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An important new manuscript accepted for publication in the journal Food Chemistry disproves the widely held notion that GMO crops are 'substantially equivalent' to their traditional counterparts; a notion which forms the basis for national and international agencies – including the U.S. FDA, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization – declaring genetically modified foods to be safe without having performed adequate health risk assessments.
The new manuscript titled, "Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans,"[i] was submitted by a team of researchers from Norway and the United Kingdom who explored the compositional differences of 31 soybean batches from Iowa, USA, which consisted of three different types:
- Genetically modified, glyphosate-tolerant soy (GM-soy);
- Unmodified soy cultivated using a conventional "chemical" cultivation regime;
- Unmodified soy cultivated using an organic cultivation regime.
Their analysis revealed the following discoveries:
- "Organic soybeans showed the healthiest nutritional profile with more sugars, such as glucose, fructose, sucrose and maltose, significantly more total protein, zinc and less fibre than both conventional and GM-soy."
- "Organic soybeans also contained less total saturated fat and total omega-6 fatty acids than both conventional and GM-soy."
- "GM-soy contained high residues of glyphosate and AMPA (mean 3.3 and 5.7mg/kg, respectively). Conventional and organic soybean batches contained none of these agrochemicals."
They summarized their findings:
"Using 35 different nutritional and elemental variables to characterise each soy sample, we were able to discriminate GM, conventional and organic soybeans without exception, demonstrating "substantial non-equivalence" in compositional characteristics for 'ready-to-market' soybeans." [emphasis added]
As we discussed in our previous article, "Extreme Toxicity of Roundup Destroys GM/Non-GM 'Substantial Equivalence' Argument," an increasingly concerning body of peer-reviewed published research indicates that Roundup and related glyphosate-based herbicide formulations represent an extreme environmental and human health danger:
"If Monsanto's Roundup herbicide were actually 'safer than table salt' as they once advertised, the consumption of GM food wouldn't be nearly as controversial. The truth, however, is that virtually all GM food today contains residues of this toxic chemical, which disproves that GM and non-GM foods are 'substantially equivalent," and which is the primary doctrinal justification behind why GM foods are not properly safety tested and millions in this country eating them are living and breathing guinea pigs."
Owing to the fact that glyphosate has now been identified as a ubiquitous environmental exposure, found in the majority of air and rain samples recently tested, groundwater, seawater and any glyphosate tolerant GM food, simply choosing to refrain from eating GM foods (which is exceedingly difficult owing to the lack of labeling) is not going to solve the problem of the incessant environmental fallout from the glyphosate-dependent GM agricultural system itself. Pleading to regulatory agencies or lawmakers to provide us a right to choose to avoid GM ingredients is a worthwhile cause, but GM labeling is only a part of a larger battle, which includes refusing to buy foods that are made with GM ingredients or may be suspected to be, and moving towards an outright ban of agrochemicals and GM plants whose biopollution represents an irreversible threat to the biosphere, of which the human body forms an inextricable part.
In order to drive momentum towards mass awareness of the extreme health dangers associated with the use of Roundup and Roundup-Ready agriculture, we are offering a free PDF download of our accumulated research on the topic to be shared far and wide. It is a document consisting entirely of peer-reviewed and published research, with hyperlinks back to the original citation location on the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database. Please share and download it here today: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/free_downloads/gpub_78151_toxic_ingredient_glyphosate_formulations.pdf
To learn more about the dangers of GM food, agricultural practices and agrichemicals, visit our regularly updated research section on the topic: Health Guide: GMOs.
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[i] T Bøhn, M Cuhra, T Traavik, M Sanden, J Fagan, R Primicerio. Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans. Food Chem. 2014 Jun 15 ;153:207-15. Epub 2013 Dec 18. PMID: 24491722
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