Edible Oil Wars: Genetically Modified Oils

After reading this recent horrific news about what the biotech industry is plotting for our supposed ‘health’ by manipulating vegetable oils even further, we realized we need more info about oil and fat and the economic battles that are being and have been fought over this most basic and vital nutrient for humankind on this website.

Many years ago–way back in 2000–I was the Sous chef at a Renaissance International Hotel, we were hosting some kind of very important conference for UNICEF for a week or so. During this conference I had to pander to the dietary demands of the most nasty, easily irritated and just generally grumpy old man I have ever met (and I have met some grumpy ones I guarantee it). He was on a low-cholesterol diet and I had to cook everything for him on a no-stick pan with absolutely no fat of any kind. At that time I had not yet heard of Weston A. Price or Sally Fallon, but I was pretty sure that his grumpiness was a direct result of his no-fat diet.

Speaking of Weston A. Price, I highly recommend having a look at some of these articles about the importance of whole, natural and saturated fats for health-including coconut, lard and butter. An extensive index of interesting articles can be found here.

Be wary of vegetable fats, especially soy, canola and corn:

The New Frontier: Genetically Modified Oil Wars

READ Full Article HERE

…some of my favorite excerpts from this article:

If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” ~Thomas Jefferson

  • Consumer Beware: the next generation of biotech crops focus directly on you. Unlike most of GM crops currently on the market, which are genetically altered to be herbicide and pesticide resistant, the new generation of GM crops are designed to express alleged nutritional benefits. Focusing on soybean oil — the fastest way to reach the broadest number of consumers because of its ubiquitous presence in many foods — biotech companies are mutating seeds used to produce oil designed to express various types of “nutritional” benefits.
  • DuPont’s appeal to the public with its GM soy is two-fold: first, its Plenish is said to address the concerns of consumers and many health officials about trans fats. Since cooking with Plenish allegedly yields a product with 0g trans fats, Plenish oil is believed to be appealing to companies and restaurants that make or cook food.
  • Monsanto’s PR pitch is aimed at both promoting the alleged health benefits of its Omega-3 soy as well as the alleged benefit of saving the world’s fish stock. Monsanto’s Omega3-s soy is said to ease that pressure by creating a soybean oil with Omega-3s, thus, supposedly, eliminating or decreasing the need to rely on fish as the source of Omega-3s. Monsanto’s environmental claims, however, ring false to many ears because the decline of the fish population is a complex problem that is caused by multiple of factors that cannot be redressed with a single solution.

    Less known is the fact that Monsanto achieves its omega-3 soy by inserting two genes into the soybean genome, one from a plant related to primrose and one from a fungus.

  • BASF – Trailing behind in the food oil wars, and using a different crop, is the German Chemical Company BASF. BASF is developing GM canola plants that also produce omega-3s by inserting five genes from algae that naturally make EPA and DHA into the canola genome. The company’s product, however, is still in development.
  • What’s more pernicious is that the biotech companies will go on to label and market their GM oils as panacea for health ailments and an ecological saviour. With each new next generation GM product, however, whether its soybean or canola oil manipulated to produce Omega-3s, or rice manipulated to produce vitamin A, the concept of health and nutrition is further perverted as consumers are enticed to purchase food that has not been demonstrated to be safe.

And as it turns out research is being done into making ‘golden oil’ by genetically modifying mustard oil to be a vitamin A supplement for the population of India.

A novel solution analyzed by the authors turns out to be mustard, a crop that can be genetically modified into a “golden” variety to express high levels of beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A.

From Using “Golden Mustard” a Better Way to Treat Vitamin A Deficiency?

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