Despite the  mess in the food industry we currently have, something beautiful and strong is emerging. The connections we are all creating by speaking up for a healthy future and freedom to choose our food are making America stronger. I had the privilege and honor to connect with Nancy Massotto, Founder and Executive Director of Holistic Moms Network. The Holistic Moms Network has partnered with Moms Across America to increase GMO awareness and spread the word about Moms Across America. In doing so we get to know Holistic Moms better. What an amazing organization and powerful woman!

 What was your intention when you started Holistic Moms network 10 years ago?

Nancy Massotto is the Founder and Executive Director of the Holistic Moms Network and mother to two boys. She founded the Holistic Moms Network to meet other parents who shared her passions for living healthy and living sustainably, and to help raise awareness about natural living options. Before becoming a mom, she completed three graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in political science, specializing in gender studies and feminist theory and spent several years working for non-profit research institutes, including the Women’s Research and Education Institute (WREI) and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), while residing in the Washington, D.C. area. As a mom and community leader, she is dedicated to empowering women, supporting mothers, and raising her two sons as naturally and sustainably as possible.

Moms Across America- USA Parade Listings. POSSIBLE Parades- Be a leader to let your WHOLE TOWN know about GMOs in just 2 hours!

• Don't know if your town has a parade or leader? See the list below for towns we know have parades and the leaders we have so far. 
• Then Google your town's parade and find an exact number street address to enter (No cross streets) in order for the event to show up for other to join. Example: 2440 Main Street. 
• If exact street address is not available on your local parade website then ZOOM IN on google maps and pick a building address number near the cross streets. Then click " Host Your Own" and enter your town parade's info.   (use last year's time etc. as place holder)
•  Please enter Your Town's Parade name in the title with state abbreviation then Moms Across America.  
• GOOGLE YOUR PARADE APPLICATION ( most application deadlines are in the end of May) and begin gathering support for parade materials. Sign your parade up to gather support now!

Thank you for your partnership!

State and Town      MAAM Leader

Moms Across America are OUTRAGED at the callousness of our government to pass the Monsanto Protection Act with no thought for our children and citizens of America. This is a sad time for many Moms who supported Obama. It is unfathomable to us that Michelle, who has spoken up about organic gardening and children's health would also tolerate her husband's choice. Our President, Congress and Senate have given immunity from law to a company from being held accountable for any harm that comes to people or the planet from their toxic chemicals. What happened to integrity in America?

They also gave Monsanto the ability to plant any kind of GMO seeds they want to. And no court, the exact wording is "nothing shall override" them. We know now that Monsanto was part of drafting this new rider and that our government is really not for the people and by the people but is, officially, a Corporatocracy. I did not want to admit this for a long time and I try to stay out of politics because I want Moms of all parties to feel welcome to join our united cause. But this is political too and I need to voice for Moms every where, that we have lost faith in our government this week. We have lost faith in the future if left in the hands of those who control Big Pharmaceutical, Bayer, Astra Seneca and Phizer Pharmaceutical -parent company of Monsanto, who make the pesticides and herbicides AND the drugs to make us feel better,  and Big Agriculture (the same companies + DuPont). We have lost faith in a system that we put into place a couple hundred years ago and really see no way out of in the near future.

So what do we do? Hide and cry? No. When a Mom senses her child is at risk, which they are...their health issues like allergies, autism and auto immune diseases have been skyrocketing, we research more and we take action.  A new article on bi polar disorders in our children shows a 456% increase since GMOs were introduced. The same symptoms, unrest, discontent, sudden outburts of aggression and inability to focus, have all be shown in pigs who eat GMO feed as well. As Moms with common sense we are OUTRAGED that food is hurting our kids and  the one thing we see we can do to take action is put the largest distributor of GMO food on NOTICE that we will not be buying anything from their store until they label GMOs and have GMO free options- WALMART.

We must take action with the greatest tool we have which is money and the greatest power we have which is our love. If you share this notice with 10 people and they share it with 5 and they share with 5 and those people share with 5 you will be responsible for 1270 people promising not to shop at Walmart. At $200 dollars a week X 52 weeks a year, that equals

$13 MILLION 208 THOUSAND dollars that you personally will cause NOT to go to the biggest distributor of GMO Foods.

Can you do that? 

Here are the comments below from the moms who have signed the notice.

Please sign and share today.

Kathleen is the blond lady in the middle in the vest near Howard Vlieger at  Mother's Market.

