Things to Consider as You Do Your Holiday Gift Shopping

The following excerpt is from Rebecca Burgess’ new book Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy (Chelsea Green Publishing, November 2019) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher.

The simple answer to this question is: a lot. On average, over 80 percent of the cotton grown in the United States annually is genetically modified to withstand the use of a range of herbicides and pesticides, and less than 1 percent is certified organic. And while two-thirds of Americans support GMO labeling for their food, few understand the role GMOs play in their clothing. In fact, we have yet to broach any large-scale public discussion of how GMO agriculture as a whole is impacting the health and diversity of our landscapes, rural economies, and personal health. Due to the omission of these larger conversations we’ve largely left the genetic engineering of fibers out of the land-use ethics debate altogether, and as a result there is little to no transparency offered on garment hangtags enabling us to determine if our clothing is genetically modified or not. Unless we are searching out and purchasing Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified garments. As a result of the large gap between our knowledge of how clothing is made and where the ingredients are sourced from, when we make decisions as a consumer on what to buy, we are largely making them blindly.

As a mother, my first and foremost concern is the well being of my family. Many things can threaten the safety of my family, especially our children, who are more vulnerable due to the underdevelopment of their bodies. One of those things is Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs which have been in our food supply for twenty years, unlabeled.

The safety of GMOs has been highly contested. While proponents of GMOs say that they are safe, recent studies show that they have inherent risks. They say that GMOs happen in nature all the time—like a hybrid. However, GMOs are created only in a lab with a gene gun and by a process that scientists have patented to protect their technology. GMOs are not hybrids and cannot occur naturally in nature. Genetic engineering, for example, the altering of DNA with foreign species, or editing out DNA to remove a trait from a species permanently, or altering DNA or RNAi for a desired trait, does not happen naturally. It is not found in nature in any shape or form. The scientists and media that say GMOs are natural are misleading the public. Many of these scientists are not impartial, but are instead supported by advertising dollars or grants to universities from the GMO/chemical manufacturers and have incentives to make these claims. Regardless of their reasoning, they are certainly ignoring the “precautionary principle”— the principle that the introduction of a new product or process whose ultimate effects are disputed or unknown should be resisted. Any scientist worth his or her salt will admit that many aspects of GMOs are still unknown.

 THIS IS OUR 300th Article! 

Wow! Thanks for being with us on this incredible journey!

Comment to USDA Regarding GMO Regulation
By Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America
August 2, 2019 

The words of this comment are partially attributed to the Center for Food Safety, and partially to Moms Across America (in italics).

The new GMO regulations threaten America and beyond in the following ways

Health:

Our federal health care spending topped 3.5 trillion in 2018. Food is the most impactful factor of our health. American food is toxic, and it is making us sick. It could make us bankrupt.

Thousands of us dedicated our lives to getting GMOs labeled. We thought we were being reasonable and that our government would listen to us. Our previous administration did not. GMOs are still not labeled, and they remain in our food unseen, without warning, and with thousands more in the pipeline.

Now our new administration has signed an executive order that GMO companies will be able to self-determine whether their GMO should be regulated or not. These are the same companies that brought us DDT, PCB's, Agent Orange, and Glyphosate. The same companies that poison the paradise of Hawai'i, that refuse to pay the fees justly award to cancer patients in need of care due to the use of their products, and the same companies that have been found to be ghost writers of "scientific" studies showing that glyphosate is "safe."

These are the people our government trusts to put safe chemicals and genetically modified species in our marketplace, our towns, and our bodies. We do not agree that this is safe. In fact, we believe this is dangerous, corrupt, and criminal. They know that GMOs and chemicals like glyphosate can cause harm and they are allowing this anyway. Or do they? Are they seeing only the industry science and hearing from chemical company CEOs with big donation checks?

OpEd by Zen Honeycutt

I intended to write this article and title it ”How Monsanto Has Ruined Our Lives.” But then I realized it is not just Monsanto who has done these things. They led the way by developing GMOs that can tolerate herbicides and have pesticides built in, but they should not get all the credit. US companies Dow/Dupont, and EU companies Syngenta/ChemChina, BASF, and Bayer/Monsanto have had numerous lawsuits against them as well for egregious crimes against humanity. For now however, because I am not European, I am going to focus on what’s happening in the Good Ol’ US of A.

This is our last chance for GMO Labeling.

