NewmarketToday welcomes your letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication).
**********************
Re: What are GMOs and why should you have concerns about them?, Feb. 14, 2021, and LETTER: Canadians should feel confident their food supply is safe, Feb. 28, 2021.
I stand with Nonie De Long on the questionable safety of GMO foods. Pierre Petelle is highly biased and paid by Crop Life to defend GMOs, big agriculture and big food. There is a tremendous amount of money spent by these massive industries to silence the voices of concerned nutritionists like De Long.
One of the problems with GMOs is that GMO crops are engineered to be sprayed with glyphosate. (While wheat is not a GMO crop, glyphosate is often sprayed as a desiccant on these crops just prior to harvest, a very questionable practice that may be why so many people suffer from sensitivities to wheat nowadays.) There are many issues people can have with glyphosate residues: glyphosate can damage the gut lining and lead to IBD, autoimmune diseases, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and many other chronic and debilitating conditions — conditions which have been increasing dramatically since the introduction of GMOs.
Furthermore, our food supply is not particularly safe due to the proliferation of thousands of food additives, preservatives, artificial colours and flavours saturating so many popular foods consumed in Canada today. In addition, many researchers believe that neonicotinoids (such as gylphosate) are decimating populations of pollinators and other beneficial insects. And, sadly, because of the emergence of glyphosate-resistant superweeds, farmers are now spraying far more glyphosate than ever.
At the very least, Canadian consumers deserve to at least have choice in whether they wish to be part of the great food experiment with GMOs. In the meantime, I avoid eating GMO foods. I also support mandatory labelling and a ban on GMO foods in Canada. Until we have these measures in place, Pierre Petelle cannot claim that Canadian consumers "should feel confident that they have access to one of the safest food supplies in the world and that the technologies used to grow our food have been thoroughly assessed for safety.”
I have never met, nor do not know, Nonie De Long personally but I very much enjoy her articles, and I hope to continue to read more of her work in NewmarketToday.
Collette Yvonne, Newmarket, and student of the Institute of Holistic Nutrition, Toronto
