Author: hawaiifarmersdaughter

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Kauai Snarklectic: Confused Trust Fund Babies in Need of a Needle

Today I was lucky enough to get several blog posts commented on by none other than a character named Kauai Snarkeclectic.  These are just some of the cryptic comments this person made on certain blogs.  It seems that this person was trying to be snarky but completely missed the point of ALL of the blogs.  (I am posting the comments exactly as it was submitted with no editing.)

On the Tag Team of the Hooser blog, this is what was said…

We just LOVE the way you lacerate, slicve, dice, eviscerate, and strip the skin off of these people. Wow you are really really good! But, no where near as good as Joan Conrow. Not as good as Bill Maher. But we bow to your chooclatey deliciousness, as it just ooozes over this blog, may it be blessed by many more such chocolatey goodness. Mmm, yummy. Wow, you really don’t like these people do you? So, are we getting this straight, these people are like, evil, right? I mean they are really really bad, right? You don’t like them, do you? Lets be blunt, you have severely unkind thoughts about them? Becasue they aren’t farmers. So, I suppose that none of these people have never even seen a farm, is that correct? And by “Farm”, you mean GMO feilds on Kaua’i, that produce seeds only and no food for the people of kauai.We guess we are a little confused. Aren’t seed, just that, seeds, and you have to actually sell them to a REAL farmer to get them to grow stuff? We don’t know, because we aren’t farmers. We have never even SEEN a farm in real life. We think we would be scared to see one. It might attack us or something! are we getting that correct? Because we wanna be correct. We don’t want you putting US through the meat grinder. Or maybe we do. We would taste delicious. You never know. We might even taste better then BHT Corn!.Or an environmentalist for that matter. meh, we hear they are tough. No fat on the bone. Not like real farmers. They are nice and healthy!. Mmm, yummy!

We have to remind ourselves not to post late at night, when we have the munchies. Sorry. um, do you have some spare GMO corn you could send us right now? We are all sitting around, and theres nothing to eat but

Organic crap. And we all KNOW how bad that is for you!

Sincerely, The Kauai Snarklectic Publishing Team.

Thanks for playing with us, we had fun!

Then on yet another post about the giving spirit instead of marching during the holidays, this comment was made…

Wow this is an awesome post! We feel so guilty, here at Kauai Snarklectic. We have a empty BHT Corn Seed can in our office kitchen, and we regularly fill it up with bitcoin. We were thinking of donating it to the “Save the GMO Fund” we started. Do you think it is too late to give something? It is almost May. We could throw in a nice flower lei for good measure! Just don’t tell Santa how bad we have been, or he might not bring us our Halloween presents, when he comes in the Big Pumkin, and lights the Easter Tree!

Also, we really like your blog. a LOT. It gives us hours and hours of inspration. Check our blog and see just how much. Happy Holidays! Cuz there’s always time for pudding…and holidaze!

Then on the blog post about the Kauai County Council and their integrity and leadership…

Joanne Yukimura is on your side. I don’t know why you are including her in this list. What has she done, that is against GMO’s? She supported the GMO companies, and weakened the bill specifically for the GMO’s. She shouldn’t be on this list. That is our opinion. in fact, we are a bit confused. The bill is about pesticides, their use and frequency, and revealing what the companies are spraying. it says nothing about shutting down the GMO’s. How is that even possible? They are billion dollar corporations. They can operate ad infinitum.We beleive what you mean to say, is that the people supporting pesticide use by the GMO companies, are not in favor of the GMO companies spraying them in such heavy quantities near schools, public places, and residents.We are sure that is what you mean. But then again, our editorial staff is never sure what they are gonna have for breakfast each morning, let alone what blogs like this actually mean., Maybe if we were real farmers, and not trust fund babies or hippies we could understand better. Can you please enlighten us on just what exactly you are talking about? Because we are completely lost in a haystack of confusing references and rhetoric. if you had a needle that may be helpful.

The author of these comments confirms many suspected points about this so called GMO Free people.  They don’t know what blogs like mine mean, they aren’t real farmers and are trust fund babies and hippies, and that they need some enlightenment of some sort.  Can someone also lead them out of the haystack and find that needle for them?!

