Zach Bush, MD is triple board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care. He is the founder of Seraphic Group, an organization devoted to developing root-cause solutions for human and ecological health in the sectors of big farming, big pharma, and Western Medicine at large. And he is also the founder of Farmers Footprint https://farmersfootprint.us/, a non-profit coalition of farmers, educators, doctors, scientists, and business leaders aiming to expose the deleterious human and environmental impacts of chemical farming and pesticide reliance - while simultaneously offering a path forward through regenerative agricultural practices.

Despite food manufacturers claiming that refined vegetable oils were healthy, Americans experienced an up-rise in heart disease during the early 20th century. Like many new inventions, few questions were initially posited. Unfortunately, an alternate nutrient took the blame due to the research of a single scientist.

In 1951, American physiologist and professor Ancel Keys went to Europe in search of the cause of cardiovascular disease. In his quest, he went to observe the eating habits of individuals living Naples, Italy due to reports of a low prevalence of heart disease.

During this time, post-war conditions resulted in finite and unusual circumstances in regards to agriculture and infrastructure. Therefore what Keys perceived as a cultural tradition was dubbed the "Mediterranean diet".

Keys observed the residents in Naples consumed primarily pasta and plain pizza, with vegetables, olive oil, cheese, fruit for dessert, a moderate amount of wine, and very little meat (except among individuals belonging to a higher socioeconomic status).

Through an informal study measuring cholesterol serum levels among Rotary club members (those who could not afford meat, but could afford cheese) conducted by Keys's wife, whom at the time was a medical technologist, Keys deduced that avoiding meat resulted in a lower incidence of heart attacks.

Ancel Keys continued on his biased search for proof that a diet high in saturated fat is correlated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. He eventually compiled data from six more countries with high rates of heart disease and diets typically high in saturated fat. At first glance, Keys's research seemed logical and compelling. The evidence was based on the premise that individuals in America, who consumed high amounts of saturated fat, died from heart disease at a higher rate than individuals in Japan, who consumed low amounts of saturated fat.

Unfortunately, Keys had gained the interest of people in positions of power. Upon President Eisenhower's heart attack in 1955, Keys proposed his theory to the president's primary care physician, Paul Dudley White. Days following, White began to advise to the public to reduce the consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol in an effort to prevent cardiovascular disease.

Through his connections and influence, Keys soon joined the nutrition committee of the American Heart Association (AHA) which, based on Keys's research, released a report in 1961 that advised patients with a high risk of cardiovascular disease to reduce their consumption of saturated fat. (Interestingly enough, the AHA began its rise to prominence in 1948, the same year Proctor & Gamble donated over $1.7 million to the organization - resulting in the AHA indebted to Crisco.)

In 1961, Time magazine placed Ancel Keys on the front cover touting him as "the twenthiest century's most influential nutrition expert."

By 1970, Keys published the Seven Countries Study, which detailed his original research - this study has now been cited in over a million other scientific publications. While Keys associative observations between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease never proved causation, he had won the battle of public opinion.

With the help of Ancel Keys, the American medical community and mainstream media has advised consumers to stop eating the animal products that have been consumed for centuries, replacing them with bread, pasta, margarine, low-fat dairy, and vegetable oil. This was the dietary shift that was codified by the United States government in the late 1970s.

Central Committee for Medical And Community Program of the American Heart Association. (1961). Dietary Fat and Its Relation to Heart Attacks and Strokes. Circulation [online] 23, pp.133-36. Available at: https://circ.ahajournals.org/content/circulationaha/23/1/133.full.pdf [Accessed 26 Jan. 2019]

Keys, A. (1953). Atherosclerosis: A Problem in Newer Public Health. Journal of Mt. Sinai Hospital, [online] 20(2), pp.118-39.

Keys, A. (1970). Coronary Heart Disease in Seven Countries. Circulation. 41 (1), pp.1186-95.