Do you want GMOs to be labeled with happy, sunny, smiley faces?

This is what the USDA, due to pressure from big GMO companies no doubt, are proposing.

Do they remind you of something? Perhaps the organic symbols? If you have ever traveled to Europe, you will see these logos below in almost every shop--"BIO" in Europe stand for Organic. And yet the GMO industry wants to label GMOs with BE that stands for "BIO-Engineered Food." The GMO industry is trying to Co-Opt the organic industry!

Disturbing Toxin Test Results in American Children and Food Samples

Surprising Impact for Gluten Free, Vegan, Vegetarian and Organic Consumers

For immediate release:

May 5, 2017 Mission Viejo, CA- Moms Across America releases their report on their recent findings of toxins in 36 American children, tested at Great Plains Lab, along with results from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency(CFIA). The results are disturbing and have an important message for Gluten Free, Vegan and Vegetarian American consumers and food manufacturers.

 “100% of all the children tested positive for serious toxins. 79% of the children tested had ADHD or autism symptoms, 21% did not. Over 50% tested positive levels of 3X higher than the average. We expected the children who ate organic to have lower levels of toxins than the children who did not. This was not the case for the majority of the children. Upon the release of the CFIA glyphosate data we realized why, and we hope consumer and food manufacturers take note of these important findings.” - Zen Honeycutt of Moms Across America.

Honeycutt focused primarily on glyphosate because scientists report that glyphosate increases the harmful impact of other environmental toxins, making the presence of the other 166 chemicals tested for, even more detrimental.

Report from Japan speaking tour, March 1-10

By Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America

March 21,2017

I expected to go to Japan to speak about Moms Across America’s work and warn mothers of the health risks of GMOs and toxins so they could avoid them. Considering the Asian diet, I was sure their health was far better than ours. I was shocked to discover that Japanese, Korean and Filipino children health issues had far surpassed American children. Over 500-800 moms gathered for my presentations in each of the 5 locations, where I learned why the crowds were so large. 

Japanese children have developmental delays 2x higher than the US. Korean children have autism and developmental delays 2-3x higher. According to the Autism Speaks of Philippines, at least 1 million, or 1 out of 33 children in the Philippines had been diagnosed with autism in 2014 (more without healthcare are likely to have symptoms), which is far worse than our current 1 out of 68 children. I was crushed. I was Angry. I was Outraged.

To all our Friends who donated to support Standing Rock,

Please see the updated action page on our website with the video report on our trip to North Dakota. You can also see the full supply list of what has been donated with your support. 

https://yesmaam.nationbuilder.com/protect_our_water

We are so grateful to know such generous, caring people. Thank you for being you!!!

If you are thinking of going to Standing Rock, please read this first, and please go if you can, they need support!


Volunteers sort the donations.

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Help Defund DAPL


If hundreds of thousands of people take their money out of the banks that are funding the Dakota Access Pipeline (put it in a local credit union) perhaps they will pull their money out too! The Norwegian Bank has already pulled 120 million dollars out. Now is the time. The Energy TRansfers Partners have a deadline of Jan 1 for oil to be in the pipelines.

http://www.defunddapl.org/

Watch a video from Lakota Law on Standing Rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMs39DxtStQ

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Widespread Glyphosate Contamination Confirmed



After initiating testing for glyphosate in urine, tap water and breast milk three years ago, seeing the low levels in water and the high levels in a few food tests after that, we could ascertain that glyphosate is in pretty much everything we eat.  We know that the EPA allows high levels of glyphosate on 158 food and feed crops, and we know that glyphosate based herbicides are used as a drying agent before harvest on many crops such as sugar, wheat, corn, soy, barley, hops, dried peas, beans and legumes. The widespread contamination of glyphosate in our food was confirmed recently by independent testing and the results are alarming. See the article here.

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Celebrate HUGE WINs!



The National Organic Standards Board has denied Carageenan from being in organic food!

They have also banned new GMO technology such as Gene Drives/CRISPR from being in organic food!

This is a huge win for our movement and we thank everyone who signed the petitions we circulated, who made comments and especially Cornucopia and the Organic Consumers Association for working so hard on this!

THANK YOU everyone for your donations to support Moms Across America and for being partners with us in creating healthy communities!

With Love and Best Wishes for a Peaceful Holiday!

Zen and MAA Team