 

***Note that the Kauai farmers don’t spray near schools, public places, and on people.  They spray for bugs on their farms.  Maybe some people feel that they indeed are pests.***

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Arthur Brun: Someone Who Gives to the Community

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Local politics in Hawaii is used to be a place of dignity and respect. This held true even when people in the community didn’t necessarily agree with the platform of a particular candidate. Mr Kahn broke down in tears during his testimony during the public hearings revolving around Bill 2491. He told the council that he cared for Kauai. Mr Brun also came to tears during his testimony to Council around the same topic. Arthur has spent uncountable hours serving the community and has a child with diabetes that he spoke of during his testimony. It is unfortunate that Mr Kahn has no respect for someone like Mr Brun, a person that has given so much service to the community.

–Guest Blogger

 

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Does your Body Know GMO Papayas Ms. Amato?

Several months ago, I received a message from a Terez Amato in my Facebook message box.

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I’m not sure what she is referring to by “Thalidomide babies” and “flipper kids” and epidemiology.  Quite a bizarre email indeed because I don’t know what Thalidomide has to do with papayas.  Maybe she read it on some Natural News website and got that idea.

When I read this, I got the impressions that she was kind of bragging that she buys non-GMO certified organic papayas.   I suspect that she must not know that most of the non-GMO stuff is already virus infected.  Nature actually GMO’d these fruits already.  Little does she know that she is actually eating more virus particles in her fruit than she would in a transgenic GMO one.  Of course, your body can’t tell the difference either way.  Only an anti-GMO activist would be freaked out to know this.  Our stomach’s hydrochloric acid and enzymes would destroy those DNA molecules up like nothing and we wouldn’t know the difference.

I did write her back to ask her about her expertise on this issue and she didn’t reply to me.  It would be interesting to learn where she read about this because I can’t seem to find how the two issues are related.

It’s also interesting to note that she is running as a Senator for the Hawaii Legislature.  Good to know where she stands on the issues.

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Just Because You’re Mad… Don’t Take it Out an Everyone!

As a parent of young children, there are simple lessons that instill in my kids as they grow up and learn to interact with others.  Just a few lessons I teach them include being respectful, don’t hit each other, be honest and don’t lie, and just because you’re mad, you don’t take it out on everyone else.  Like many things I do with my kids, I’ve learned it through my mom and dad.

The more I reflect on what I teach my kids, the more I realize that those same lessons apply throughout life if you really think about it.  Then as I look more at what’s happening in Hawaii, I am starting to see that many adults have forgotten some of those basic lessons we learned as kids now.  That is very saddening to me that we teach our kids one thing and totally forget it in our own actions.

What is even more bothersome to me is that elected officials, who have a higher standard to uphold, are also forgetting those small kid time lessons.  If our own leaders can’t instill the right values and behaviors, how can their constituents follow their example?  It’s no wonder politics has become so ugly.

I was reading the Star Advertiser yesterday and was left shaking my head once again.  I wrote a few days ago about the proposed law that removes the exemption for farmers to get permits for grading their land.  If a farmer were to move more than 50 cubic yards of material, it would require a permit now.  It means more costs and time lost to yet another level of regulation.  Less time on the farm means less productivity and lost income.

The amount proposed may be big beans for small farmers but for the ones with bigger fields, 50 cubic yards is really not a whole lot to be moving around.  Due to the abuses of some ag land owners on the Westside, lawmakers have decided to add yet another burden to law abiding farmers.  Kimberly Pine, a city council woman, she stated…

Pine acknowledged the concerns about potential unintended effects but said that “the consequences for our community is that our land has been dumped on and destroyed for far too long, and we’ve had enough.”

I can’t understand why these council members acknowledge problems but still proceed with these half-baked laws.  The catch phrase is that many of them see the “bigger picture” but in actions show that they have no clue what that concept really means.  The bigger picture is not looking at the goal of the law but who and how it affects everyone.  What’s the real impact this will have if actually enacted?

It would be great if they stood in the shoes of those people who would be a target of those “unintended” consequences.  That might make lawmaking a bit more thoughtful and better planned out.  It’s easier to pass a quick bandaid fix to make some people happy but then throw the rest into the fire along the way.  That bandaid isn’t going to fix anything in reality other than mask the real problems.  It’s like being my older daughter, who is reading her book minding her own business, then finds herself whacked in the head by her sister out of the blue.