Keys, A. (1995). Mediterranean Diet and Public Health: Personal Reflections. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, [online] 61 (6), pp.1321S-1323S. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/61.6.1321s [Accessed 26 Jan. 2019]

Marvin, H. (1964). The 40 Year War on Heart Disease. New York: American Heart Association.

Mercola, J. (2017). Fat For Fuel. Carlsbad, California: Hay House.

Teichholz, N. (2014). The Big Fat Surprise. New York: Simon & Schuster, pp.32-33.

Physiologically, fasting:

• Stabilizes blood sugar
• Reduces insulin levels and improves insulin resistance
• Recovers and regenerates the gastrointestinal and immune system
• Increases ketone production
• Increases metabolic rate
• Removes damaged cells
• Reduces hunger
• Reduces excess body fat
• Reduces level of hormones thought to promote cancer
• Reduces the rate of aging
• Sheds excess body fat
• Protects brain function

The only other strategy that has so many research-baked benefits for longevity is long-term calorie restriction, which requires a significant long-term reduction in the amount of food you eat so that you are essentially living on the brink of starvation. Compliance with calorie-restricted diets is abysmal. Fortunately, there are many ways to fast, and there is likely a form of fasting out there that you will be able to tolerate and incorporate into your life. It's important for you to remember that fasting can provide nearly identical benefits without the pain, suffering, and compliance challenges of calorie restriction.

Instead of regulating how much food you eat, as with long-term calorie restriction, you only need to modify when you eat - and of course wisely choose the foods you do eat.Simply cycling between periods of eating and fasting on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule has been shown to provide many of the same benefits as long-term calorie restriction. Choosing when to eat and when to fast in this way is known as "intermittent fasting."

Intermittent fasting is rapidly growing in popularity for the simple reason that it works. It does so whether you're trying to loss excess body fat or improve biofeedback for optimal health. As a general rule, intermittent fasting involves cutting calories, in whole or in part, either a couple of days a month or a week, every other day, or even daily.
 
There are many ways to fast, from consuming nothing but water for two to three days each month to eating a normal amount of calories every day but during a restricted window of time so you still get a good long stretch without food intake during each 24-hour period.

Here's a brief overview of a couple of different options:

2- to 3-Day Water Fast
It is generally not recommended to go without food for any period longer than about 18 hours. However, if you are overweight and have serious health challenges, a medically supervised water fast may be appropriate.

A water fast consists of consuming nothing but water and some minerals for a finite period of time. This type of fast can give you a shorter transition into fat burning because the body will rapidly burn through glycogen stores and begin using fat for energy.

This fast may be appropriate if you have just received a very serious diagnosis, such as brain cancer. Although if you are limited by any of the following conditions, consult with your health care practitioner before embarking of this type of fast:

• Already underweight
• Nutritionally compromised
• Taking diuretics or blood pressure medications
• Have low blood pressure
• Have diabetes, thyroid disease, chronically low sodium levels, or cardiovascular disease

5-Day Fast
This fast consists of spending five consecutive days of each month on a modified fast. You do not abstain from food entirely during these days. On the first day, you eat about 1,000 to 1,100 calories, followed by 725 calories on the remaining four days. As with all fasting options, the foods you do eat should be low in net carbohydrates and protein, and high in healthy fats.

Researchers have observed when people who have fasted five consecutive days once a month for three consecutive months saw improvements in biomarkers for cell regeneration. Risk factors for diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease., and aging also declined (Brandhorst et al., 2015).

Beware that is can be quite challenging to go for a full five days with very little food, especially if you've never fasted before, so you may want to work your way up slowly to this type of fast. Remember, "low and slow."

1-Day Fast
With this fast, you skip eating for one day of every week, consuming only water on that day. Your fast should be broken with a regular-sized meal, and you can maintain your regular exercise program without any special diet recommendations for workout days.

Fasting for 24 hours can be rough for some people, but eating a high-fat low-carb diet can make a 24-hour fast easier, as a higher fat diet will tend to normalize your hunger hormones and provide improved satiety for longer periods of time. You can also fast from dinner to dinner, skipping a full 24 hours of eating while still eating each day.

