The Essentia Blog

Bonaire is an island off Venezuela that’s being polluted by the Freewinds Scientology ship. I’m sure many small islands are polluted the same way.

According to Robert Hare, 5% of the population are psychopathic. Psychopaths thrive in BIG business. They’re all around us.

I hear congress talking about biofuels constantly. Who’s benefiting?

BioFuels or Agrofuels are the creation of large agribusiness corporations. They’re not green or sustainable.

South America, southeast Asia and Indonesia are clearing land and deforestation is rampant. They use massive amounts of herbicides and pesticides on their crops polluting the water system.

Substituting just 10% cent of fossil fuels to biofuels for all our vehicles would require about 40 per cent of the entire cropland in Europe and North America according to www.davidsuzuki.org.

That’s not even considering the energy requirements to produce some biofuels and the greenhouse gas emissions emitted from these plants. So enough with biofuels already.

More information can be found here www.ran.org
Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge are benefiting and are partially responsible for this global catastrophe.

Who raises ppl like this anyhow?

For everyone who thought Monsanto (MON) was struggling, their share price indicates a bright future. $8.50/share in 2002 to $104.50/share as of Dec 14th 2007.

If you havn’t heard of Monsanto here’s the rundown. Monsanto makes genetically modified seeds and they’re winning the GMO battle. Monsanto seeds contain genes that kill bugs and tolerate weed-killing pesticides. 7% of the worlds farmland acreage is now grown with genetically modified crops.

GMO bovine growth hormone that’s given to cows to increase milk production is also made by Monsanto. Here’s a video on how Monsanto strong armed companies into misleading the public on health issues concerning their bovine growth hormone.

BusinessWeek recently featured the company in their Dec 17th issue. Monsanto quietly made their way into our foods because most of their crops are not directly consumed by humans but included in processed foods. So you’re ingesting them indirectly. In the U.S, approx 60% - 70% of all formulated foods - processed foods containing more than one ingredient - contain GMO’s.

You’re consuming GMO’s in:
- Corn syrup or cornstarch which is in most processed foods.
- Soybean seeds that yield oil used as a substitution for trans-fat oils at KFC and other trans-fat free fast food joints.
- Margarine
- Canola Oil
- Squash
- Papaya

The demand for Genetically modified crops has exploded. Countries like the U.S.A., Canada, Brazil, Argentina, China and India have fallen in love with the seeds.

In 1970 the average corn harvest with 70 bushels an acre. In 2006 it was 150 bushels an acre. By 2030 they predict yields will push 300 bushels an acre.

The argument is that GMO’s allow farmers to use less pesticides and less toxic pesticides. More yield so less land being farmed. etc. Do we really want to be going in that direction? The profit margins are better so all medium to large farms will eventually go GMO. Will ppl have allergies to GMO food? Will there be environmental contamination?

More information on GMO’s can be found here:

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol4/iss1/art13/

http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/agbiotech/whobenefits.html

http://www.foei.org/en/campaigns/gmo

Imagine you’re 75 years of age. You look back at the thousands of purchases you made in your lifetime. Every purchase effected someone or something, somewhere.

Your decisions have power. Share your ideas, products you like, companies you support with your circle of friends. Choose to be someone respectful, responsible and loving. Only 6 degrees of separation ;-).

Chevron Corporation owns Texaco. Service stations in Canada were re-branded from Texaco to Esso.

Here’s what you can do.

Did you watch W5 Safe to Eat? yesterday. Canada is increasingly consuming products that are made in China. Over 812 million pounds are imported from China every year.

Malachite Green is a chemical that prevents infections in crowded fish ponds. It’s also a carcinogen. The Chinese still use this chemical. So they choose the fish over us…real nice

Canada doesn’t allow food with Malachite Green to be sold. But test performed by W5 indicate there may be more inspections needed.

Made in Canada may not be Made in Canada.
Under Canadian law, the ingredients can come from anywhere in the world and still get a “Product of Canada” label. That’s because “Product of Canada” only means that at least 51 per cent of manufacturing costs were incurred in Canada.