There indeed is a real problem out there in Waianae with the issues going on, but couldn’t there be more forethought into addressing the real problem, irresponsible land owners?  Is the dumping issue because there aren’t enough landfills?  What really is the reason why it is happening out there?  More questions have to be asked to really help to pinpoint what and how this issue can be remedied before a solution can be put forth.

The actions of the city council and some of the statements made that they don’t care about the consequences really shows two things.  First of all, Pine and others are mad and are rightfully so.  She is willing to take her anger and frustration out on everyone to solve this issue and it doesn’t matter what collateral damage is caused along the way.  That’s what is going to make her feel better and “fix” the problem, as she and other council members perceive.

What she and the Honolulu City Council are doing is something very typical in what young kids do.  Something might be upsetting them and they feel compelled to take out their frustrations on emotions on whoever is around and they don’t care who it is.  It’s like my older daughter having a bad day at school and deciding to kick her sister for no good reason other than her being mad from the day.  My younger daughter will cry out not knowing why she was kicked.  As my older daughter calms down and hears her sister’s crying, and only then she feels remorseful for what she did.  The injury was inflicted and there’s no taking it away and feelings are permanently hurt.

These same lessons apply to all politicians and adults if you really think about it.  Hawaii County Council members, Margaret Wille and Brenda Ford, were both mad at Monsanto so they insisted on passing a bill that hurt the papaya farmers.  They didn’t do any further research like their fellow County Council member, Greggor Illagan, did to address why they felt they way they did.  They lashed out on farmers and damaged their reputations and led them to be piled upon by many activists.  Greggor Illagan was also left to be a target of the activists despite doing his due diligence to truly look at the perceived problem.

Representative Jessica Wooley, as a mom, was mad to find out that GMOs were being fed to her children and she was going to protect them for this perceived harm learned by her associations with Earthjustice.  She clearly believed in an agenda based on the false fact that, “There are no regulations on biotechnology.” (She made this statement publicly at a Neighborhood Board meeting earlier in the year and later recanted when shown the truth.)  She went out and put out the labeling law twice in two years in her attempt to attack the seed farmers here.  She not only fueled the misinformation campaign against these companies and their workers, but once again focused on the papaya farmers as a result.  She ran on the platform that she was going to help farmers, but only her approved types unfortunately.

Then we cannot forget the actions of Kauai County Council member Gary Hooser and the other members like Jay Furfaro, Joanne Yukimura, and Tim Bynum, when they voted to pass Bill 2491.  None of these members did their due diligence to find out the facts about the seed farmers and passed a law on the emotions and misinformation of a crowd being manipulated by outside interests using scare tactics.  Not only did the heavy handed fear campaign succeed in convincing the leaders to pass such a law, it created another attack against the papaya farmers along the way.  These members were mad and lashed out by passing the contentious law causing permanent collateral damage across the board in the Kauai communities.

My kids know that they aren’t allowed to use their emotions to lash out at others or each other.  It’s a big “no-no” in our house.  I too have to remember that even if I’m mad or tired, lashing out only means I’ll have to apologize later but the damage has been done.  My dad always drilled it into my head as a kid that, “You’d better think first before you do something you might regret.”  He was my example of what I was expected to be like and he’d correct me along the way.  I know that I’m the example to them because that is what I expect of my children to be like.

I only wish our elected officials would get a clue and be the true leaders in our communities and not like my 3 year old toddler, who’s still learning those lessons.

 

T

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And They Cry, “Let the People Decide!”

Once again, there is an upcoming anti-GMO concert party going to happen on Kauai.  This poster is going around the social media right now touting this event.  This is the hip thing to do in our islands, have a big old shin dig.

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Once again the lack of awareness of these activists are glaring.  There’s Makana with his GMO cotton overalls and cotton GMO aloha shirt with a guitar that is coated with chemicals.  He tries to look as if he is a farmer that is speaking for farmers but in reality, is just a musician.  He’s the idol of the GMO Free crowd right now so its time to keep the iron hot!

This concert will likely have high tech devices like speakers and instruments that were made by a multinational corporation but they will scream in horror of their alleged atrocities.

