, a co op in Vermont set up a table outside the co op and if you give 10 bucks to them, they gave a book to a legislation and so they gave it to all the legislators. And Vermont was the first state to pass any state regulation on GMOs. And someone, a master's student, did a thesis on the impact of seeds of deception on the vote. And it turns out it had a significant vote, a significant impact on the vote. One representative said it spread like wildfire and was the basis for every conversation about GMOs. Once it arrived, he said he changed his vote. In the middle of it, I went to, to the statehouse. Others changed, came to me and said, I read your book. It changed my mind. So I know that if they get through it, it'll have an impact. And I have, you know, after four years of it being on the market, I get these emails, you know, the kind of vibrating, said, I've just finished your book and I've been through every cupboard of my house and I've Taken everything out. What can I do, you know? So I know it has power, but getting these ADD politicians to read it is a tough road to hoe. So I had this conundrum. I had a second book in mind to do the same kind of stories about agriculture and the environment. This is all about health. But then I had this vision about a format that could satisfy the ADD politician and the scientist. And so I wrote a second book, which I thought was going to take three months. It took two years and it has two page spreads. ADD politician is staff. See, I gave this book to the Minister of Agriculture, the Secretary of Agriculture, in May, and I gave it to him. I said, I wrote this book for you. I said, I work. I said, I work with more than 30 scientists over the last two years to combine all the known health risks of GMOs. And here it is. And he said, took it. He said, thank you very much. And I took it back from him. And I said, and I wanted to show you. You see, you only have to read this line, right? And flip the page and read this line, right? And if you want to read the bullet points and the quote from the scientists, fine, and give it to your staff to read this side. And I closed it and gave it to him. He said, thank you very much. So this book came out in April, and I have since presented it to him and the chairman of the Ag Committee, Senate ag committee, in 75, 35 congressional offices in the European Parliament in Brussels and the European Parliament office in Dublin and UN Conference, and to the senior people in the government in Brazil. And it's been presented by about 20 or 30 organizations around the world to their policymakers and to the media, basically saying, this is overwhelming, irrefutable evidence that genetically engineered foods are unsafe. 65 health risks, 20 adverse reactions, and 45 theoretical risks of the adverse reactions. We see thousands of allergic and toxic reactions in humans, thousands of sick, sterile and dead animals, damage to virtually every system studied in lab animals, and numerous assumptions that were used as the basis for safety, which have been overturned. And so this is being used to reframe the debate around the world, saying these 65 risks are now your checklist, which means that the industry now has to respond with evidence to counter each of the risks. If they do, we have no health safety argument. If they can't, they have no defense for putting the crops in our mouths. So this often has opened doors to speak to medical people, to speak to decision makers, you know, superintendents of schools, science teachers, nutritionists. They look at it and they go, oh my God, let's go over this. We're going to change channels and we're going to go over this. I want to describe just five of the categories. I divided into eight categories of what can go wrong. We'll look at five of them and give just choice examples of things that have gone wrong or can go wrong with genetically engineered food. So we're going to change from the story mode to the science mode. So this is how, this is a schematic of a transgene. A transgene is what you take and you put inside the DNA of another organism. You'll notice there's a promoter, there's a gene and a terminator. The promoter is the on switch, like the light bulb that turns the whole thing on. It says start reading here, continue to read, continue to read, continue to read. And it causes the DNA to be transcribed or to be turned into rna. I don't want to use too much jargon here, DNA, rna, proteins, stuff. So the DNA turns to RNA and it starts that process with the promoter and then the terminator. It's not terminator technology with sterile seeds, it's just an estops. It says stop reading here. So that has to be read over and over again. And so they take, let's say they want to turn corn into a pesticide, which they've done. They take a gene from soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, which creates a pesticide. They take the gene out, they make some changes into it, make it a synthetic gene so it works better in plants. They make millions of copies and they put it into a gene gun, literally a gene gun. They used to use actually a.22 caliber, now it's a little more, looks nicer. And they blast the millions of genes into millions of cells, hoping that some of those genes make it into the DNA of some of those cells. That's their precise method of insertion. They don't know where it ends up. They don't know what happens when it gets in there. And they can't tell where it ends up or if it's gotten into those genes. So they have to add one other thing. Between the promoter and the gene, they put an antibiotic resistant marker gene, something that when it gets into the DNA, it'll promote. It'll create a protein which renders the cell invincible to a particular antibiotic. So what they do after they do the gene gunshot is they douse the whole plate of cells with an antibiotic, killing them all, except the very few that ended up with the gene inside the DNA. Then they take those cells which have been selected, meaning they've properly been transformed, and they grow them through cloning or tissue culture into a plant. Sometimes they grow it from there into many plants so that they can have lots of seeds. Now, this process, the blasting of the gene, creates mutations right around the site of the insertion and other places as well. It can delete genes. One study showed 13 genes were knocked out when a single gene was put in. Sometimes it'll end up nested inside a gene or next to it. And in fact, it's a functioning. It can turn genes off permanently. The promoter, which is only supposed to turn on this foreign gene, can actually turn on other Natural genes permanently 24,7 around the clock at high volume, overproducing, who knows what, carcinogen, allergen, toxin, anti