| WEEKLY WATCH number 181 (29/6/2006) | |
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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor Dear all: With a failure to read current trends that is mind-boggling in its enormity, food giant Unilever is planning to market a low-fat ice cream derived via a GM process from a fish protein. Unilever believes that worries about obesity will overcome people's instinctive disgust at GM ... hmm, we'll see. (NEW GM-DERIVED FOOD) Quite apart from the almost universal hostility to GM and the strong "yuk factor" of brown fish goop in our ice cream, Unilever evidently has not woken up to the growing mistrust among scientists, nutritionists and the public of the anti-fat-in-foods lobby. People are increasingly aware that it is not fat in itself that's harmful, but the wrong kinds of fats, and these are generally those produced by the processed foods industry. In fact, our brains are mostly made of fat, but because of modern de-natured diets, most children today are seriously deficient in fats essential for brain development - which explains a lot about the problems they have. In addition, there's the pollution factor that makes even natural fats potentially more toxic than they should be. Certain persistent toxins that are hard for the body to detoxify are fat-soluble and accumulate in fat, both in foods and the human body. These include heavy metals, dioxins and pesticides - pollutants spread around the environment by companies like, er, Unilever. It's a neat scam to make money out of creating a problem and then make even more money out of the oh so clever "solution". Claire [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------ GM TREES ------------------------------------------------------------ + ACTION ALERT: STOP COMMERCIAL PLANTING OF GM PLUMS - FIRST TEMPERATE GM TREE The USDA admits that this GM plum will contaminate both organic and conventional non-GM plum orchards if it is approved. Since all commercial plum trees are cultivars that are relatively compatible within the same species, contamination via GM plum pollen carried by bees and other insects will infiltrate the plum orchards of organic and conventional growers. The proposed buffer zones between GM plums and other plums will not prevent genetic contamination from being spread by pollinating insects. The one GM fruit tree that has previously been approved, a virus resistant Hawaiian papaya, has caused extensive contamination of organic, conventional and wild papaya orchards on most of the Hawaiian Islands in just a few years. + GM PAPAYA IN HAWAII Quoting from statistics from the US Department of Agriculture, the report says that a decade ago in 1995, the gross value of Hawaii's fresh papaya crop was over US$22 million but today, it has declined by more than half. In 1997, before ringspot virus-resistant GM papaya were sold, farmers received an average of $1.23 per kilogram. In 1998, that figure crashed to $0.89 when traditional buyers of Hawaiian papayas, such as Japan and Canada, rejected the GM fruit. As prices declined, so has production and the area cultivated over the years. The failures in Hawaii are especially important because GM papaya is being heavily promoted in other countries, especially in Southeast Asia. It is hoped that lessons can be drawn from the Hawaiian experience so that history will not repeat itself in these countries. ------------------------------------------------------------ + REPORT ON U.S. GM REGULATION The report addresses several key questions: The report concludes that state and local jurisdictions should retain the power to address specific problems with GM crops that are not sufficiently addressed by federal regulators. Full text of report: |
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