 They flying in people like Vandana Shiva from around the world who’s job it is to scare and outrightly disinform people.  Forget the fact that she’s not coming here on a home made wooden boat from India.  She’s a jet setter traveling all around the world and corporate made high tech planes that guzzle tons of synthetic, earth polluting jet fuels.  She wants to save the world with her message of being green is good and use lots of GMO guzzling cars to get to these concerts.  She’s out to save the world while polluting the earth.

The concert attendees are earth lovers who wave their hands with peace and love for they are doing the aina a favor.  All the meanwhile they are using oil burning power to dance, sing, and party.  They eat and drink from corporate made beers or foods that were brought in on gas powered ships to feed the people for that day.  The majority of what they consume likely is GMO and they aren’t choking on it that day.

Tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of human energy are joined in that one spot for several hours socializing and reinforcing their beliefs about this Hawaiian sounding movement.  They are bonded by this need to save the earth from the poisoners of the world but then don’t even realize their own poisoning of the world.

Tons of trash created by food containers, beverages, and posters fill up the dumpsters that fill our landfills on the island.  It piles on the same trash that was created from all the Bill 2491 hearings and the labeling bills.  The multiple marches held throughout the year is also buried in the trash mound too, and leeching into the aina.

The sewage created by this gathering is also enormous.  It all goes into that fossil fuel powered sewer systems to be processed to save the land from toxic human waste.  These people are worried about their water systems but don’t worry about their own impacts on water either when they gather together.

The concert will eventually end and lots of photos and videos of this momentous event will fill the corporate owned social media sites like Facebook and YouTube.  These people yearn for the “old days” where things were so much better but will never forget to bring their latest corporate made IPhones or smartphones.  Without this high technology, these activists are lost but they still refuse to accept the “evil” ways of modern day farming.

After all is said and done and all the human energy is expended, was there truly a positive impact from what they did?  Was there a piece of the aina cleaned that day to keep sea life healthy?  Were human lives saved by spending half a day at a concert? Will people be fed sustainably by this day? Did they work towards making Hawaii more food secure?  Was the money spent going to last towards a greater cause to actually help farmers keep farming?

Like the transient nature of a concert, so are the actions of these activists.  The current fad is to be anti-GMO right now.  Forget about the long term consequences of what they re asking for because they can’t see beyond the next concert.  They will still go on wearing the textiles that they protest and buy the food and fuel that they fear but acknowledge consuming.  They cry, “Let the people decide,” and don’t even realize what they reap the rewards of in their own lives once again.

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Sustainable Agriculture Doesn’t Mean Only Organic

Thanks to the disinformation campaign of the organic lobby, people have really started to bumble up what the word sustainable means.  There are a lot of people who think that being environmentally friendly automatically means organic and that it also means “sustainable.”  What does sustainable really mean to begin with?

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This definition clearly shows that we can’t equate sustainability to mean organic.  I would have to say that working the lands for 40 years and still growing fruit is definitely sustainable.  Farmers that grow know this.  They use all methods of farming to keep them going.  Being able to farm year after year is indeed sustainable.  It would have to be my dad and all the other multi generation papaya farmers across our state are definitely doing something sustainable!

Dad farmer

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Honolulu City Council Wants to Burden the Farmers

I was really disappointed to learn that there is yet another proposed bill on the books that is going to affect Oahu farmers.  The West Oahu Soil & Water Conservation District met a couple of days ago and discussed that the Committee on Zoning & Planning.  Honolulu City Council will hold a hearing on Thursday April 24, 2014 at 9 a.m. to hear Bill 34, introduced by Ikaika Anderson.  This bill will have a devastating effect on farmers and soil conservation efforts.

Bill 34 will remove the exclusion from the County grading ordinance, grading by farmers under approved Soil Conservation plans with a Soil & Water Conservation District for any project of more than 50 cubic yards of material.

If this bill becomes law, for any project of more than 50 cubic yards of material, farmers will need permits, will need to pay fee and will need to bond the project.

Let’s put some perspective into this law that puts yet another burden on farmers.  What does 50 cubic yards of material look like?

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If you take a look at the above picture, 50 cubic yards is basically one large container and a small one.  The law is seeking to remove the exemption from farmers for moving material.  Is that really a whole lot of material being moved?  I don’t think so and the number is so arbitrary.  What really is the purpose of removing the exclusion of farmers?  Is it to make farming a more attractive business for others to go into?

