Modern Wheat: ‘Perfect Chronic Poison’ Says Expert

The world’s most popular grain is also the deadliest for the human metabolism. Modern wheat isn’t really wheat at all and is a “perfect, chronic poison,” according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist, author and leading expert on wheat. … Approximately 700 million tons of wheat are now cultivated worldwide making it the second most-produced grain after maize. It is grown on more land area than any other commerical crop and is considered a staple food for humans.

At some point in our history, this ancient grain was nutritious in some respects, however modern wheat really isn’t wheat at all. Once agribusiness took over to develop a higher-yielding crop, wheat became hybridized to such an extent that it has been completely transformed from it’s prehistorical genetic configuration. All nutrient content of modern wheat depreciated more than 30% in its natural unrefined state compared to its ancestral genetic line. The balance and ratio that mother nature created for wheat was also modified and human digestion and physiology could simply could not adapt quick enough to the changes.

Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn’t the wheat your grandma had: “It’s an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said on “CBS This Morning.” “This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there’s a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It’s not gluten. I’m not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I’m talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year.”

Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat – and dropping substantial weight.

“If three people lost eight pounds, big deal,” he said. “But we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day.”

To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating “real food,” such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. “(It’s) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness,” he said. “Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it’s not barley… or flax. It’s going to be wheat.

So-called health experts in nutrition who continue to promote the health benefits of wheat are extremely uninformed about the nature of modern wheat and its evolution from growth to consumption. It is shocking how many professionals in public health still recommend wheat products without an assessment of their individual requirements, especially considering the amount of evidence regarding its lack of nutrition and health risks for proportionally large segments of the population. …

via » Modern Wheat Is The ‘Perfect Chronic Poison’ Says Expert Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!.

I’ve got the wheat belly and I’m trying to quit. Like the GMO soy, it’s everywhere these days.

How to Grow Your Own Organic Food in Small Spaces

Sprouts are an authentic “super” food that many overlook or have long stopped using. In addition to their superior nutritional profile, sprouts are really easy to grow if you’re an apartment dweller, as they don’t require an outdoor garden.

A powerhouse of nutrition, sprouts can contain up to 30 times the nutrition of organic vegetables grown in your own garden, and allow your body to extract more vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fats from the foods you eat. During sprouting, minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, bind to protein, making them more bioavailable. Furthermore, both the quality of the protein and the fiber content of beans, nuts, seeds and grains improves when sprouted. The content of vitamins and essential fatty acids also increase dramatically during the sprouting process.

Sunflower seed and pea sprouts tend to top the list of all the seeds that you can sprout and are typically each about 30 times more nutritious than organic vegetables. While you can sprout a variety of different beans, nuts, seeds and grains, sprouts in general have the following beneficial attributes:

• Support for cell regeneration
• Powerful sources of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and enzymes that protect against free radical damage
• Alkalinizing effect on your body, which is thought to protect against disease, including cancer (as many tumors are acidic)
• Abundantly rich in oxygen, which can also help protect against abnormal cell growth, viruses and bacteria that cannot survive in an oxygen-rich environment

Planting and Harvesting Sprouts at Home

I used to grow sprouts in Ball jars over 10 years ago but stopped doing that. I am strongly convinced that actually growing them in soil is far easier and produces far more nutritious and abundant food. It is also less time consuming. With Ball jars you need to rinse them several times a day to prevent mold growth. Trays also take up less space. I am now consuming one whole tray you see below every 2-3 days and to produce that much food with Ball jars I would need dozens of jars. I simply don’t have the time or patience for that.

