#6: test rats

As consumers, we are hazardously uninformed about how our food has been made. We don't take it upon ourselves to go out of the way to find out about the processes in which our groceries have gone through. With all of the complex scientific ingredient names, artificial flavoring and carcinogenic nitrates, by the time the food hits our taste buds we really can't be sure what we're eating. I see this as a vicious cycle. The people in charge pump our foods with chemicals, then citizens become unhealthy which leads them to the doctor or hospital where they rack up thousands of dollars in medical bills to pay off for the rest of their lives. I don't understand how food makes it to the shelves when people knowingly put harmful additives in them. As conscious individuals, why wouldn't we want to make sure our food is 100% safe for our bodies? This process would start at the seeds, the very root of food's existence, and they are now being pattened. After watching the "The Future of Food" video, I learned about how living organisms were never supposed to be pattened and once that door was opened by the Supreme Court, animals and human genes were being replicated as well. Technically, these companies with pattened seeds were claiming that where ever their genetically engineered seed grew or inhabited; they owned. The point was brought up by Dr. Kimbrell that down the line they may try to say they own the human in which the pattened gene has been consumed. Lines keep being crossed and boundaries are inched farther back to the point where we are making inhumane actions legal. It's very scary to think about what I've eaten after watching that video and makes me weary of the foods I have yet to consume. Monsanto has played a huge role in the direction that seeds have been engineered and spread in the last few decades. After hearing the stories of the life-time farmers in the video, it saddens me to think that a corporation would belittle human beings just for the pure goal of power and money. I know this response was supposed to be framed around Monsanto but the big picture of this issue has gotten me thinking bigger than that single company. The kniving nature of people to get another dollar richer bizzare and so far from equality and unity. The fact that millions went into funding genetic engineering for seeds and plants that would be sprayed with chemicals for us to eat, it's literally sickening. This is a major deal and I feel like no one really knows about it in the United States. Other countries have made it manditory that genetically modified foods are marked in grocery stores, and we should all have a right to know how our food was made. After seeing how many people had been employees of Monsanto and then went on to making decisions in higher places, it really does seem sketchy. The FDA never seemed so corrupt as it has after learning about this issue and it makes me second guess a lot more than I already did.