It’s just really disappointing that our lawmakers come up with this kind of shortsighted laws with no real rationale or idea of the consequences of such actions.  It’s funny how the state is talking about how Hawaii supports agriculture and yet propose these kind of actions.

The truth is that we must prefer importing foods because we are going to essentially tie the hands of the people who feed us.  If you love local food, say goodbye because it is going to get that much harder for farmers to get it on our tables.

 

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Farewell RoundUp, We’ve Found a New Love, Atrazine

If go on the social media and visit some of Hawaii anti-GMO activist pages, here’s some of the typical things you see on there…

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What does all of these images share?  It’s all about fear mongering.  There is no evidence that goes along with many of these pictures and memes, but just the image alone is powerful enough to convince activists of some horrible outcome as the result of any farm other than organic ones.  No one ever seems to crosscheck these statements either and thousands of people just believe without a hint of skepticism.

My grandfather was one of those folks that saw things and just believed it.  He loved to watch wrestling and was convinced that it was real.  My dad would tell him that the stuff he was watching was faked and scripted, to which he’d say, “No way, it’s real!”  The funniest thing was that when there was news of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, he refused to believe it and said that it was fake.

The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words still applies to this day as we are seeing with our anti-GMO activists.  These pictures that are constantly being put out there on the social media to people who lack that ability to scratch their heads and say, “Now is that for real or what?”  Neither to many of these folks even know how Google operates to pull up the fear laden sites too when they do a search.

It is of no surprise that the fear lovers are going to start up once again by bringing in Tyrone Hayes in May.  They have lost their love our RoundUp and didn’t succeed in getting Senator Josh Green to ban it.  Their newest love affair is now with Atrazine and Tyrone Hayes.

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Before the anti-GMO club goes berserk on this year’s chemical, Atrazine, let me show you how to do the head scratch bit before you just believe it all.  You can read more about the selective reporting done by the author of the article posted by the Babes Against Biotech too.

I’m no Google search expert by no means but I am always asking to debunk things because I don’t straight out believe it.  If you enter into Google “debunk Tyrone Hayes” this is what you’ll get in this search.

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If you do another Google search, with Tyrone Hayes and Atrazine, you get a slightly different picture with a bit more of the activist sites like Democracy Now and his own page, Atrazine Lovers.  His academic papers also come up on the top of the search.

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If you’re afraid of reading too many words on Google, like most activists, then you’d scurry on over to their next best research site, YouTube.  What do we find on YouTube when we search for Tyrone Hayes?  Let’s see.

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Holy Atrazine-ites!  All you get is activist videos that are full of fear mongering.  Typical anti-GMO ways again.

When Tyrone Hayes shows up in Hawaii in May, you know what to expect.  You’ll get the same kind of message that came along with Dr. Huber, Stephanie Seneff, Andrew Kimbrell, Vandana Shiva, Hector Valenzuela, and others.  I also start to wonder, who’s funding these folks to have nice Hawaiian vacations on many of the islands.  Are they doing this out of the kindness of their hearts?  Hmmm…

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GMOs Does Not Mean God Move Over and Here’s Why

Here’s another thing that I hear frequently being stated by many of the anti-GMO activists, “Stop messing with the DNA in our food!”  Mark Fergusson, the CEO of the very much anti-GMO Down to Earth Markets also called it, “God Move Over.”  I just hate the fear mongering that’s being said about a technology that can do so much for growing food and decreasing our impact to do so.

The goal of the anti-GMO supporters really is to take advantage of the fact that most people have little to no clue as to what GMO really is.  When there is a huge number of people who are not literate in biology, chemistry, and basic genetics, you have a nice market of people to target with fear and doubt about this technology.

The activists from the Food Babe, Babes Against Biotech, Hawaii GMO Justice Coalition, Earthjustice, and the Center for Food Safety, will also go on to state that genetic modification of our food stuffs is going to mess up people in some form or fashion.  They love to use emotion evoking phrases like, “it’s being shoved down your throats,” to “it’s killing our keiki and kupuna,”  We also can’t forget those syringes stuck in food and skull in crossbones bit that they want on this GMO label.