I am in the process of compiling more specific detailed videos for future articles but I thought I would whet your appetite and give you a preview with the photos below. For now you can get instructions on how to grow them by viewing a step-by-step guide at rawfoods-livingfoods.com.11

About to plant wheat grass and sunflower seeds – 2 days after soaking

Wheat grass and sunflower seeds – 3 ½ days post germination

Sunflower seeds and pea sprouts – 3 days until ready for harvest

Sunflower seed sprouts and wheat grass – ready to harvest

My two favorites are sunflower sprouts and pea. They provide some of the highest quality protein you can eat. Sprouted sunflower seeds also contain plenty of iron and chlorophyll, the latter of which will help detoxify your blood and liver. Of the seeds, sunflower seeds are among the best in terms of overall nutritional value, and sprouting them will augment their nutrient content by as much as 300 to 1,200 percent! Similarly, sprouting peas will improve the bioavailability of zinc and magnesium.

I have been sprouting them now for a few months and they have radically improved the nutrition of my primary meal, which is a comprehensive salad at lunch. They are a perfect complement to the fermented vegetables. My current salad consists of about half a pound of sunflower sprouts, four ounces of fermented vegetables, half a large red pepper, several tablespoon of raw organic butter, some red onion, a whole avocado and about three ounces of salmon or chicken. It is my primary meal. In the late afternoon, I typically only have macadamia nuts and coconut candy in addition to drinking 16-32 ounces of green vegetable juice. I break it up occasionally by going to a restaurant with friends.

…

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/05/23/edible-garden.aspx?e_cid=20130523_DNL_ProdTest2_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20130523ProdTest2

If the food situation become super bad, remember spouts. They can save your life.

GM Wheat Could Permanently Damage Human Genetics by Silencing Hundreds of Genes Throughout the Body

It is one of the only major food crops left without a genetically-modified GM counterpart, but this could soon change if the Australian government gets its way in approving a GM wheat variety developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization CSIRO, an agency of the Australian government. Despite being hailed by its creators as a breakthrough in food production technology, the GM wheat crop itself, when ingested, has the potential to permanently alter the human genome by silencing hundreds of genes throughout the body.This disturbing fact, of course, makes GM wheat a major public health threat, which is why a number of scientific experts are urging extreme caution with the human trial and commercial

approval process. During a recent press conference with Safe Food Foundation Director Scott Kinnear, two prominent authorities on the subject discussed the inherent dangers of GM wheat, and how the “Frankencrop” threatens to seriously injure and even kill untold numbers of people who could experience dramatic genetic alterations as a result of consumption.

“What we found is that the molecules created in this wheat, intended to silence wheat genes, can match human genes,” explains Professor Jack Heinemann, a Molecular Biologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, about the dangers of CSIRO’s untested GM wheat. “And through ingestion, these molecules can enter human beings and potentially silence our genes.”

Heinemann goes on to explain that he and his team have already identified more than 770 pages’ worth of potential matches between two specific genes in the GM wheat and genes inherent in the human genome that could be altered by them. Beyond this, more than a dozen matches were found to be identical and “sufficient to cause silencing in experimental systems,” according to Heinemann.

You can watch the complete press release here: http://youtu.be/FI7n_caiTvE

GM wheat can pass genetic flaws from generation to generationThe immediate threats of consuming GM wheat are quite substantial, in other words, and illustrate the enormous consequences that can result from tampering with nature at the genetic level. But even worse are the generational consequences that can result from consuming GMOs in general, and specifically the GM wheat in question.“If this genetic modification in the wheat is absorbed into the human body and affects humans in the same way that it affects the wheat, then it’ll mean that there will be some significant changes in the way that we store our carbohydrate, our glucose, in the body, and that could have dire consequences,” adds Prof. Judy Carman, a biochemist and Director of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research IHER at Flinders University in Australia.

“We need to make what’s called glycogen in the body in order to be able to live, in order to be able to wake up in the morning after an overnight fast and to be able to have a burst of energy to run across a road. And if this silences the same sort of gene in us as it silences in the wheat, then children who are born with this enzyme not working tend to die by the age of about five, and adults with this problem just get kind of more and more sick and more and more tired until they get very, very ill.”