nutrients, something good, we don't know. It's a genetic roulette, which is the name of my book. I was thinking about this dart throwing into the gene as a kind of a genetic roulette, One of the ways that we're gambling with our health. So lots of mutations, deletions can occur as a result of this process. Now, in addition, one study inserted a gene into the DNA, and up to 5% of all the expressing genes changed their levels of protein expression, indicating that genes don't act like individual units like legos, that you can snap into place like individual things. Hardly anything in life actually works that way. But that is the the assumption behind genetically engineered foods. But it turns out that assumption has been broken by a scientific understanding. And this is a July 1st New York Times article which says the presumption that genes operate independently has been institutionalized. It is the economic and regulatory foundation on which the entire biotechnology industry is built. Evidence of a network genome shatters the scientific basis for virtually every official risk assessment of today's commercial biotech products, from genetically engineered crops to pharmaceuticals. Yet to date, every attempt to challenge safety claims for biotech products has been categorically dismissed or derided as unscientific. So let's say you mess up the DNA. Okay, what can that do? Well, it can change the rna, which also can change proteins, and they interact to create natural compounds, and they can be messed up. And a plant can have thousands of natural compounds, any one of which might change its expression, or it might have new proteins and new natural compounds, maybe new unnatural compounds. So we're talking about massive collateral damage, and that is the appropriate terminology. You have an intention to do one thing and you do massive collateral damage. Throughout the DNA and throughout the plant. That's the first cause of problems. You'll be tested on this. The second is the protein that you intend to produce may be harmful. Let's pretend as the biotechnologists do that you can just snap a gene into place like a Lego and it'll produce the protein that you want. What are the proteins that they're producing? Well, there are two major traits. The first is herbicide tolerance. Here's how that goes. Monsanto found a bacterium growing in a chemical waste dump facility in the presence of their herbicide Roundup. And they figured let's put it in the food supply. So they took the gene out of the bacterium that allowed the bacteria to survive Roundup and put it into soybeans and corn and cotton and canola. Let's talk about soybeans. And so now the soybean plants grow in the field and you can spray the field with Roundup herbicide and the Roundup ready soybeans don't die, just all the other biodiversity in the field, all the weeds, all the plants, they die. So you end up with a clean field. It's basically a weed management system. Actually, it's a money making system for the former chemical company Monsanto to sell more of its herbicide. Because when you buy the Roundup Ready seeds, you sign a contract that you will only buy Monsanto's version of the Roundup herbicide. And you sign a contract saying you will not replant your seeds, which will go back to the seed dealer every year. There's Liberty Link products which are designed to tolerate Liberty herbicide. Then there's these pesticide producing crops. Corn and cotton are the two commercialized crops that contain this Bt toxin from a soil bacteria that we talked about. About 80% of the crops are herbicide tolerant, 20% are BT producing. There's actually some overlap with both. Now let's take a look at the Bt toxin of the farmers or gardeners that were here. How many people have actually sprayed their garden with Bt or their crops with Bt? It is a natural pesticide. You take the spores and the bacteria put it in spray form and you spray it and it kills. But, and the EPA and the biotechnology companies say, see, it has a history of safe use. Let's put in the food. And in fact, they say even if you did eat it, it's destroyed during digestion. And even if it did survive digestion, no problem because there's no receptor cells in human beings or mammals. So it's completely harmless. And so because of those assumptions. We don't have to test to see if our assumptions are correct. Well, it turns out the assumptions were wrong. People do react to the spray. In fact, about 500 people reported allergic type reactions. Some had to go to the hospital when in the Pacific Northwest they sprayed Bt for gypsy moths. And there's plenty of evidence in the literature that farmers, when mixing the BT or spilling it on themselves, have to go to the hospital, had some kind of severe problems when they fed the BT in its natural form to mite, it survived digestion. In fact, it destroyed some of the cells in the lower part of the small intestine, also creating excessive cell growth there. It also created an immune response in the mice as powerful as cholera toxin, and allowed the mice. It created a kind of a multiple chemical sensitivity in the mice, so that they were now reacting to other compounds that they were formerly not reacting to. And the actual composition of the Bt has sections that are identical to known allergens. Now, the Bt in the crops, however, is not the same as the Bt in the spray. It's thousands of times more concentrated in the crops. In the spray, it's not only less concentrated, but it can wash off. It can biodegrade in the sun. It does biodegrade in the sun, but not when it's produced inside every cell and every bite of a corn crop. And it's designed to be more toxic in its natural form. It's got a safety catch. When it's produced, it actually is called a pro. It waits till it gets into the alkaline gut of the insect and then it breaks through the gut walls, Killing the animal, killing the insect. But they create changes in the genetic structure when it's put into the crop, so it's immediately active and immediately toxic. The safety catch is not created in the plant. Now, in India, hundreds of laborers dealing with Bt cotton got a surprise when they started introducing Bt varieties into their fields. All of a sudden, many, many are now developing allergic type reactions from picking the cotton, from loading it onto trucks, from cleaning it in ginning mills and ginning factories, where some people have to take antihistamines every day just to go to work. Even leaning against a pile of cotton has been a cause for allergic type reactions in some of these workers. Now, what is of great interest is that the specific symptoms that they are reporting are identical to the symptoms reported by the 500 or so patients people in the Pacific Northwest. The list is identical except for exacerbations of asthma in those that were sprayed with Bt. Otherwise, it's sneezy, runny nose, watery and red, eyes, itching, burning, inflammation, red and swelling, skin fever, and some went to the hospital. So I submit that they're reacting to the same Bt, although in the cotton it's more concentrated, which means in cotton, at some point, hopefully the BT is denatured, but maybe not. Maybe it's still in diapers, maybe it's still in bandages, feminine hygiene products, we don't know because no one has tracked it. But it is in the cotton fiber, apparently where these people are picking now. After they harvest the cotton out of the plant, they allowed sheep to graze in the fields. And within one week, one out of four sheep died. An estimated 10,000 this year. That was last year. This year, not only are sheep dying, but there's also reports of cattle dying and goats dying. So the Andhra Pradesh government has advised farmers not to allow their animals to graze on Bt cotton plants. In Germany, a farmer claims that 12 of his cows died and others had to be killed who were sick because of a certain variety of BT corn that he was field testing for Syngenta. Syngenta actually paid part the of of his bill for the loss, but didn't admit fault. About 25 farmers in the Midwest report that their pigs or cows became sterile after eating certain varieties of genetically modified corn. Their pigs had false pregnancies or gave birth to bags of water, or were sterile. And the sterility also happened in cows and bulls. In the Philippines, when one community, one village woke up one day while the corn started to pollinate, there was this big stench coming from the corn field. Some of them went, his face swelled up, had trouble breathing. And this mysterious symptoms of disease started spreading from those closest to the cornfield to those furthest away. So virtually the whole village was stricken by this disease. During the time of pollination the following year, the same type of seeds were planted in four more villages with the same results. Now the results, the type of symptoms they had were not identical. For those who were picking the cotton or being sprayed, there was overlap, as you can see, with sneezing, asthma, coughs, nosebleeds, swelling, fever. But they also had headache, stomach ache, dizziness, diarrhea, vomiting, weakness and numbness. They also report deaths among water buffaloes, horses and chickens and five unexplained human deaths. In Monsanto's own study that was made public because of a lawsuit, it turns out the rats that were fed their genetically engineered corn had symptoms of toxicity in the liver and kidneys. They also had indicators of blood pressure problems. Allergies, infections, or diabetes, disease, higher blood sugar and anemia. But Monsanto's, in an incredible way that they are, dismissed it as not biologically significant without proper explanation. So this is the second reason why things could go wrong. And even if it. That is, even if the protein you're intending to produce is produced, it might cause a problem. But the third reason is that the protein that you get in the plant may be very different than the protein that you intended to produce in the plant. Here's why. Remember, the transgene is put into the DNA. It's got a specific code on it. The code is like a computer program. It creates a complementary RNA strand that has the code on it, which gets translated into amino acids. And so the code of the DNA ultimately dictates the amino acids. The amino acids are the building block or the backbone of principle proteins. All right, so when you put that gene in through the gene gun or through the bacterial infection method, which we didn't talk about, it can cause changes in that trans. In the. In the gene genetic code in the transgene. It can mix it up, it can have other codes thrown in. It can truncate sections. In fact, if you look at the corn on the market right now, you have one that has 30% lopped right off. Only 70% of the transgene ended up. That stop signal never made it. So when it's being read, it continues to read and starts to read into the plant DNA also. So the protein it creates includes some of the amino acids coated from the plant, kind of like a fusion between the two. Another corn variety has a point mutation where something's different. It's now creating perhaps a different protein. One single amino acid difference could change a harmless protein into a deadly one. In addition, once it's in there, it might theoretically be unstable. It might rearrange over time. In fact, in Europe, when they looked at six varieties of genetically engineered crops and they actually sequenced the transgene, in every single case, it was different than the sequence that had been registered by the companies, suggesting that it's rearranging over time, suggesting that it's creating proteins that may be completely different than intended and never tested. And even if it is the exact same sequence that you want, it might start in a different place and end up with a completely different protein, or it might be processed to produce multiple proteins. It's operating in a different environment, not the same species where it evolved. Let's pretend as they do that it creates the exact amino acid sequence that you're looking for. And by the way, they don't even check. They'll look at five or 25amino acids out of 600 or more and say, well, the first five were what we expected, so we'll expect the rest to be the same. And if you do research on their plants, sometimes you have to sign a contract saying, I will not sequence the amino acids. I wonder why. But suppose it's the right amino acid sequence. It still might be a problem, because once proteins are created, that sequence of amino acids gets folded all up into massively complex formulations. And it's often done by these other proteins called chaperone folders, that have evolved in the same plant for thousands or millions of years. But now you have a gene producing a protein that's never before been in that plant. So maybe it'll get misfolded. Can that be bad? Well, prions are an example of a misfolded protein. They're responsible for mad cow. And the human equivalent, Parkinson's is tracked to an aggregate misfold called amyloid fibrils. These are real potential dangers of misfolded proteins. Another example of of changes in the protein, even if the amino acid sequence is the same, is these additional molecules that attach themselves to the protein like sugar chains, which are known to be potentially allergenic. And they can change a harmless protein into a potentially deadly one. And that appears to be what happened with these peas, Australian peas being developed to produce an insecticide. They took a gene from a kidney bean and they put it into the pea so that the pea now spontaneously kills peewee. And then these scientists decided to do a little test. So they isolated the protein from the kidney beans and they exposed it to mice, and the mice were fine. Then they isolated the protein from the peas and they exposed it to mice, but the mice were not fine. They had an inflammation reaction, which suggests that now the peas are allergenic and might kill people with anaphylactic shock. So they decided in their wisdom not to put the peas on the market, because if they had, they would have exported it from Australia to India, where they make it into matar paneer, which could have all of a sudden changed the reactions of the people who've been eating peas for generations. What was interesting was they actually sequenced the amino acids and the amino acids were the same. Same in the kidney beans and in the peas. So how come these identical proteins cause different reactions? So they used another study and found that there was a subtle change in the attached sugar molecules. And where they were so surprised because the Kidney bean and the pea are very closely related species. They weren't expecting to see any change in genetically engineered crops. You take genes from bacteria and put them into plants, very unrelated species, but they don't even check to see the changes in the protein. They just assume it's the same. What's of interest is that these peas had already passed the studies that were necessary to get them on the market. This mouse study that was used had never before been used to test genetically engineered food crops. It is not necessary. It has never before been done. The study which showed the slight changes in the sugar chains, I know of only one GM food crop where that had been used, so those peas would have made it to the market. So when Monsanto was asked by a reporter, what do you think about these peas being taken off the market? The Monsanto spokesperson said, well, this shows that the regulatory system works. It shows that the regulatory system works. He didn't mention that none of his products have ever been through those studies. Now the fourth possible problem is that there could be more herbicide. There are more herbicide residues on herbicide tolerant crops. You spray right on top of the crops and you spray a lot more. And so we're taking more herbicides into our body when we eat genetically engineered crops. Now this Liberty Link variety, it's very interesting because of some technical issues. It takes the toxic herbicide and it detoxifies. Studies have shown that that detoxified residue builds up in the plant tissue and we eat that. However, when they take that same detoxified, supposedly detoxified compound and they feed it to mammals, some of it retoxifies inside the gut and ends up deposited in the organs. So if we eat this Liberty Link rice, which is not yet out there, or corn, which is, it might actually create herbicides inside of us. Now they fed some of this Liberty Link corn to these chickens and they died at twice the rate. But this was an industry funded study and the way they design it, man, it's unbelievable how good they are at rigging their research. They have got bad science down to a science. In this case, even a doubling of death rate was not statistically significant. So the fifth possible cause is that genes might transfer to gut bacteria or into our DNA, meaning the gene that you stick into the soy, corn, cotton or canola may end up inside our DNA producing this BT toxin or this Roundup ready toxin thing or whatever. Now originally scientists at the fda, when the flavor Saver tomato was first presented, they were asked the Division of Anti Infective Drugs, what Do you think about using an antibiotic resistant marker gene in the flavor food? Well, they were appalled. They wrote in all capital letters, it would be a serious health hazard. It would be a serious health hazard to introduce a gene that codes for antibiotic resistance into the general, into the intestinal flora of the general population. Can anyone guess why we are in a situation where our antibiotic medicine is becoming less and less effective? Because when you expose it over and over to bacteria, the bacteria mutate and develop resistance. So now you have antibiotic resistant diseases because of the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed, in antiseptics, et cetera. And they were concerned that using these antibiotic resistant marker genes in food, they might transfer to soil bacterium. And if we eat this food, it might end up transferring to gut bacteria which can mate with pathogenic bacteria passing on the resistance, causing the pathogenic disease not to be killable by antibiotics. What did the biotic industry say? Oh, no problem, we've thought of that. But we have an assumption, and here's our assumption. Our assumption is genes are destroyed during digestion, so they can't transfer. They didn't consider it by transfer to the bacteria in the mouth, but never mind. Genes are destroyed during digestion, so they laid it on the market. So in 200 million acres, I don't know, huge number of acres, there's these antibiotic resistant genes in the food. Now the FDA scientists said, well, if you put it in the market, please monitor to see if it is causing problems. They never did that. In fact, there has not been one human clinical trial on GM food. There's only been one human feeding study on genetically engineered foods. And it was to look at whether genes are destroyed during digestion. Brilliant study. They took seven human volunteers with colostomy bags, they had their lower intestines removed, not for the study. And they fed them a soy burger, soy milkshake, genetically engineered soy, looked in the colostomy bag and whoa. Genetically engineered DNA survived passage through the stomach and the small intestine in much higher quantities than they anticipated. But they also found in three of the seven volunteers inside the bacteria of the DNA in their gut bacteria was the part of the gene that had been inserted into soybeans from a previous meal before they were fed. It was stably integrated there. And then they took those microorganisms and they applied Roundup's herbicide active ingredient and they didn't die. So we have Roundup ready gut bacteria, the gene that was found in the chemical race dump put into the soy, is now Living inside human beings in their gut, bacteria, along with the promoter which turns it on, likely creating this protein inside of us. The protein which may be toxic or allergenic, we don't know. So what can transfer. The promoter can transfer. It does transfer to gut bacteria. Maybe it transfers to our own DNA. It's an on switch. It can turn other things on. So if it transfers to gut bacteria, it might turn on something and overproduce that. If it transfers to our own DNA, it might turn on something and overproduce that. Inside our DNA and in plant DNA are ancient embedded viruses. Ancient, passed on from ancient species. Usually they're degraded, but maybe they're intact but simply lack their promoter. The promoter put into the GM crops are very aggressive, they're from viruses and they turn on all sorts of things. It's possible it turns on an ancient virus virus, it's possible it turns on a carcinogen. It's also in its own unstable, it has a recombinant hot spot. It might break up and rearrange. So now we may be creating random on switches, random virus activations and instability in genes. Now, normally genes don't transfer readily from plants to bacteria. There are natural barriers. The structure of the gene is different, it's not easily transferred. If it is transferred, it generally doesn't work. But there's a section in my book, one of those two page spreads. The natural barriers have been removed. They use bacterial genes in the plants which are recognized by the bacteria in the gut, bacteria in the DNA, and it has its own on switch. So if it is transferred, it's on. And a number of other things which mean that we may be allowing genes to transfer between these species inside of us all the time, with no barriers that are normally there colonizing our bacteria. The antibiotic resistant marker gene might transfer. That was the concern. In fact, the British Medical association called for moratorium on GMOs and part was because of the antibiotic resistant marker gene. We know that the roundabouty gene transfers, but what if the BT gene transfers the bt, that pesticide that was associated with the toxins and the allergic reactions, the deaths among the sheep. It might turn our intestinal flora into living pesticide factories, possibly for the rest of our life. From eating a genetically engineered corn chip. They have never tested that. Why? Because the people that did that study with the colostomy bags, it was funded by the pro GM UK government and we heard about them. No more studies were done with that group. So we don't know what's transferring Inside us. So these were the five possible reasons that we talked about. Let's apply them to soy. Okay, let's see if soybeans have these five possible things that can go wrong. What was the first thing that can go wrong with genetically engineered crops that we discussed? Memory loss. It was the mess up of the DNA, right? The process. Yes, the process. Okay, so years after GM soy was on the market, they found. Yes. Oh, by the way, there's a damaged section of DNA right near the insertion which we didn't identify before it went on the market. Oh, and there's two gene fragments, transgene fragments we didn't even see, but they got in there. Also they found altered nutrient levels in the soy. They found that a known allergen called trypsin inhibitor was as much as seven times higher in the gm, cooked GM soy sample compared to the non GM soy sample. They found a new protein, one that had never been intended, somehow created in the soybean that was able to bind with IgE antibodies, meaning it could be an allergen. And these are from the mess up process within the soy. So one out of one so far. What's the second possible cause of problems besides memory loss? Anyone? The protein itself that you intend to produce in the crop might be dangerous. Now, when you stick a protein that's created from bacteria into the food supply and it's never before been in the food supply, you really can't tell if people are going to develop allergic reactions. Why? Because people need to be exposed over time. So there is no surefire guarantee set of tests to prove to say you're not going to get an allergy from this novel protein in your diet. So the WHO and others say let's just look at the structure of the protein and see if it has characteristics similar to known allergens. It's definitely not a robust, powerful gait. It is more like kind of a sieve that lets a lot through. But that's their test and they say if it has sections identical to a known allergen, it should not be approved, or at least it should require further tests. It turns out the protein, the protein of the soy has sections identical to known allergens. But it was approved and it was never subjected to further tests. The third possible problem is that the protein that you intend to create may be different than the one that you get. So it turns out. Let me explain what happened here. This study in Europe looked at the RNA that the transgene was created and so it's supposed to start at the beginning of the transgene. And it did. Okay, there's the rna, there's the rna and wait, there it's supposed to stop, but it's not there. It didn't stop, it's continuing. And the RNA is also there from that extra transgene fragment that got inserted that no one knew about for years. So now that's also turned into the same part of the rna. But now over here, it's producing RNA from that scrambled section of DNA that have never before been in nature scrambled because of the process of gene insertion. So now the size of the RNA is way longer than it was supposed be to. And then the cell processed the RNA into four different variations, shuffling it around. So now you have four different RNA variants, none of which were intended and all of which might create proteins which might be allergenic or toxic. So now what was supposed to happen inside there, the mechanics was completely broken down. And the scientists in their published peer reviewed scientific literature said, by the way, this stop signal that's used in soy is also used in most of the other genetically engineered crops. And it's faulty. Which means all the crops out there might be producing some kind of RNA that was never intended and might produce some proteins that were never intended. So that's three out of three so far for soy. Fourth is increased use of pesticides of the herbicide. And so it turns out Roundup, when you spray it over and over, the weeds develop resistance. Just like the bacteria becomes antibiotic resistant, the weeds become herbicide tolerant. And in the beginning, when they started planting, this herbicide use went down, then it leveled off and then it went up and now it's skyrocketing. In the first nine years, 138 million pounds more herbicide was used in the United States. By 2004, approximately 86% more Roundup was used on Roundup ready soil acres than non Roundup acres. But last month we discovered when we looked at USDA statistics by Charles Benbrook, who did the study. Now, in the last two years, an additional 120 million pounds have been used. So it went from 134 million in nine years and an additional 120 million in two years. There was a 38% increase in a single year from 2005 to 2006, approximately doubling the use of Roundup over 10 years. In fact, because Roundup is now so ineffective against these things, the farmers have to use really toxic stuff to kill like 2,4D, up 238% between 2004 and 2006. So now we've got four out of four with Roundup Ready soy the fifth. Of course, you know, genes transfer, that was the only study they tested. So, yes, it has five out of five potential things that can go wrong in the mechanics within the plant. It doesn't mean that the plant is harmless, harmful, it just means it's out of control. Well, I guess the herbicides would be harmful. Definitely. Are there any case studies of problems with genetically engineered soy? Well, I got to tell you, there's very few published peer reviewed animal feeding studies. About two dozen. We're talking two dozen. And that means that's pathetic. So we have to build a case with some of the research that's studied, that's published, some of the research that's not published medical evidence, anecdotal evidence, to look at the whole picture like epidemiologists do. So we know that soon after soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed by 50%. Why? Well, we've discussed a known allergen, trypsin inhibitor, up by seven times in one study in cooked soy. Maybe that's it. There's a new allergy allergen protein in soy. Maybe that's it. The protein that's created has sections identical to a known allergen. Maybe that's it. There's more herbicide residues. Maybe that's it. There's also a reduction in pancreatic enzymes that help break down proteins. So if proteins last longer in the digestive system, it means they're longer available to create a allergic reaction. Maybe that's it. We don't know. We just know. A coincidence, maybe. However, one very small study did a skin prick test where they found, oh, there's eight people that are reacting to GM soy, but only seven of them react to natural soy. One person reacts only to the GM soy. So there's something different about the profile. Let's not follow up. That's the thing, when these problems happen, they don't. They're not followed up. They're either ignored or denied or suppressed. When mice and rabbits were fed Roundup Ready soybeans, they developed altered cell structures and altered enzymes or gene expression in livers, kidneys, pancreas and hearts. And the higher metabolic activity was suggestive of a toxic insult. Mice fed GM soy had altered sperm cells. Those were the male mice, in case you're wondering. And then when both parents were fed GM soy, the embryos had changed DNA expression compared to those who are fed natural soy. Now, I spoke at the European Parliament office in June and I spoke with one of the panelists. There was a scientist, leading researcher at the Russian National Academy of Sciences and she presented evidence which I've already talked about in other cases about her rat study. These are Russian speaking rats and they volunteered to participate in a study with rounded bready soy. And these are female rats that started eating GM soy with a complete and balanced diet two weeks before they conceived and continued through pregnancy and lactation. And within the first three weeks after giving birth, more than 50% of their offspring died. More than half the mothers who were fed natural soy only had an offspring mortality of 10%. In addition, these are one day's death rate is the pictures of the. Now the rats looked different, the size was different, the shape was different. When the parents, when the mothers were fed GM soy, those are the ones that were fed non GM soy. Those are the ones that were fed GM soy. And the size among about 36% of the GM soy group, very small. Here's a comparison of GM fed versus natural fed, same age, another one. Now they tried to mate those offspring and they couldn't mate. So there was indications, preliminary evidence of sterility. Here's a picture of testicles from rats that were fed genetically engineered soy in Russia. Different color. You could see the cell structure is completely different as well. And here's on the right side, liver slides of GM fame rats compared to the ones on the left. Just very different. I'm not qualified to comment on these. These were given to me after lunch with members of Parliament by the scientists without explanation. I haven't had a chance to follow up. So if GM crops are so bad, how come we don't see more problems? Well, there's a very chilling reason why we don't and that was made clear in the late 1980s when thousands of people got sick. Actually 5 to 10,000 fell sick. Some were permanently disabled. 100 died because of L tryptophan, a food supplement, but not L tryptophan generically, L tryptophan from Shoadenko kk, a corporation in Japan that was genetically engineering the bacteria to produce the tryptophan. More economically, you've seen genetic engineering is prone to unpredicted side effects. And this particular line of L tryptophan for years had contaminants. Contaminants. And these contaminants almost were certainly a result of the genetic engineering process and were almost certainly the cause of this deadly epidemic. But it took years to identify and even then it was almost missed. The reason why they found it was because the disease had three concurrent characteristics. It was rare. Actually, it was a new disease with rare or unique symptoms. It was acute, serious enough to get people to go to hospitals and doctors, and it came on quickly. What would happen if all three were not in place? What if it were cancer, diabetes, asthma, obesity, heart disease? It would still be on the market. What if it were not serious? What if it were frequent colds? Or memory loss? Or memory loss? It's still on the market. No. What if it didn't come on quickly? What if it took 20 years? What if it took the next generation? So what about the GM crops already on the market? Might they be responsible for the huge increase in migraine medicine sales in obesity and diabetes, in the doubling of food related illnesses between 1994 and 2001 in autism? We don't know because no one is looking. There's no post market surveillance, no human clinical trials, no proper evaluation of all the things that could go wrong inside the DNA, RNA protein. And the approvals are based on disproved or untested assumptions and industry studies designed to avoid finding problems. Maybe someday in the future we can predictably and safely manipulate the DNA for the benefit of human health and the environment, even in our food. But right now we're feeding the products of an infant science to millions of people and putting them in the environment where they can never be recalled. We don't have a technology to recall genetically modified salmon from the ocean, mosquitoes from the air, and yet there are genetically modified salmon in laboratories waiting to be introduced and there's genetically modified mosquitoes waiting to be let out. And we have no technology to fully clean up the gene pool that's already contaminated with corn and soy, etc. It can outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste. I just want to give a microcosm of one other genetically engineered food product and that is bovine growth hormone. We've mentioned it briefly. I'm not going to describe the whole, whole information about it just to touch on it so that you'll know that this is also out there and there's some good news about it as well. Now my organization, the Institute for Responsible Technology, has, with other organizations educating consumers about the potential health dangers of genetically engineered foods. But in this case, RBGH treated milk. And we have together achieved something great. There's a tipping point, a slow motion tipping point. With RBGH. September 2000, the Boston Globe wrote the region's biggest dairies are rushing to rid their bottled milk of artificial growth hormones. If more Dairies jump on board. It could be a tipping point. October 2006 New York Times. Dairy companies are bowing to the natural foods trend by shunning milk from cows treated with G growth hormone. A manager of milk producers co op was quoted saying it seems to be an explosion in the industry. Starbucks has committed by the end of this year to eliminate all milk products from its company owned stores that are from RBGH treated cows. Safeway in their Pacific Northwest processing plants has removed it. Reuters reported the same. Kroger's took it out. Publix took it out. It is like this chain reaction going around. The tipping point has arrived because consumers are at the top of the food chain and there is enough consumers now shunning hormones in milk so that Monsanto is backed against the wall. And they actually tried to get the FDA and the FTC to make it illegal for companies to put the label on their milk saying no rbgh. Now they're running. Now they're running radio ads in Ohio to consumers saying RBGH helps farmers so you should drink milk with RBGH injected cows. So what could be the tipping point for GM crops? I think the tipping point for GM crops could happen very soon. Now we look at the tipping point and we compare it to what it was that was the plans of Monsanto. What were they expecting by now? It turns out Monsanto's plans were to genetically engineer 100% of all commercial seeds in the world and patent them. According to Arthur Anderson, their consultant, who also was Enron's consultant, not incidentally. And another company in January 2004 no, January 1999 projected that by 2000 there would be a 95% takeover of all commercial seeds in the world by genetically engineered foods. So it didn't happen. There's now very few. So what happened? This happened. Harpadpustai Let me read you what happened. Remember the announcements about a projection of five years was in late January of 1999. So listen to what happened and when it happened. This is the first chap first page of the first chapter of my book A Lesson from overseas from Seeds of Deception. When Susan answered the door she was startled to see several reporters standing in front of her. More were running from their cars in her direction and she could see other cars and TV news vans parking along her street. But you all know we can't speak about what happened. We would be sued. It's okay. Now the reporter from Channel 4 television interrupted waving a paper in front of her. They've released your husband. Husband? He can talk to us. Susan took the paper. Arpad, come here, she called to her husband. Arpod Pustai, a distinguished looking man in his late 60s, was already on his way. As his wife showed him the document, the reporter slipped past them into the house, but Arpad didn't notice. He was staring at the paper his wife had just handed him. He recognized the letterhead at once. The Rowett Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland. It was one of the world's leading nutritional institutes and his employer for the previous 35 years until his sudden suspension seven months. Months ago. And there it was, clearly spelled out. They had released their gag order. It could speak. The document was dated that same day, February 16, 1999. In fact, less than 20 minutes before, 30 reporters had sat in the Rowett Institute press conference listening to its director, Professor Philip James, casually mention that the restrictions to Dr. Poustai speaking to the press had been lifted. Before James had finished his sentence, the reporters leaped for the door. They just they jumped into their cars and headed straight to the Pooh Tai's house on Ashley park north, an address most were familiar with, having virtually camped out there seven months earlier. Now those 30 reporters with TV cameras and tape recorders were piled into the Poos ties living room. Arpad Pooztai read the document twice. As he looked up, the reporters started asking him questions all at once. He smiled and breathed more easily than he had in a long time. He had all but given up hope. Now, finally, he had the chance to share what he knew about the dangers of genetically engineered father foods. Within a week, one hundred and fifty nine column feet of articles were written. Within the month, seven hundred and fifty articles, one reporter said. It divided the industry into two warring blocs. April of the same year, Unilever publicly committed to remove genetically engineered ingredients from its European brands. Within a week, so did virtually everyone else. McDonald's, Burger King, Safeway's, Nestle's from their European brands, but not from the US Brands. Why? Because if you ask the average American, have you ever eaten a genetically engineered food in your life? 60% say no. 15% say I don't know. But the European rejection has caused the limit of GM expansion to four major crops in six countries with two major traits. They still want to implement their big plan. They have 172 different species that have been field trial in more than 50,000 field trials in the United States waiting to be approval more in the laboratory. But as long as the European Union, not the government, but the people, the industry responding to the people like RBGH in this country, as long as they are rejecting it. And there's no market that has stalled the introduction of new varieties. I think Oprah Winfrey could