Why are these people so afraid of this thing called DNA?  It’s probably because they don’t understand what it is to begin with.

I know that videos are great ways to teach people a thing or two about what DNA really is.

Then when you get a better understanding DNA, let’s talk more about genetics.

I hope you kind of got a general idea of DNA and basic genetics.  Now here’s a great video on the story of biotech papayas and how it all comes together.

Note that even with this modification of the genetics, the composition of the papaya is not significantly different than the conventional type.  Also note that the transgenic papayas have disease resistance built into it.  It is developed to resist the papaya ringspot virus that is spread by an aphid.  Even though Gary Hooser has told so many people that GMO means pesticides, it does not at all.  It is a technology that can be applied in many different ways.

If you’re still feeling afraid of genetic modification in our food, let’s talk about the food we eat today.  Here’s a great example of two different types of tomatoes that have altered genetics done through selective breeding.

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These clearly have different genetics to result in these two forms of tomatoes.  We can eat both of them and do you think our body can tell the difference?  No.  The compositions might be slightly different, and the DNA is different but our body can’t tell.

Of course, the next line that a typical anti-GMO activist might say is that these tomatoes don’t have fish genes in it.

The dreaded fish genes!

That’s a funny thought because if you were to eat fish, you are eating fish genes and have you turned into something awful?  Ummm…  No.  So even if a tomato might have genes of a fish, a common blunder quoted by many antis that is not true at all, would your body know this?  Nope.  Genes are not species specific!

If you watched the videos above, you might figure out that you can’t say that the genes is what’s making you allergic to something either.  If you think that there’s a new allergen that’s created by the genetic modification, you’d be wrong too because it is tested and tested for these potential issues.  Allergenic proteins are pretty well known and if detected, the trials are abandoned and destroyed.

The same anti-GMO activists decry biotech testing but then listen to Dr. Oz touting those exotic miracle cures.  He went from touting goji berries and now garcinia cambogia, which has no allergenic tests done ever but assumed safe.  Wouldn’t that worry you more to be consuming these untested things?  Nope.  Where’s the precautionary principle applied here?

The DNA fearing God Move Over crowd continues to cry about the evil of genetic modification and the need for the precautionary principle, but always misses a key point about this technology.  They are worried about what happens when they consume this GMO derived food product because of the unknown genetics.  If that is the case, why aren’t they worried about what happens when they consume banana genes or GMO free noni genes?  If one is afraid of messed up genes, then they should really fear things like heirloom tomatoes that have really altered genetics.

There’s a lot of DNA in many GMO free products that they should be worried about but don’t even realize it.  I’m more afraid of the bacterial genetics of what’s on some organic foods than I am of GMO corn or papaya any day.

 

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Chemophobia of the Oblivious Anti-GMO Activists

I can’t tell you how many times I have been told, “If it’s not grown organically, then it’s poisoning the a’ina (land in Hawaiian).”  The GMO Free activists keep making this statement over and over and people start to believe it.  It is repeated over and over until it becomes a pseudo-truth that they all regurgitate at their social rallies.

From Big Island County Council Member Margaret Wille to Kauai County Council Member Gary Hooser and even Senator Josh Green, this is now stuck in the minds of the activists and seeping into the minds the general public.  These “leaders” have people thinking that chemicals are bad and we have to avoid them at all costs.  The activists then shout out, “I don’t want any chemicals on my food.”

I’m sorry to disappoint but everything in this world is made up of chemicals including us!  It really bothers me that people are saying these kinds of things, not even realizing that this shows a clear lack of understanding of science.  I sometimes wonder if the movement is not so much about being anti-science, but non-science.  That really is a better descriptor of these folks when they make comments that show their chemophobia.

What a lot of the GMO free folks really demonstrate with these statements is that they really don’t understand the concepts about chemicals and toxicity.  They automatically assume that if the chemical is derived naturally that it is safer and that is not the case.  They also think that anything used on a biotech or conventional farm is very toxic just because it is called a pesticide.  Little do they realize that just paying attention to what’s in our own homes, we have a lot of toxic things in our living quarters that work just like pesticides.  It’s time to educate people a bit on this issue.

