DNA Alert is powered by www.snakeshow.net. Snakeshow.net is a valuable resource for all those interested in our world.       Home What the Animals think about GM Food.   The following are excerpts from the extremely well referenced book written by Jeffrey M. Smith - Seeds Of Deception. WISDOM OF THE GEESE Page 45 – Seeds of Deception There’s a farmer in Illinois who’s been planting soybeans on his 50-acre field for years.  Unfortunately, he also had a flock of soybean-eating geese that took up residence in a pond nearby. Geese, being creatures of habit, returned to the same spot the next year to again feast on his soybeans.  But this time, the geese ate only from a specific part of his field.  There, as a result of their feasting, the beans grew only ankle high.  The geese, it seemed, were boycotting the other part of the same field where the beans were able to grow waist-high.  The reason: this year, the farmer had tried the new, genetically engineered soybeans.  And you can see exactly where they were planted, for there is a line right down the middle of his field with the natural beans on one side and the genetically engineered beans, untouched by the geese, on the other. Visiting that Illinois farm, veteran agricultural writer C.F. Marley said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.  What’s amazing is that the field with Roundup Ready (genetically engineered) beans had been planted to conventional beans the previous year, and the geese ate them.  This year, they won’t go near that field.” WISDOM OF THE COWS Page 76 – Seeds of Deception In 1998, Howard Vlieger harvested both natural corn and a genetically modified Bt variety on his farm in Maurice, Iowa.  Curious about how his cows would react to the pesticide producing Bt corn, he filled one side of his sixteen-foot trough with the Bt and dumped natural corn on the other side.  Normally his cows would eat as much corn as was available, never leaving leftovers.  But when he let twenty-five of them into the pen, they all congregated on the side of the trough with the natural corn.  When it was gone, they nibbled a bit on the Bt, but quickly changed their minds and walked away. A couple of years later, Vlieger joined a room full of farmers in Ames, Iowa to hear presidential candidate Al Gore.  Troubled by Gore’s unquestioning acceptance of GM foods, Vlieger asked Gore to support a recently introduced bill in congress requiring that GM foods be labelled.  Gore replied that scientists said there is no difference between GM and non-GM foods.  Vlieger said he respectfully disagreed and described how his cows refused to eat the GM corn.  He added “My cows are smarter than those scientists were.”  The room erupted in applause.  Gore asked if any other farmers noticed a difference in the way their animals responded to GM food.  About twelve to fifteen hands went up. “If a field contained GM and non-GM maize, cattle would always eat the non-GM first.” -Gale Lush, Nebraska. “A neighbour had been growing Pioneer Bt corn.  When the cattle were turned out into the stalks they just wouldn’t eat them” – Gary Smith, Montana. “While my cows show a preference for open-pollinated corn over the hybrid varieties, they both beat Bt-corn hands down” – Tim Eisenbeis, South Dakota According to a 1999 Acres USA article, cattle even broke through a fence and walked through a field of Roundup Ready corn to get to a non-GM variety that they ate.  The cows left the GM corn untouched. WISDOM OF THE COWS AND HOGS Page 106 – Seeds of Deception Bill Lashmett watched as two or three cows were let into a feeding area at a time.  The first trough they came to contained fifty pounds of shelled Bt corn.  The cows sniffed it, withdrew, and walked over to the next trough, which contained fifty pounds of natural shelled corn.  The cows finished it off.  When they were done and released from the pen, the next group came in and did the same thing.  Lashmett said the same experiment was conducted in about six or seven farms in Northwest Iowa, in 1998 and again in 1999.  Identical trials with hogs yielded the same results, also for two years in a row. Lashmett, who has a background in biochemistry and agriculture, says that animals have a natural sense to eat what is good for them, and avoid what isn’t.  He witnessed this firsthand in another experiment conducted by a feed store in Walnut Grove, Iowa.  They put twenty-three separate vitamins and minerals, each in their own bin, out where the cows could eat them.  