It was after 9 pm on election night and I was standing on the sidewalk outside of Mother's Market after the Prop 37  loss, sobbing.  I held my face in my hands,  and my body shook as I hiccuped breaths of night air. Suddenly, a blond peppy lady came rushing over. We had met briefly inside but suddenly she was saying with the familiarity of a long lost best friend," It's not over, it's just the beginning! Don't worry, we are going to do this! In just a couple months all of a sudden millions of  people said Yes to labeling! We can do this!" She patted my shoulder and I looked at her with a flicker of hope. How could she be so optimistic? I thought I was...but this woman, whom I have grown to know, love and admire literally was my beacon of hope that night. She called to me with her faith and pulled me from the depths of despair.

Kathleen Kelly Hallal is an Irvine Mom, like you and me...busy.. three boys, Den mother, PTA member, Mom extraordinaire and yet ordinary too. She just loves her kids as we do. She grew up in CA but spent a lot of time in the farming communities of Northern Idaho.  She gets the value of of a farmer and the important of how food is grown and raised.

I have to say I didn't totally get it at first when, over the next few weeks of getting to know her after the election loss, she cooked up the idea of hosting Howard Vlieger, a 3rd generation Farmer from Iowa come talk to the OC about food, farming and health. I seriously wondered, how are we going to get Moms to care what a farmer has to say? Our culture is so removed from farmers....they are like the designers of our clothes, we hear  about them and know they are doing something good but we never see them and don't ever expect to. We don't need to know how our clothes are designed, we just want to wear them.Same with food.

But Kathleen had seen his talk, and it had made a huge difference for her and her family. See, one of her three boys, who was excelling in school, suddenly, in 2nd grade began acting very strangely. He hid under his desk at school, lost his ability to right or draw, forgot his math and wouldn't listen or follow the simplest of directions at home. His behavior was completely different from who he used to be and all their doctors wanted to put him on medications that Kathleen was just not going to accept. Finally a therapist said "If you take his tonsils out, I think this will go away." Kathleen though she was crazy, but after further blood testing and discovering that he had an imperceptible ( from swab tests and sight) STREP infection which was impacting his brain and behavior. It is called PANDAS. Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcus.

They removed his tonsils, put him on antibiotics and he got completely well. They have their happy, successful boy back! But Kathleen was of course committed to keeping him healthy and using antibiotics as little as possible, so she researched nutrition madly, and went to Howard's talk in October. There she learned that genetically modified foods, because they occur as a foreign protein in the body, weaken the immune system from constantly trying to keep the foreign protein out. When the immune system is weak from fighting off these foreign proteins, it cannot fight off other bacteria like STREP as easily as it once could have. Infections become stronger and our kids are become sicker and their behavior and ability to perform tasks are being affected.  Further blood testing also showed her kids had 26 different food intolerances, in addition to a serious peanut allergy, which also are caused by the immune system reacting to what they perceive as foreign proteins a weakening of the immune system. These intolerance's did not show up as rashes, they were invisible on the outside. But on the inside her son's immune systems were struggling to fight these foods as they were unknowingly exposed to them and surely attributed to their irritability, inability to focus or make good decisions.  When a body is in defense mode, the person is going to feel out of sorts and defensive, maybe even aggressive.

She also learned that Glyphosate ( the active chemical ingredient of Roundup herbicide) which is being sprayed on many GMO crops, kills off good bacteriain the soil Glyphosate also promotes the growth of opportunistic organisms in the soil which causes more disease in the GMO crops. This leads to the development of molds and mycotoxins in the environment and the grain raised for the food supply. These micotoxins even at very minute levels cause a wide range of health problems to those eating the grain or foods made from this grain. Whether it is our kid’s breakfast cereals, chips or tortillas. So on top of a weakened immune system from the GMO foreign proteins, they are getting inundated with bad micotoxins, molds and potentially super bugs in the environment. The rates of kids with walking pneumonia have skyrocketed according to her pediatrician and bugs like MSRA are killing our children.

GMOs are attacking our kids. A whole generation of children, whose immune systems are much more susceptible than adults,  are being experimented on, and their health, moods, relationships, confidence, behavior and performance in school is being affected...some without visible physical symptoms.

Since Kathleen learned this, she has had her children largely on a GMO Free diet and has seen remarkable improvements.  She has heard of many children who have had sudden erratic behavior changes and inability to perform in school and they parents are convinced to put their kids on drugs or even lock them in psych wards. She believes a blood test of underlying STREP may explain and resolve this behavior. So she is committed to educating and empowering Moms Across America about this condition and the solution.

To do this, Kathleen went to extraordinary measures and sponsored/hosted farmer and GMO expert Howard Vlieger to come to Irvine, and Orange County and speak for 6 days.  She made calls for weeks and scheduled  speaking engagements at PTAs, schools, Moms groups, an Ecology center  and many more . She arranged for a video to be made and a restaurant to host a talk. She drove him to every single speaking engagement, 17 in all, 5 in one day some days, spoke to the Moms about PANDAS and GMOs, and provided pamphlets at her own cost. She managed lunches, sports and even brought her kids to Howard's talks ( and they asked when he was going to speak to kids?). She was tireless.

After seeing Howard's talk I got why she wanted this farmer to speak to American Moms. His perspective is groundbreaking. Her generosity and commitment to bring his perspective to us is exactly what is going to transform the future of food from one that is making our kids obese, have weakened immune systems, burdened with allergies and behavioral challenges, to one of healthy happy and successful kids who can eat organic food where ever they go on life's adventures.

Because the greatest gift a Mom can give is to let go and bless their children's adventures in the world... and Moms like Kathleen are doing whatever it takes now to  ensure that that world is one where they can thrive.

Thank you Kathleen! And thank you to Tom, her supportive husband and three understanding boys.

You can see Howard Vlieger's extraordinary DVD soon on MomsAcrossAmerica.com

For more info on PANDAS:

https://www.adhd.com.au/PANDAS.htm

https://www.savingsammy.net/

Zen Honeycutt

The other day, my friend said that she has a friend who eats everything off the shelf from a regular grocery store, loaded with GMOs and she just doesn't know how to talk to her about it. Her voice was sad and laced with anxiety. She thinks  her friend  would be really resistant and wouldn't want to hear anything bad. She's a super busy Mom and just doesn't want one more problem to think about it.  I could hear that my friend didn't want to upset her or cause a rift in the friendship.

Ohhhhhh....I could feel her struggle. I have shared about GMOs with thousands of people, but still have a hard time with a few people, when I am concerned about what they think and hurting the relationship. I got a bit confronted when  she asked me to blog about what to say to people and yet , I appreciate the request so much because it really does make me think. How have I done it? How do I do it?

Here are a few tips:

1) Give up that they are doing anything wrong. 

I really mean this one. We need to shift our thinking. This is not always easy to do. But think about it, before you knew about GMOs, were you doing anything WRONG when you fed your kids the food your were feeding them? No. You were doing what worked for you. And you didn't want anyone to tell you what to do. If you approach them like they are doing anything wrong, it's game over.

2) Be Curious.

Listen to them, ask them questions about how they are dealing with things. When they feel gotten, they will be much more receptive to listening to you. People who just start telling people what to do are annoying. People who listen are cool and safe to share with and we care about what they think. Ask them if they have heard of GMOs and what do they think.

3) Don't try to fix. Just Share.

Get rid of "You should try..." and replace it with " I really didn't want to even think about this at first, or know anything about it, but I found out about Genetically modified foods and I tried...."  Share about you, not them. And keep it short.

4) Be Authentic.  Don't be Rah Rah.

I am a very optimistic person and have the passion of ten people sometimes. But no one wants  a cheerleader to be shouting and bouncing around about something they don't even want to do. Just be authentic. "Changing the way I thought about food really sucked at first. I cried for a day. I was pissed off for three. I still am sometimes.  Sometimes I hate these chemical companies and I think about taking a blow torch to the cereal aisle. But this is about the health of my kids...and the truth is I will do anything for them...and if it means switching to buy different brands, even if it takes a little longer or costs a little more, I will do that. I want them to be healthy and be able to have their own kids someday. "

People get that...or whatever is there for you in your heart, for real.  When you get present to how much you love your kids, they will too. Nothing is too hard when you are present to that love. Love is unstoppable.

5) Give them support.

Give them a NON GMO shopping guide. Send them an email with a few easy tips. Share a video with them. And then keep listening.Here are some tips:

1. Replace corn/canola oil with Grapeseed oil ( no taste, good at high heat) and only use 100% Olive Oil or they could sneak GMO canola in it.

2. Only eat organic fruits, veges and meats if at all possible. Especially only eat corn or soy/Tofu if it's organic. Replace soy sauce with Bragg's.

3. Buy all breakfast cereals, crackers, corn tortillas and snacks organic or NON GMO Project Verified. Nature's Path has great cereals.

4. Buy products with CANE sugar, not Sugar from Sugar beets. This is the hardest one for me. I confess I am not 100% here.

6.Email them short videos

Genetic roulette 10 min version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB5EBFUwaw0

Robyn O'Brien "Patriotism on a Plate" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6WpMM1FR8g

"It's about progress, not perfection" says Robyn O'Brien. Be their partner, not their preacher. We are all in this together. The best thing about it is that we are all in this together and the bonds we can grow by Giving Up That There Is Anything Wrong, Being Curious, Being Authentic, and Giving Support, will make you so glad you stepped out side of your comfort zone and shared something that matters to you...and even if they don't know it now....to them too.

Zen Honeycutt