Toxic Talk

Before we go on, let’s talk about toxicity for a bit here.  Here is the definition of it on Wikipedia:

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What is important to note with the concept of this is that there is a degree to which something can be harmed by the substance.  Certain substances like water and salt is vital to life but when taken in at high doses, it can prove deadly to organisms.  This applies to nearly every substance that we might ingest or be exposed to.  Like the ancient scientist Paracelsus noted, “The dose is what makes the poison.”

Ah, the dose that makes the poison is the key concept here.  Toxicity is also measured in something called lethal dose (LD) and is usually expressed in a measure called the median lethal dose or LD50.  LD50 refers to the amount of a substance it would take to kill 50% of the population of say rats or mice per milligram of substance to kilogram of body weight.  It is an indication of the lethality of a substance.  In general, the smaller the amount, the higher the lethality of the substance.

I decided to take yet another walk around my house to find “poisons.”  I bet if many of the GMO free folks did the same walk, we’d all find the same things too.

My Kitchen of Death

I started in my kitchen to see if I had poisons lurking there.  Sure enough, I found quite a bit of things that if taken in the right doses could be toxic to me.  Take a look at what I found.

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Right above my stove and purposefully added to food is a nice hefty, but toxic container of table salt or sodium chloride.  A GMO free activist would never believe it but this is much more toxic than RoundUp any day.  Table salt has a LD50 of 3000mg/kg vs. RoundUp at 5600mg/kg.

Eating small amounts of it makes food tastes great but too much isn’t good for us as we all know.

baking soda

I’ve seen so many natural fallacy sites and lots of GMO Free sites touting baking soda as the chemical free way to clean.  Please, baking soda is a chemical called sodium bicarbonate in technical terms.  Its LD50 is 4200 mg/kg and is much more toxic than RoundUp also.  If a small child were to consume just a few tablespoons of this, it would be extremely toxic and it’s stated right on the box.

dawn

Dishwashing soap is also considered a pesticide.  When you go to the gardening stores, you can buy diluted dishwashing soap that’s sold as soap spray pesticides for the same price as a large bottle of it.  Save money by making your own pesticides right from your own kitchen.

Some people have tried using the homemade recipe for weedkiller that uses dish soap along with some salt that is effective.  That is likely much more toxic that the RoundUp you find premixed in the stores.  That’s why it makes a great weed killer of all weeds!

bug spray

I do hate bugs and will admit to using pesticides.  This stuff works great to keeping the bugs out of my kitchen and foodstuffs.  Who likes having roach infested cupboards?  I’m sure many other GMO free folks have a can or two of bug spray available for the same reason.  We live in Hawaii where cockroaches are the size of B52’s and we don’t believe in coexistence with them!

coffee

Now why would I put coffee here?  Coffee contains a pesticide!  Yes, indeed, caffeine does kill!  How many millions of people consume coffee yet are fine?!  Caffeine’s LD50 is at 192 mg/kg.  Yes, it is much more toxic that RoundUp is!  The GMO free folks drink this organically but fear pesticides!  The irony of it all!

choc chips

Chocolate chips indeed have some chemicals in it that is toxic, yet we consume it with no fear at all.  The chemicals found in it are theobromine and caffeine.  We all know that keep the dog out of chocolate or they will get sick and it is all thanks to this chemical.  Theobromine has a LD50 of 1265 mg/kg and yes, it is more toxic than RoundUp!  The amount of theobromine in chocolate chips is quite small so you’d have to consume a lot of it for it to be toxic.

tabasco

Believe it or not but that hot sauce you douse your food in contains something toxic.  That chemical is called capsaicin.  It is naturally occurring and found in hot sauce, to kim chee, to even that muscle rub.  Some people love eating this pesticide!  It has a LD50 of 148.1 mg/kg to 161.2 mg/kg in rats, making this much more toxic than RoundUp.