The cows would alternate their choice of bins in such a way, according to Lashmett, that they received a balanced healthy diet.  Moreover, their preferences changed with the seasons and climate, demonstrating a natural inclination to follow the dictates of their bodies’ needs. WISDOM OF SQUIRRELS, ELK, DEER, RACCOONS AND MICE Page 126 – Seeds of Deception For years, a retired Iowa farmer fed squirrels on his farm through the winter months by placing corncobs on feeders.  One year, just for the heck of it, he decided to see if the squirrels had a preference for Bt corn or natural corn.  He put natural corn in one feeder and Bt corn in another about twenty feet away.  The squirrels ate all the corn of the natural cobs but didn’t touch the Bt.  The farmer dutifully refilled the feeder with more natural corn and sure enough, it was soon gone.  The Bt, however, remained untouched. The retired farmer got curious.  What if the Bt variety was the squirrels’ only choice?  To find out he didn’t refill the natural corn.  At the time, Iowa was plunged into the coldest days of winter.  But day after day, the Bt cob remained intact.  The squirrels went elsewhere for their food.  After about ten days, the squirrels ate about an inch off the tip of an ear, but that’s all.  The farmer felt sorry for the squirrels and put natural corn back into the feeders, which the squirrels once again consumed. “A captive elk escaped and took up residence in our crops of organic corn and soy.  It had total access to the neighbouring fields of GM crops. But never went into them. – Susan and Mark Fitzgerald, Minnesota. Writer Steve Sprinkel described a herd of about forty deer that ate from the field or organic soybeans, but not the Roundup Ready variety across the road.  Likewise, raccoons devoured organic corn, but didn’t touch an ear of Bt corn growing down the road.  “Even the mice will move on down the line if given an alternative to these crops.” A farmer in Holland verified the food preference of mice when he left two piles of corn in his mice-infested barn.  One pile was genetically modified; the other was natural.  The GM pile was untouched while the non-GM pile was completely eaten up. WISDOM OF THE RATS Page 157 – Seeds of Deception The Washington Post reported that rodents, usually happy to munch on tomatoes, turned their noses up at the genetically modified FlavrSavr tomato that scientists were so anxious to test on them.  Calgene CEO Roger Salquist said of his tomato.  “I gotta tell you, you can be Chef Boyardee and … (they) are still not going to like them.” Rats were eventually force fed the tomato through gastric tubes an stomach washes.  Several developed stomach lesions; seven of the forty died within two weeks.  The tomato was approved. MISSING CHICKENS Page 182 – Seeds of Deception According to BBC News, 27 April 2002 “Safety tests on genetically modified maize currently growing in Britain were flawed, it has emerged.  The crop, T-25 GM maize (corn), was tested in laboratory experiments on chickens.  During the tests, twice as many chickens died when fed on T-25 GM maize, compared with those fed on conventional maize.  This research was apparently overlooked when the crop was given marketing approval in 1996.” CHANGED MICE Page 230 - Seeds of Deception Dutch undergraduate Hinze Hogendoorn, from University College, Utrecht offered his mice a choice between GM and non-GM corn and soy altogether.  Over a nine-week period, the mice consumed 61 per cent non-GM and 39 per cent GM food. Hogendoorn then changed his experiment, to look for differences between a group fed GM food and another fed natural food.  The GM-fed group ate more, probably because they were slightly heavier on average to begin with, but curiously, they gained less weight.  In fact, by the end of the short experiment, they actually lost weight.  On the other hand, the mice fed the non-GM diet ate less but gained more weight, continuing to gain weight until the end of the experiment. The weight loss effect has also been observed elsewhere.  Writer Steve Sprinkel, for example had been told “about a cattleman who saw the weight-gain of his cattle fall off when he switched over to GMO sources.” Tom Wiley of North Dakota described another difference: “I saw an advertisement from a farmer who was looking for non-Bt corn, as he was getting lower milk yields from the cattle that were eating Bt corn.”  Available in PDF here. Back to Top.     DNA Alert is powered by www.snakeshow.net. 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