Alternate-Day Fasting
This program consists of eating on one day, and not eating on the next. During fasting days you restrict your eating to one meal of about 500 calories. On nonfasting days, you can eat normally.

When you include sleeping time, your fast can end up being as long as 32 to 26 hours. According to Krista Varady, Ph.D., author of The Every-Other-Day Diet, alternate-day fasting can help you lose up to two pounds of body fat per week.

Another benefit to alternate-day fasting is that your body tends to adapt to the regularity of the program. In clinical trials, about 90% of participants were able to stick to alternate-day fasting, whereas the other 10% dropped out within the first two weeks.

Peak Fasting
This form of fasting is by far the easiest to maintain once your body has shifted over from burning sugar to burning fat as its primary fuel, and it also appears to support steady circadian rhythms.

Peak Fasting is done every day rather than a few days per week or month. However, you can certainly cycle in off days to suit your schedule or social commitments - this flexibility is another major benefit of Peak Fasting. If circumstances allow, it is recommended implementing this type of fasting about five days a week. The process is quite simple.

The crux of Peak Fasting is to restrict your eating each day to a 6- to 11-hour window. As a result you will avoid eating for 13 to 18 hours every day. The simplest way to implement this type of fasting is to stop eating at least three hours before bed and then delay your first meal of the following day until at least 13 hours have passed since you last ate.

This may seem like an awfully long time to go without eating on a daily basis, but once you have transitioned to burning fat as your primary fuel, you won't experience those frequent hunger pains. Another benefit of Peak Fasting is that you will be able to go hours without a dip in energy because fat provides a continuous source of fuel. This is in contrast to glucose, which triggers glucose/insulin spikes, frequent hunger pains, and energy crashes as cues to consume more high-carb foods.

Regardless of the fasting program you choose, or even if you choose not to adapt any formal type of fasting, you should stop eating at least three hours before you go to bed. This simple change can help optimize your mitochondrial function and prevent cellular damage. Many factors influence why you will reap health benefits if you develop the habit of not eating within three hours of bedtime:

• When you are sleeping, your energy needs are at their lowest, and providing excess fuel at this time will result in the production of excessive amounts of damaging free radicals.
• Sleep is your body's time for detox and repair, and needing to digest a meal during sleep will impair these important processes.
• Nighttime is a common time for your body to use ketones for energy, since glycogen stores are typically depleted within 18 hours (13 hours if you are eating low quantities of carbohydrates), and eating too close to bedtime can replenish glycogen stores and prevent the body from burning fat for overnight fuel.
• Not eating for at least three hours before bed enables you to extend that period of time without eating food on a daily basis.

A compilation of scientific literature published in 2011 provides much of the experimental work supporting the advice from eating too close to bedtime. The message is clear: since the body uses the least amount of calories when sleeping, eating close to bedtime adds excess fuel which will generative excessive free radicals that will damage the tissues, accelerate aging, and contribute to chronic disease (Pamplona, 2011).

Although intermittent fasting, particularly Peak Fasting, is a powerful way to improve your physiological function all the way down to the mitochondrial level, it is not for everyone. Individuals taking medications, especially those with diabetes, need medical supervision; otherwise there is a risk of hypoglycemia.

If you have serious adrenal challenges or chronic renal disease, are living with chronic stress (adrenal fatigue), or have cortisol dysregulation, you would likely need to resolve these issues before implementing intermittent fasting. Also, if you have a disease called porphyria, you should not fast.

If you goal is to build large muscles or engage in competitive sports such as sprinting that require glucose for anaerobic fast twitch muscle fibers, intermittent fasting is not likely to be your best strategy.

Pregnant women and nursing mothers should not practice intermittent fasting, as the baby needs a wider range of nutrients during and after birth.

