We need your help! Please sign our petition at Change.org right NOW! America is about to be inundated with GMOs starting with the apple, but before the U.S. Government allows them on our store shelves it allows two one month periods for consumers to voice their opposition. This is our last chance! Do we want these non-labeled GMO apples in the marketplace. Please read the press release below and sign our petition at Change.org to keep GMOs out of our food supply.

 

DOES AN APPLE A DAY MEAN GMOs ARE HERE TO STAY?

During June tell the U.S. government to put a

freeze on Arctic apples

SIGN DR. JAYSON AND MIRA CALTON’S PETITION ONCHANGE.ORG

The apple is so important to our diet as a nation—we each consume 50.4 lbs. per year—that we describe things as being “as American as apple pie.” But what if that pie is served up with a heaping helping of genetically modified apples (GMOs)? Can we really trust the FDA to protect us from the potential dangers of GMO foods? Dr. Jayson and Mira Calton CN, authors of RICH FOOD POOR FOOD, point out that the FDA’s pattern is to wait until something goes wrong before they pull a product from store shelves, much like they did with DDT, Fen Phen, leaded paint and so many other items that later proved to be a major health hazard.

Welcome to the brave new world of the Arctic Granny Smith and Arctic Golden Delicious apples. The Okanagan Specialty Fruit Company of British Columbia has genetically engineered this apple’s genes to inhibit browning for up to 15 days of air exposure. Think about what happens to any fresh fruit you’ve cut up after 15 days. Would you want to be fooled into eating it?  And forget about safety. The FDA has no long-term research to certify the safety of these apples.

Children are particularly at risk. No parent can raise young children without a healthy supply of apples. They count on apple juice and apple sauce as well as fresh apple slices to take the place of all those fatty fries and caloric cookies at fast food chains like McDonalds. But the fruit that has always been seen as healthful could be rendered unhealthy by GMOs. Little bodies accumulate toxic substances much more quickly than adults because of their small size. No one wants their child to be a guinea pig for the GMO industry, say the Caltons. The lack of testing of GMO products can have disastrous effects on humans. In Japan a genetically modified amino acid in protein shakes caused metabolic and mental damage to hundreds of men and women, as well as several deaths.

Think that you’ll just buy organic? GMOtainted apples will still be labeled “organic” by the FDA even though GMO pollen drifting on the wind can cross-pollinate with the apples in the organic orchard down the road—or be carried to the next town on the feet of beneficial insects that are essential to the fruit industry. This brings up another point of concern—North American bees are already under siege and we have reason to fear that pollen from GMO crops could cause further damage. We already know that pollen from GMO corn dusted onto monarch butterflies’ favorite food—the milkweed—caused monarchs to die by the thousands.

There is no current labeling law to protect the public from GMO foods. Merchants have reason to fear that a food labeled as GMO won’t sell. And even in the unlikely event that GMO labeling became the law of the land, how would you know if your favorite restaurant or fast food purveyor cooked with a GMO apple? The apple is only the tip of the iceberg. The Del Monte Fresh Produce Co. Inc. is already growing the GMO “rose pineapple” and more than 30 crops are waiting in the pipeline.

Give the Arctic apple the cold shoulder.  For our own health, our children’s health and the health of the planet, we must put a freeze on the Arctic apple. In June the government will open a second public comment period on the deregulation of the Arctic apple. The first period received 2,000 comments, most in opposition. It’s time to up the ante and make the government hear—and heed—the voice of the consumer.

We need to stop this now or live with the consequences. Sign the petition here.