end the genetic engineering of the food supply in 60 minutes. Now why do I say that? What is the tipping point that would cause the same kind of stampede away from GM in the United States? Is it like a vote? Do we need 51% of Americans avoiding brands with GM ingredients in order for them to say, well, we've lost half our market share? I think I'll change. GM crops are not like trans fats or sugar. There's no consumer benefits. Kraft Food, the largest food manufacturer in the United States, can simply like Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Trader Joe's before them tell their supply chain, take GMOs out of our brand. I think if 5% of US consumers were buying non GM products consistently, that would be more than the tipping point point. I think Oprah Winfrey could do it in one show. I think a Gore film could do it. But we don't have to wait to see if they do it. We can do it ourselves. My institute is looking not only to try and get to Oprah Winfrey and to create a Gore film, but we've identified targets. Groups with low hanging fruit, very receptive. Religious groups are like the sleeping giant in this debate. If one stirs like the evangelicals believe that GMO means God, move over, it's over. Health professionals. If the food industry realizes that doctors are prescribing to patients not to take their food because it's got GMOs, it's over. Here's one allergy specialist. I used to test for soy allergies all the time. But now that soy is genetically engineered, it is so dangerous that I tell people never to eat it unless it says organic. So we're going to speak to health professionals and we now have the tools to do so if they're busy or if they're not. School meals are under intense scrutiny. Removing junk foods is a big deal right now. There are wellness plans in every school in America. Wellness committees. Improved behavior has been linked to gm. I mean to better food. We are pushing out a GM free school campaign in communities around the United States. We have a video called Hidden Dangers in Kids Meals. It's instant activism. Just add DVD and stir. You show it to a group and you say how many people want to work on a GM free school campaign? And the hands are go up and we have little sign up sheets which say, please tell us what you're interested in, what school you're Associated with what resources you have. We have a 60 page manual, pre written articles, your own website, your own listserv. I welcome you to participate in that. Health conscious shoppers, the fourth demographic. There are 28 million Americans that already buy organic on a regular basis. That's 9.3% of Americans. That's the tipping point. Another 54 million buy organizations on an irregular basis. You ask any of these people, would you choose to eat a GMO if you had the choice? They'd say no. But they don't generally conscientiously avoid it. You, all of us here are health conscious people. We saw the changes here. How many would do it? The hands would go up if they knew that healthy eating starts with no GMOs and how to do it. So our institute has promoted a program called the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America. And we're working with the entire natural food industry to take out all remaining GM ingredients from that science sector to create GMO education centers in all the health food stores, to create non GMO shopping guides in all the health food stores and to define a new standard for non GM which requires third party verification. So we're sure that companies are following what they're saying and we're going to give consumer choice ultimately by in store on shelf labels within two years of products that still may contain GMOs in natural food industry. And this alone might do it. And this is going to come to a health food store near you beginning next year. So these are the ways we're working on this issue and I wanted to invite you to participate. We have ways for you to get the information out. To help reach this tipping point, I will offer you some tools. We have a free monthly column, it's called Spilling the Beans and you can sign up for it in the back or leave your business card. We have a three disc set called the GMO Trilogy with lots of sponsors in the natural food industry. So it brings the price down. It's two DVDs plus a CD. It's got one of the DVDs, it's called hidden Dangers in Kids Meals which we talked about. It's got an award winning European documentary which talks about some of the environmental and agricultural problems. It's got an audio CD called you'd're eating what? Stop eating genetically engineered foods. And please copy this feedback your friends. And that's available as a standalone for a dollar. And you can download it off my website for free and make as many copies as you want. We have the book Genetic Roulette which is the more the scientific presentation, and of course, seeds of deception, which is the storybook. So I want to say it's been fantastic talking to you who have taken food to heart and food to health. And now I feel like I have a whole team. I'll have a whole team. So let's create a GM free world together. Thank you.

Jeffrey Smith's Institute for Responsible Technology is working with world leaders and consumers to help stop the genetic engineering of the food supply. For a consumer toolkit that will give you what you need to avoid buying and eating GM foods, visit www.responsibletechnology.com. you can also become a member of the institute and receive a free DVD with your support. We are grateful for any level of support you can provide. Safe eating, everyone. All right, folks, this Friday I am personally interviewing Dr. Carolyn Dean, author of the Magnesium Miracle. That interview should come out next week's podcast episode number 53, which you're not going to want to miss. And in addition, go give our show a ranking in itunes. It's just one of the little things that you can do for me that helps get the word out about the BenGreenfulFitness.com show. And if you consider donating to our show and I'll put a link right there in the show notes, I will throw on a free T shirt and I'll mail you a midnight black and lime green BenGreenfieldFitness.comt shirts. I put some cool photos, some very interesting videos in the show notes to this podcast. And those show notes actually take a little bit of time to write up to put all the links in. So make sure you go check those out and access some of the material that I have in there. And remember, if you have a question or a comment, you can comment on the blog or you can call 877-209-9439 or finally, just email Ben greenfieldfitness.com and since, well, if you're looking listening to this on Thursday, you can go pick up your new copy of Shape 21@shape21.com Enjoy.