Children under 18 should also not fast for extended periods. Moreover, anyone of any age with concerns of malnutrition, or who is underweight (with a BMI less than 18.5), or who has an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa should avoid fasting.

When implementing intermittent fasting, keep your eye on any signs of hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, which include:

• Light-headedness
  
• Shakiness
  
• Confusion
  
• Fainting
  
• Excessive sweating
  
• Blurred vision
  
• Slurred speech
  
• Feelings of an atypical heartbeat
  
• Pins and needles sensation (neuropathy) in the fingertips
  

If you suspect that your blood sugar is low, make sure to eat something that will not impact your blood glucose levels, such as foods with a lower glycemic index quantity, including coconut oil in black coffee or tea.

The most challenging part of any intermittent fasting plan is getting through the initial transition, which can take anywhere from a week to two months. In some people this transition may take even longer, depending on how insulin resistant they are and other factors such as weight, blood pressure, and how consistent they are with their fasting regimen.

Roughly 10% of people report headaches as a side effect when they first begin fasting, but the biggest complaint is hunger. This is why it is so important to remain hydrated, especially while adding extra magnesium. It may be helpful to remember that one reason you're craving food is because your body has not yet made the switch from burning sugar to burning fat as its primary fuel. As long as you're running on sugar, frequent hunger pains will be the norm. Fat is far more satisfying, as it's a much slower-burning fuel.

Another factor that can cause disruption during the transition period is purely psychological. If you're used to grazing in the evenings, it may take some time to break the habit. One trick is to make it easier to go longer periods of time without eating is to drink more water. Oftentimes people mistake thirst for hunger.

It typically takes a few days to work up to 13 hours of fasting, but once you start activating your fat-burning system you will easily achieve this. The most effective way is to keep to your fat-burning plan by limiting your net carbs to under 40 grams per day and not exceeding more than 1 gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass.

Pesticides are stressors that have received considerable attention, and among these no single class has received more attention than the neonicotinoids. These insecticides are acutely toxic to honey bees, environmentally persistent and mobile in the environment (Long & Krupke, 2016).

A recent large-scale, real-world field study, published in the journal Science, evaluating neonicotinoid pesticides has been added to a growing body of evidence suggesting that these agricultural chemicals are indeed harming bee populations to a unprecedented level.

Researchers investigated three different bee species across 33 sites in the United
Kingdom, Germany and Hungary, and found that exposure to neonicotinoid-treated crops is associated with a reduced capacity of bee species to establish new populations in the year following exposure.

For honey bees, the researchers found both negative (Hungary and United Kingdom) and positive (Germany) effects during crop flowering. In Hungary, negative effects on honey bees persisted over winter and resulted in smaller colonies in the following spring (24% declines). In wild bees (Bombus terrestris and Osmia bicornis), reproduction was negatively correlated with neonicotinoid residues (Woodcock et al., 2017).

Bayer and Syngenta, makers of neonicotinoid pesticides, promptly disputed the researchers’ conclusions—even though they partially funded the study (Gardner, 2017).

The amount of research pertaining to the effects of neonicotinoids on bees is overwhelming. Here are some of the results gathered from various studies conducted evaluating the effects of neonicotinoids on bees:

• Small bodied species show greater sensitivity to neonicotinoids.
• Dosed bees were significantly less likely to return to the nest than control bees.
• Bees in the two neonicotinoid treatments grew significantly more slowly and had an 85% reduction in the number of new queens produced when compared to control colonies.
• Concentration of thiamethoxam (a neonicotinoid) in pollen significantly negatively predicted both colony weight gain and production of new queens.
  
• Field-realistic doses of neonicotinoids (<3.5 ng/g) resulted in sublethal impacts on their ability to successfully build nests and provision offspring.
• Field studies using bumblebees demonstrate that exposure to neonicotinoid-treated flowering crops can have significant impacts on colony growth and reproductive output depending on the levels exposed to.

