permaculture

[EFMonaco <EFMonaco@compuserve.com>]

Hey folks,

I'm trying to figure out something related to GMO foods.  I've been hearing
that 60% of the US-based food supply contains GMOs in some sort or fashion,
including a lot you get at health food stores.  Moreover, 80% of the soy
crop is a GMO, because the seeds are controlled by goliath ag-chem
interests, which I'm sure is true, but I don't have any direct experience
with this.

When purchasing soy products, how can one tell?  The labels don't say one
way or the other.  I posed this question to an agent of Nature's Sunshine
Products in Spanish Fork, Utah.  NSP has the most advanced  lab in the
supplement industry, and they have the toughest specs in the industry for
growers to meet: thngs like species consistency (only that herb), color
variation, active ingredient levels, plant parts (tops vs. seeds and
stems), organic, and no pesticides.  They say that even with these specs
growers still ship in material that doesn't meet them so they end up
rejecting 6%, which they say goes back to the supplier (and is usually
shipped to another manufacturer.)

When it comes to soy, their labs can't detect a GMO if it was grown
organic, so they send reps out to the fields and .... that's where they
lost me.  I know they're concerned about GMOs, but I don't understand how
they can tell?  Does anybody know what they can do?  And what we can do on
a local level?  I know my local food coop doesn't have a lab or go to this
trouble.  We trust our local growers but where do they get their seeds? 
This affects a ton of products, found in health food stores, like Tofu,
TVP, all kinds of stuff.

The GMOs are designed to be pesticied-resistant so farmers can use even
more chemicals (which they do) to knock out everything else but the GMO. 
The only way to stop this is to not buy the stuff.  But it's coming in
under the radar (they're not stupid).  Europe has risen up against this (so
I hear, is it really true?) but American agri-business political forces are
too powerful to sway the USDA.   What's an organic consumer to do?

Gene Monaco