 

iron

Iron is an essential nutrient to our functioning but in too high of a dose is very toxic.  It’s LD50 is 250 mg/kg in mice and 300 to 1100 mg/kg in rats making it much more toxic than table salt or RoundUp any day.  Anyone can buy this in the store too!

tylenol

The very things we give our children to make them well can also be toxic.  I found a bottle of acetaminophen in my kitchen cabinet.  The LD50 for this pain reliever is at 700 mg/kg for rats which shows that it is more toxic than the GMO free folks’ RoundUp.

ibuprofen

I’m sure many parents have a bottle of this in their medicine chest.  Ibuprofen has a LD50 at 800 mg/kg in rats making it also more toxic than RoundUp.  I personally like using this to really help my kids feel better and know that it works but is also toxic at high doses.  I’m sure other GMO free parents do the same and have no second thought about it when it comes to sick kids.

aspirin

Some folks take these tablets daily not realizing that it is more toxic than that dreaded weedkiller.  Aspirin, also known as salicylic acid, has a LD50 of 1360 mg/kg making it less toxic than iron and all the above pain killers listed.

Bathroom of Poison

 Screenshot 2014-04-11 22.16.41

There are a lot of potentially poisonous things found in my bathroom but oh, so necessary for cleaning or health purposes.  Remember, that if used in the right amounts will make things toxic to us.  Using these chemicals sparingly as needed actually does wonders for our home and bodies when needed.

The Garage of Gloom

 antkiller volks terro raid

I hate bugs in my house.  I admit that I hate letting nature take its course in my living quarters.  In Hawaii, the bugs will take over as it is their tropical paradise also.  I have those horrible pesticides to stop letting nature take it’s course over my home.  Am I afraid of these pesticides?  Nope.  Kills bugs so I love them.

oilspray oxy lysol 409

When it comes to cleaning up after dirty kids, dogs, and an old person, I’ll be honest that going chemical free as the antis love to harp on, doesn’t cut it for me.  Wiping down a toilet with vinegar and baking soda just does not do the job at all.  It takes some good germ killers that if taken in too high of a dose, this stuff is toxic.  I bet a lot of anti-GMO activists who marched had homes that had these chemicals in it!  All bought at Longs CVS on sale!

volks sluggo

I garden as a hobby for fun and yes, I use chemicals on my plants.  These indeed are toxins when taken in too high of a dose but so necessary for my plants to grow happily.  I give my gardenias a nice spraying of Volck’s Oil every few months to kept the sooty mildew that those pesky scales create.  If I don’t spray it, I get no flowers.  I also use snail and slug killer in my lettuce and greens boxes so that I have less worry about rat lungworm disease that is very dangerous for humans.

adams fleatick

I am sure that other anti-GMO activists who have pets must have pesticides like these in their homes.  With the warm weather all year long, the fleas and ticks love our beloved pets.  I don’t believe in coexistence with these blood suckers so I kill them and keep them out of my home.

comboguard

Dear golly goodness, I even feed pesticides to my pooches too.  What an awful owner to be feeding poisons to my dogs!  Well, I hate fleas and critters so the pooches have to eat these pesticide pills.

glaze rainx

I love keeping my car shiny and sparkly and have yet to find chemical free things to do this.  For now, I use my favorite resin glaze and Rain-X headlight polish to keep my car in tip top shape.  I apply this directly to the car and my skin comes in contact with this stuff.  Oh, the exposure to toxins!  Hmm.  Toxins or rust?  I pick toxins to keep my car nice.  I bet a lot of of antis do the same thing since I’ve seen them with some nice GMO fueled cars and trucks!

bleach

I like my clothes fresh and clean and a bit of bleach helps to accomplish this.  It’s toxic in the right dose.  It is also known as sodium and calcium hypochlorite.  Its LD50 is 192 mg/kg making it very toxic indeed.  Let’s not forget that that this is also used in food preparation, and even though it is synthetic, it is approved for use on organic food processing.  We even drink it and even swim in it!  It kills the germs that can make people sick which is why we use it.

To sum it up, take a look at Doc Cami Ryan’s table on toxicity.

Still Chemophobic?

Should you now be even more afraid of chemicals after finding out all of this?  No.  We rely on these chemicals for sanitation, food preparation, bug control, and other helpful reasons.  Remembering that something is a toxin at the right does is what makes it important to remember.  The more you know, the less you have to fear.  If someone is making you fearful, cross check them and you will find a different story.

It’s kind of like how County Council Members like Gary Hooser and Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff will go to rallies and tell people that GMOs are poisoning them and it’s being shoved down peoples’ throats.  Shortly after that, they sit together and have a GMO meal at a GMO restaurant.  Get off the fear mongering bandwagon and question what’s being said and actually listen to the answer.