Given the vast farmlands devoted to crops and concerns about worldwide pollinator decline, researchers set out to to determine how (that is, plant species) and when (that is, time in season), pollen-foraging honey bees are exposed to a range of pesticides in agricultural landscapes, with an eye towards clarifying potential high-risk compounds and identifying common combinations of pesticides encountered in field environments.

The most common pesticide types detected in pollen samples across all sites were fungicides and herbicides. Honey bees visited a diverse assemblage of flowering plants, collecting pollen from up to 30 plant families during the 16-week sampling period (Long & Krupke, 2016).

It is evident that bees and other non-target organisms inhabiting farmland are routinely exposed to far more complex cocktails of pesticides than any experimental protocol has yet attempted to examine. Since researchers typically study the effects of only one chemical at a time, a major challenge for scientists and regulators is to attempt to understand how chronic exposure to complex mixtures of neonicotinoids and other chemicals affects wildlife, including humans.

The results from this research are particularly important because many crops globally are insect pollinated and without pollinators we would struggle to produce many foods. Across crops, years and biogeographical regions, crop-visiting wild bee communities are dominated by a small number of common species, and threatened species are rarely observed on crops. Researchers have observed that a small number of species dominate the contribution of crop production. Across 90 studies, the researchers observed that 2% of bee species account for almost 80% of all crop visits (Kleijn et al., 2017).

Do you support the use of these pesticides? If you are purchasing products that are contaminated with these neonicotinoids, you are contributing to this problem. If you refuse to buy foods contaminated with pesticides, the companies taking these short cuts will stop producing these products. These companies function on a corporate, patent-driven agricultural model that involves monoculture crops dependent on high chemical inputs. This creates a positive feedback loop where pest plants and insects become resistant to herbicides and pesticides, prompting companies to make other, more toxic chemicals. This ever-growing dependence on chemicals, which threatens natural ecosystems and human health, is highly profitable to companies like Bayer, Syngeta and Monsanto.

It is up to everyone of us to source foods that we know how they are grown and produced - easier said than done when shopping at a supermarket. Try shopping at your local farmer's markets, where you can meet the farmers in person and know how they are growing the food you purchase. You should know what is in your food. Collectively, we have the power to choose what we as consumers want.

The ideal solution to this problem is to grow your own food in an organic garden! Both flower and vegetable gardens provide good honeybee habitats. It's also recommended to keep a small basin of fresh water in your garden or backyard, as bees actually do get thirsty. Be very mindful of pesticide use, and think twice whether such chemicals are really necessary before you spray them (this goes for flea repellents, mosquito sprays and more). You can take bee preservation a step further by trying your hand at amateur beekeeping. Maintaining a hive in your garden requires minimal time, benefits your local ecosystem, and you get to enjoy your own homegrown honey.

As for pesticides in your body, your best bet for minimizing health risks from herbicide and pesticide exposure — including both the active and "inactive" ingredients — is to avoid them in the first place by eating organic as much as possible.

Among which, a meta-analysis (Choi et al.,) - a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple studies - found that in 26 out of 27 studies, children in a high-fluoridated community had lower IQ scores, on average, compared to children in a low-fluoridated community. Conversely, another group of researchers found no differences in IQ between children living in communities with artificially-fluoridated and those in a non-fluoridated community. Regarding the latter research, however, substantial methodological limitations have been identified; one key limitation of this study is that the difference in fluoride intake between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities was small, thereby reducing the power of the study to detect an effect of fluoride on IQ.

Based on research that found a relationship between exposure to fluoride and lowered IQ, which accounted for various confounding variables, a daily dose should not exceed 0.005 mg of fluoride per day, or 0.0010 mg of fluoride per kilogram of bodyweight per day, for children aged 8-13 years.

Several groups of researchers indicate that fluoride is a developmental neurotoxicant in humans. In addition, a separate group of researchers observed a significant association between the prevalence of artificial water fluoridation and  and the prevalence of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the United States.

