Total Health Breakthroughs: Free Natural Health Newsletter and Alternative Health Articles

Monsanto is the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology company and producer of genetically modified (GM) seeds. Monsanto’s GM crop seeds are altered to resist the damaging effects of their bestselling agricultural herbicide, Roundup, which earns the company a cool $620 million per year and provides 40% of its operating profit.¹

Initially, farmers all over the world believed GM seeds were a high-tech boon to modern agriculture — using Roundup, they could kill thousands of threatening weeds while doing no harm to valuable crops. Little did they know of the problems that would ensue, starting with the purchase of the seeds.

Before farmers are sold the Roundup-resistant seeds, they are required to sign a technology agreement that allows the company to conduct property investigations and define “what rights a farmer does and does not have in planting, harvesting, and selling genetically engineered seed.” ²

This may seem outrageous, but Monsanto has gotten away with it because their GM seeds are patented. And according to them, patent infringement also includes saving seeds from current healthy crops and replanting them in the future — a great way for Monsanto to force farmers to needlessly buy seed every year.

According to the Center for Food Safety (CFS),² the signed technology agreement has led Monsanto to aggressively pursue thousands of farmers that it believes have breached the agreement or infringed upon its GM seed patent. The farmer must then pay an out of court settlement to Monsanto or go to court. CFS says that that Monsanto has collected $15,253,602 from lawsuits that have found in its favor.²

Even farmers who have not purchased Monsanto’s GM seeds nor signed any written agreement are in the line of fire. If pollen from a GM planted crop pollinates a non-GM field on another farm that results in viable plants, that farmer is liable under current laws for patent infringement — even if he did not want GM crops growing in his field.

So successful has Monsanto been in handsomely collecting from lawsuits and gaining control of the world’s food supply that they’re now ready to go after the really big fish. On April 14, 2009, the company filed a law suit against the German government for refusing to use its GM corn.³

More and more evidence shows that pesticides can disrupt our hormonal balance and even suppress our immunity and cause neurological damage. In past articles I have noted that to reduce your body’s toxic burden from pesticides, one of the most important steps you can take is to eat organic foods as often as possible.

But for many people, the higher price tag on many of these foods can be cost prohibitive. If you can’t afford to buy “all organic,” here are some pointers to help you prioritize which foods to spend a little more on and which foods will be the lesser of evils if you can’t buy the organic version.

If you are having difficulty losing weight even after dieting and exercising more, you are not alone. Over the years, I have helped probably thousands of people with the same problem, but I am finding this scenario to be much more common now than in the past. What I want you to know is that when you’ve tried everything and weight loss or lowering of blood sugar or lipids seems impossible, it could be that environmental toxins are disrupting your body.

Some pesticides, for instance, have been linked with suboptimal thyroid function and others to insulin resistance (IR). Certain pesticides that haven’t even been used for years, like DDT, are still a problem because they are so persistent in the environment, and from there can get into our bodies.

Researchers call these substances persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The insecticide, dieldrin, is an example. This organochlorine pesticide was used on cotton and corn from the 1950s until 1970. And although its use was banned on crops in 1974, it was still used for termite control until it was finally banned by the EPA completely in 1987. Because it is tightly bound to soil and it evaporates very slowly, dieldrin persists in the environment even though it’s no longer used.¹

So how does dieldrin affect us today? Plants absorb it from the soil, and water runoff carries the soil with the chemical into water supplies. When we eat plants grown in soil still contaminated with dieldrin, it enters our bodies. We can also get it from the flesh of animals eating contaminated plants or fish living in contaminated waters.¹

After being consumed, dieldrin is then stored in our body fat. And here’s the problem: dieldrin may be linked to disruption in the thyroid hormones, T4 and TSH. One study found that women with significantly high dieldrin in their blood had decreased T4 levels and increased TSH.