Why Canola?
Healthy Hamptons Watch – Conrad Miller M.D.Why canola? Is it so healthy? I see “canola oil” cropping up as a key ingredient in our cookies, baba ganoush, breads, hummus, prepared deli fare, all over the Hamptons. People have heard canola will help your heart, and make you more svelte and chic looking. But how many of us know that most canola is genetically altered? Most of it comes from Canada – “Can -ola” , where the normally toxic rapeseed plant was exposed to radiation to mutate it to a less toxic version that could be used for its oil, according to author Jeff Smith.* What’s so bad about genetically altered foods though? Poland recently banned all of them; Europe has a moratorium on them; the majority of the world’s population lives in countries that require labeling them, so you can avoid them, but not the USA. There was a study done at the Rowett Institute in Scotland with genetically altered potatoes fed to test rats. The rats that ate the genetically altered potatoes were found to have smaller testicles, brains and livers, while having larger “villi” in their intestines that could be pre-cancerous. In addition, the immune systems of these rats were damaged. And the test rats’ stomach linings developed severe viral infections. Yet the “control” rats, fed the unaltered parent line of the same potatoes, had none of these findings! When I informed Larry Halsey of Watermill’s Green Thumb Organic Farm about this, his immediate reaction was: “And that’s first generation! That’s really powerful. What about the NEXT generations?” What is happening is that bizarre cross-species gene-gunning is going on in the madscience laboratories of the world, experimenting with our foods for fun and profit. Primarily for profit. To match companies like Monsanto’s pesticides. And come out with just one variety of a crop to patent and plant everywhere possible, but be susceptible to their pesticides. In increasingly tolerant amounts, that are polluting our soils, waterways, and biosphere. Most genetically altered foods implant the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus as a “promoter” of the main gene desired to be expressed in the gene sequence scrunched into your corn or soybean or cotton seed or zucchini or yellow squash – – or what comes out as your canola oil, that many of us mistakenly think is so healthy. This Cauliflower Mosaic Virus or CMV howls at 10 to 10,000 times the power of another ‘regular’ gene to amplify the expression of the desired following gene in the implanted sequence. Unfortunately, it may lead to unknown other viruses being expressed along the subjected DNA. Viruses that may have been dormant for many years or centuries. And then, who knows what will happen? That is why Japan is holding back on accepting genetically altered foods for twenty years to see what kind of mutants American children become over such a period of time. Canola pollen blows into un-genetically altered canola fields to contaminate them. That is why just about no canola can be trusted to be safe, unless it is certified organic. But you can use safflower and olive and sunflower oils. Or any organic oils should be OK. However, remember that about 89% of US soybeans are genetically altered; 61% of our corn is; and 83% of our cotton is, that ends up in your cottonseed oil that is in Lay’s potato chips, cookies, and other junk food. Check your ingredients! Avoid canola oil, unless it is organic. Be smart this summer, and for the rest of your life. Conrad Miller M.D. of Southampton, N.Y. is author of a new book “The Most Important Issues Americans THINK They Know Enough About” -for more information on canola and genetically altered crops and foods: www.crestofthewave.com |