Another group of researchers observed a significant inverse relationship between both urinary and serum fluoride levels and IQ among children. The researchers observed a statistically significant IQ difference of 4.3 IQ points between the high (n=106) and control (n=110) urinary fluoride groups. Similarly, another group of researchers observed that both serum fluoride, and urine fluoride were significantly related to water fluoride levels, and both were also significantly related to lowered IQ. The high urinary fluoride level group, the IQ point difference, compared to the control group, was 2.42 points per milligram of fluoride per liter.

Regardless of the mechanism(s), the researchers observed that children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores, compared to those who lived in low-exposure areas.

While this research does not touch on the question of whether such a level in drinking water offers dental health benefits, it indicates that an intake rate greater than 0.047 mg F/day poses a significant risk of lowering IQ of exposed children.

The current average mean fluoride exposures for US children range from about 0.80 mg F/day to about 1.65 mg F/day. These doses are 17 to 35 times higher than the higher estimated reference dose of 0.047 mg F/day. These results imply that at present the risk of IQ loss among children in the US is high.

Fluoride may be similar to lead and mercury in having no threshold below which exposures may be considered safe.

In a population of 320 million, the population level impact of an average 5 IQ point loss, beyond purely dollars of income loss, is a reduction of about 4 million people with IQ>130 and an increase of almost as many people with IQ<70.

March 2015

In the video clip above, Patrick Moore, a founder of environmental consultancy company Greenspirit Strategies Ltd., was interviewed by French investigative journalist Paul Moreira as part of a six-month-long investigation for the documentary "Bientôt dans vos assiettes" (Soon on your plate). The documentary discusses the damage done in Argentina over the past decade by the increasing use of pesticides on GMO soy farms, noting the prevalence of illnesses, including cancer, among those living in the vicinity of the Roundup Ready crop. As seen in the interview, in which Moore was asked to speak about efficacy of golden rice, and eventually, on the safety of the pesticide, glyphosate, Moore claims that one "can drink a whole quart of it and it won't hurt you."

Transcript:

Moore: Do not believe that glyphosate in Argentina is causing increases in cancer. You can drink a whole quart of it and it won't hurt you.

Interviewer: You want to drink some? We have some here.

Moore: I'd be happy to actually... Not, not really, but...

Interviewer: Not really?

Moore: I know it wouldn't hurt me.

Interviewer: If you say so, I have some glyphosate.

Moore: No, I'm not stupid.

At the request of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Marketplace, items from five major fast-food restaurants were analyzed by Trent University's Wildlife Forensic DNA Laboratory to measure the quantity of chicken and non-chicken DNA. The DNA analysis revealed the following:

The majority of remaining DNA was determined to be soy.

Subway Ingredients List:
CHICKEN PATTY: Chicken breast meat, water, seasoning (sea salt, sugar, chicken stock, salt, flavours, canola oil. onion powder, garlic powder, spice, chicken fat, honey), soy protein, sodium phosphates.

CHICKEN STRIPS: chicken breasts (Boneless, skinless), water, soy protein concentrate, modified potato starch, sodium phosphate, potassium chloride, salt, maltodextrin, yeast extract, flavours, spices, dextrose, onion powder, carmelized sugar, paprika, chicken broth, vinegar solids, paprika extract.

CHICKEN STRIPS (teriyaki glazed): Chicken breast strips (see above), teriyaki (water, corn syrup, soy sauce (water, wheat, soybean, salt, sodium benzoate [a preservative]), rice vinegar, modified corn starch, sugar, tomato paste, ginger, vinegar, garlic, sesame oil, sesame seed, salt, dehydrated green onion, dehydrated red bell pepper, natural flavours, autolyzed yeast extract, dehydrated garlic, sodium benzoate (a preservative), spices, citric acid, soybean oil, dry yeast (torula), dehydrated onion.
 
Subway defended CBC's claim by sending samples of the chicken to two independent labs (Maxxam Analytics and Elisa Technologies, Inc.), in which the labs found less than 1 percent soy protein in the tested samples. Jeff Lanteigne, vice-president of product development and quality assurance at Grand River Foods, the Cambridge, Ont.-based supplier of Subway's chicken product states, "As reported to CBC Marketplace before the segment aired, Subway chicken strips and oven-roasted chicken are made from 100 per cent white meat and contain 1 per cent or less of soy protein. We use this functional ingredient to help stabilize the texture and moisture,"

Who do you trust?

While the largest contributing exposure to fluoride lies within the public water supply, a unsuspecting exposure may be within the food you consume regularly. 

Fast food wrappers and containers, made up of grease-resistance packaging, contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), which are synthetic compounds with fluorine present. Some of these PFASs have been associated with cancer, developmental toxicity, immunotoxicity, and other health effects.

While you may be thinking, "okay, fluoride is in the wrapper. I am not going to eat the wrapper." However, think again, PFASs can leach into food and increase dietary exposure. Researchers observed that 46% of food contact papers and 20% of paperboard samples contained detectable fluorine (Schaider et al, 2017).

Another team of researchers ran an experiment to determine if flouride that migrates into foods from the wrappers. Indeed, the results indicate that fluoride does leach into food from the packaging. In fact, foods containing oils in these pacakages can significantly enhance migration of fluoride from paper into food (Begley, Hsu, Noonan, & Diachenko, 2008).

Eat more fresh foods! Rather than voting for fast food corporations with your dollar, invest in future that you want to see. Take the steps to an optimal diet. It begins by creating your own food. After all, it is better for your health and wellness.

In the near future, you may be eating the next generation of genetically engineered (GE) foods, and you may not even be aware that you are eating them. In the law passed last year by congress to label and disclose genetically modified ingredients in hopes to inform consumers may not be of value. The new generation of crops, dubbed "gene-edited", are created using a technique that splices DNA at specific locations. Since this new experiment is not considered genetically modified, the new GE crops fall outside of the current regulations, therefore do not require labeling.

The new gene edited crop technique has not been used to introduce foreign genes into plants, so far, as compared to the older methods of GE like CRISPR. This process of mixing species is called transgenesis. Catlyxt, a subsidiary of Cellectis experimenting with gene-edited crops, describes the technique like moving the cursor in a word processor to a specific location and making small changes to the text. This loophole offers an opportunity to the FDA to permit companies to roll out the new techniques. So far, acres of gene-edited crops have already been grown in the United States, without restriction or regulation.

Primarily a biopharmaceutical company, Collectis creates gene-edited crops as a side business, after collaborating with behemoth companies like Monsanto and DuPont.

Gene editing is not being limited to plants. Recombinetics, a Minnesota company, is editing the genes of farm animals to create cattle without horns.

The organic food standards have been recommended to exclude gene-edited crops even if grown without pesticides by a USDA advisory board.

from mercola: [T]here are an unsettling number of foxes being appointed to guard the U.S. health care and food industry hen houses … foxes that have entirely too many connections to Monsanto, the chemical manufacturer turned agricultural giant that is slowly gaining control over the world’s population, one seed at a time.

Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is now the Secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack has been a strong supporter of genetically engineered crops, including bio-pharmaceutical corn. Vilsack is an ardent supporter of corn and soy-based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil fuel energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor. Overall, Vilsack’s record is one of aiding and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or factory farms and promoting animal cloning. Vilsack is widely regarded as a shill for biotech giants like Monsanto.

Michael Taylor, a former vice president of public policy and chief lobbyist at Monsanto Company, is the new senior advisor for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Michael Taylor is the person who is the leading spokesperson on the dangers of GM foods. Taylor also oversaw the policy regarding Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH/rbST). This growth hormone, which has been banned in Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand because of cancer risks and other health concerns, was approved in the United States while Taylor was in charge at the FDA.

Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff may be appointed the new Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Not only did Dennis Wolff attempt to ban rbGH-free labels, but OCA points out that he has “also worked to deprive communities the right to ban toxic sewage sludge, factory farms, and GMOs.”