Conscious Choice: Truth is Scarier than Fiction

January 2005 | Editor’s Note

Truth is Scarier than Fiction

When it comes to scary movies I am a big baby. I usually make it through them by repeating: “It’s only a movie.” But that strategy worked for only one of two movies I recently pre-viewed. It was called White Noise and stars Michael Keaton (who incidentally gets a big personal thumbs up for revealing in an interview that his dog undergoes acupuncture, he cares about the humane treatment of animals on the set, is a fan of the What the Bleep Do We Know? movie, and in general seemed like a genuine nice guy.) But I digress.

White Noise, which is due to be released by Universal Pictures this month, is a fictional story about apparently real explorations into something called Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), which involves communicating with the dead through the static on your television or radio, (and no I’m not making this up.) The thriller, which explores the concepts of good and evil spirits, is a nice scary ride.

But it wasn’t half as scary as the other movie I previewed, The Future of Food. In this case I couldn’t tell myself: “It’s only a movie.” The independent documentary explores the multinational corporate control of the world’s food system, especially through genetically engineered foods, known as GE food or GMO’s (genetically modified organisms). It’s not as dry as that sounds, and chronicles heart-wrenching tales of farmers in the U.S. and Canada, who were all but destroyed in the process, including the case of canola farmer Percy Schmeiser who last year was taken to court by Monsanto Canada Inc.

This is scary because while few of us are farmers, we all need to eat everyday. Corporate control of the food supply makes me very nervous. And you don’t have to be a scientist to have serious misgivings that equate changing the DNA in food with rolling the dice with people’s health, especially when its use is linked to pesticides. What’s more, if the food is not marked as such, most consumers won’t even know they are consuming altered food or whom to hold accountable if something goes wrong.

But at a recent Chicago showing, the filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia said one of the most disturbing things to her was that corporations are now taking out patents on life itself, including a gene that may play a part in breast cancer. Such a practice allows corporations to place limits and price tags on the use of such genes in research.

This makes me so angry I could spit, as I’m watching loved ones struggle with various terminal cancers. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 55,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer annually just in Illinois, so I figure this should upset a few other people as well.

Now here’s the good news. It’s not too late to do something about this. Intense pressure from foreign countries and consumers forced the corporations to rethink their genetically-engineered plans for wheat. With enough pressure we can have an impact. Here’s what you can do:

1. Educate yourself. One way is to order The Future of Food, ($20) from www.lilyfilms.com.

2. Start asking questions where you shop: Where are the organics? Has the produce been altered, and how?

3. Contact your state and federal legislators and demand that genetically altered foods are labeled as such.

4. Support local farmers. Shop at local farmers’ markets. Attend the Family Farmer’s Expo, March 6 and 7, at Navy Pier, and visit the Web site www.familyfarmed.org.

5. Get involved in the organics movement. Contact Genewise, www.genewise.org or call 773-784-3698. Attend the Upper Midwest Organic Conference, which will be held Feb. 24-26, Madison, Wis., or visit the Web site www.mosesorganic.org.

. . .

On a sad, personal note, Conscious Choice lost a vital part of our family with the December death of Charles Helzer, one of our distribution coordinators (see our memorial in News). The Helzer family has asked that any memorials be sent to The Charles Helzer Memorial Fund c/o Conscious Choice, 920 N. Franklin St., Suite 202, Chicago IL, 60610.

— Marla Donato

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: