A Bedtime Story (or) How I Discovered a Frankenfood Monster
Welllll, it's getting to be that time of day (night :o) when I get to feeling I've had enough fun for one day and should be heading towards the ole sack, but I thought I'd leave y'all with this little true story that happened to me a couple of years ago having to do with Frankenfoods.
At one time I was a proponent of Soy Protein Powder as a source of protein especially for some body builders I had as patients, and I was queried one day by one of them as to whether or not it was Genetically Engineered or not. GE had not been hit very hard up to that time and my knowledge was rather scarce back then, but I thought I'd better investigate it. One of our list members, had done some research on GE foods in general and the findings were shocking, outrageous, and downright scary.
To be on the safe side, I then decided to investigate this source that all my muscle builders were using, and proceeded to trace back the data trail as to how pervasive this GE thing was and whether or not there was any risk to my patients.
I went to our biggest local Healthfood Store in Clearwater called Nature's Food Patch and asked the bulk food manager whether or not his Soy Protein Powder was GE or not. He emphatically told me that the Food Patch did NOT sell anything that was Genetically Engineered. Absolutely Not! I then asked him what the name of the product was and who was his supplier. He told me that it was called Supro 440 and that they got it from NOW Foods. Wellllllll, I thought this was a good start, as I do business with NOW (still do) as I feel they have the best Vitamin E and COQ10 on the planet at the best price (only a few of the products made by someone else that I am willing to trust and endorse which is why they are on my product and price list).
I then called Now Foods and asked one of the technical advisors there if the Supro 440 that they were selling was Genetically Engineered. "Absolutely NOT! No way in hell would they sell anything that was GE. Ridiculous!" Welllllll, OK this sounded good so I asked him who the manufacturer was who supplied them with the stuff. He told me it was a company called Protein Technologies and readily gave me their number.
So, I'm feeling all right and making good headway here, so I next call up Protein Technologies and asked to speak to a technical supervisor there as I had some questions to put to him. I get him on the line and I ask, "Is your Supro 440 a Genetically Engineered product?". ---- Long pregnant pause, and then he returned with, "Well, what exactly do you mean by Genetically Engineered?". All of a sudden, I wasn't having a good day and I was starting to feel a little apprehensive. I returned with, "GE, you know, GMO, Genetically Modified Organism???". He said, "One moment please, and I'll let you speak to our Head Chemist". After a wait of about 30 seconds (my apprehension is now building), the Lead Chemist from Protein Tech comes on the line and I ask my question again. He tells me, "Wellllllll, yessss the Supro 440 is GE and most of our soy products are". I'm feeling a little queasy at this stage and I ask, do you have any Soy Protein Powder which is Organic and non-GMO. He then told me that they did but he had to confess that they used the same machines to process the Organic as they did the GE/GMO and that they did not clean the machines after each usage.
The bottom of my stomach dropped about 40 feet but I had one more question, "Is Protein Technologies a solely owned company or is it a subsidiary?"
He said, "The parent company is Dupont."!
I couldn't talk for a bit and slowly just hung up the phone, I don't even remember saying "goodbye" to the man.
I called back NOW Foods, and to their credit, they had the product off the shelf within a week. I then called back the Bulk Foods Manager at Nature's Food Patch and told him the story. His response was, "Impossible, we sell NO GE/GMO foods in this store". Ohhh welll, there are ostriches in this world but he never would believe me or even call up and verify it one way or the other. I then had the realization that one could lose freedoms through complacency
And the moral of this bed time story?
LOOK! DON'T LISTEN!!!!
Much love,
Doc
Copyright © 2001 by Ian “Doc” Shillington N.D. All rights reserved.
505-772-5889
Dr.IanShillington@GilaNet.com
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