Why Do Supporters of Genetically Engineered Foods Insist on Organics for Their Own Families?

October 09 2012
  • Many political supporters of genetically engineered (GE) foods are feasting on organics, while promoting unlabeled GE foods for everyone else, including Mitt Romney, President Obama, and former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
  • At present, the race is neck-to-neck between Romney and Obama in terms of not doing anything to protect or promote safer, more healthful organic foods for average Americans. Instead, both of them, while on organic diets themselves, promote untested GE foods for the masses
  • According to a former White House executive chef, Laura Bush was “adamant that in ALL CASES, if an organic product was available it was to be used in place of a non-organic product,” and Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, has publicly credited a combination of organic foods and holistic medicine for turning her health around after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998
  • In a 2008 interview, Michelle Obama is quoted as saying: “...you start reading the labels and you realize there’s high-fructose corn syrup in everything... Everything that’s in a bottle or a package is like poison in a way that most people don’t even know...”
  • While the Obama’s appear well-informed about the health dangers of processed foods in general and genetically engineered foods specifically, their personal belief system has not filtered into the food policies that affect the rest of the population. On the contrary, the President has appointed a number of former Monsanto employees into key federal positions that wield near-absolute power over agricultural issues, while ignoring his pre-election promise to “immediately” label genetically engineered foods once elected into office
  • We have no real champions for food safety and labeling of genetically engineered foods within the federal government. But right now we do have a great opportunity to change this situation by circumventing the federal system entirely and supporting California’s Proposition 37 to label GE foods. This CA law would have a national effect



By Dr. Mercola

Over the past few years, an interesting pattern has emerged, where political supporters of genetically engineered (GE) foods are feasting on organics, while promoting unlabeled GE foods for everyone else.

Most recently, Mother Jones1 discussed how Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney – whose ties to Monsanto go back to the late 1970's when GE crops were still in the R&D phase – reportedly makes sure his own meals are nothing but organic...

According to Peter Alexander of MSN Today:2

"On Romney Air, or Hair Force One – as Reuters' Steve Holland like to call it – Mitt Romney has his own galley in 'forward cabin.' And, while I've never been invited up front, sources close to the campaign tell me the shelves are stocked with a wide variety of healthy fare. Kashi cereals, hummus, pita, as well as organic applesauce.

Everything's organic, I'm told, including the ingredients to Romney's favorite, peanut butter and honey sandwiches."

Even more interesting, in a 2002 article3 about Romney's wife, Ann, she credits a combination of organic foods and holistic medicine for turning her health around after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. The profile reads in part:

"...She was 49 at the time, and the disease was progressing rapidly, she says, prompting the doctors to put her on steroids, which made her so sick she could barely get out of bed. 'They were killing me,' she says of the treatment. 'You have bone loss; they are so bad for you.'

Mrs. Romney was introduced to several practitioners of holistic medicine, who persuaded her to adopt alternative therapies. She now eats organic foods and very little meat. She practices reflexology and undergoes acupuncture treatments. She credits the lifestyle with turning her health around...

'Everyone has to find their own way,' she says. 'Three years ago I was really, really sick and not able to function at all. A lot of the symptoms are [now] gone...'"

Mrs. Romney isn't the only success story in which food played a center role in beating multiple sclerosis (MS). Last year I posted an article about Dr. Terry Wahls, who reversed MS after seven years of deterioration on the best conventional treatments available, simply by changing her diet.

Wouldn't it be a nice change of pace if our agricultural authorities, not to mention our President, could reach into their hearts and find the humanity to fight for everyone's right to eat wholesome food that doesn't contain foreign DNA, built-in pesticides, and an inordinate amount of synthetic chemicals so that diseases such as MS and cancer could be curtailed before they even get a foothold?

If GE Foods are So Great, Why Won't the Elite Eat Them?

While Obama has been a huge supporter of Big Biotech during his term, Romney is just as "tight" with Monsanto, having actually successfully guided the company out of lawsuits with Congress in the shameful aftermath of Agent Orange (a Monsanto creation, which was supposed to be harmless to everything except vegetation), and heinous chemical dumping incidents in Missouri and Alabama.4

He's also in favor putting the "Monsanto rider" provision in the 2012 Farm Bill – a rider that would prevent a federal court from putting in place court-ordered restrictions on a GE crop, even if the approval were fraudulent or involved bribery, among other things.

Unfortunately, Mitt Romney is just one in a line of politicians who support and promote GE foods as being just as safe and "natural" as conventional foods while privately serving up nothing but organic for their own families. President Obama, as his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, have all reportedly insisted on an organic diet.

Mother Jones writes:5

"What's my evidence that the Clintons and Bushes ate organic? Get this, from someone who knows – Walter Scheib,6 who served as White House executive chef during the Clinton and Bush years:

'From 1994 to 2005 I was the executive chef at the White House. This offered me not only the personal honor of serving two unique and interesting first families, but the professional challenge of fulfilling Hillary Clinton's mandate of bringing contemporary American cuisine and nutritionally responsible food to the White House.'

This meant that nearly all the product used was obtained from local growers and suppliers. There was a small garden on the roof of the White House where produce was grown. The ethic of the purchasing and the cooking at the White House under my direction and under the continuing direction of [current Obama White House executive chef] Cris Comerford is one of respect for the pedigree of the product and manner it is grown, gathered, raised or caught.

The Clinton and Bush families dined regularly on organic foods. Both wagyu and grass-fed beef were frequently used." [Emphasis mine}

Scheib was again quoted in a 2009 article by Think Progress,7 stating that Laura Bush was "adamant that in ALL CASES if an organic product was available it was to be used in place of a non-organic product." Meanwhile, the article lists a number of atrocious food policies instituted by her husband. Who knows, perhaps she was so adamant about organics because she knew the quality and safety of conventional food was rapidly going down the toilet?

For More go to:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/09/ge-food-supporters-insist-organic-foods.aspx?e_cid=20121009_DNL_art_1