Back in 2011, Greenpeace activists actually destroyed a farm growing experimental GM wheat produced by CSIRO. As reported by COSMOS magazine, the protestors entered the farm near Canberra on July 14 and proceeded to mow down fields of GM wheat intended for human trials. As of this writing, not a single meaningful safety test has been conducted on GM wheat as CSIRO appears more concerned with potential profits than with human safety.Be sure to check out the Greenpeace report on CSIRO’s GM wheat entitled The biotech takeover of our daily bread: http://www.greenpeace.org

via » GM Wheat Could Permanently Damage Human Genetics by Silencing Hundreds of Genes Throughout the Body Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!.

The Earth has been taken over by intelligent aliens who are trying to kill us off. This idea makes more sense than any of our fellow humans destroying our future species for billions in profit. Then again… we are all descended from drug pushing cannibal pimps.

The Amazing Human Body

Three hours after eating duck eggs that had been in the refrigerator for a month I had a painful bloated stomach. Food poisoning, obviously. I was nauseous and had diarrhea.

After an hour, I was getting worse, not better. My HMO advice nurse after consulting a doctor recommended Imodium AD. Well if your body is trying to get rid of something, don’t interfere, right? The nurse knowingly agreed and say to let it run its course and I should recover in one to three days. Three days?! I decided to listen to my body and decided I needed water with lemon juice and sea salt. Amazingly, the brain in my stomach sorted out the bad from the good part of my fairly large meal and without the horrible prolonged vomiting I was dreading, ejected exactly what was causing the problem. It came up with a small burp, I spot it out, and felt instantly fine.

Now I’m sitting here impressed with my 10 billion of years of evolution, thinking how many hidden abilities we have.

Salt water makes things float, the lemon juice, I think, prepped my throat for the acidity of the stomach acid. I didn’t work that out until much later.

Remember that duck eggs keep three weeks max in the refrigerator and they require more cook time than chicken eggs.

Has your body ever done anything that amazed you?

McDonald’s hamburger looks the same after 14 years

A US man has shown off a 14-year-old McDonald’s hamburger that looks the same as the day he bought it.

David Whipple, from Utah, had originally planned to keep the burger for two months in order to show friends how its preservatives would maintain its appearance.

But, after accidentally leaving the product in his pocket for two years, Mr Whipple decided to keep the burger for even longer to see how long it could continue looking normal.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Mr Whipple told US television show The Doctors.

“I was showing some people how enzymes work and I thought a hamburger would be a good idea. And I used it for a month and then forgot about it.

“It ended up in a paper sack in the original sack with the receipt in my coat tossed in the back of my truck and it sat there for, I don’t know, two or three months.”

However, Mr Whipple’s experiment was then forgotten after the coat was tossed in a closet.

“My wife didn’t discover it until at least a year or two after that. And we pulled it out and said ‘oh my gosh, I can’t believe it looks the same way.”

Doctors on the CBS show noted that aside from the pickle disintegrating, the burger showed no signs of mould, fungus or even a strange odour.

Mr Whipple admitted that at one point he had considered selling the burger via online auction site eBay.

But, despite bids reaching close to $2,000 (£1,300), he and his family decided to keep the product for educational use.

He now admits he uses the burger to convince his grandchildren not to eat junk food from restaurants such as McDonalds.

“It’s great for the grandkids to see. To see what happens with fast food,” he said.

via McDonald’s hamburger looks the same after 14 years – Telegraph.

New research points to benefits of eggs, even for those at cardiovascular risk

This week at Experimental Biology (EB) 2013, scientists from around the world are gathering to share research on a variety of topics, including nutrition and health. Given the growing global burden of chronic disease, there is particular interest in the important role of diet and nutrition in overall health. Several studies presented at the conference looked specifically at the role of whole egg consumption in high-risk groups, including those with metabolic syndrome and heart disease, as well as the satiating effects of high-protein breakfast consumption for overweight adolescents.

Evidence to Support Eggs as Part of a Heart Healthy Diet

Research from Yale University explored the impact of daily whole egg consumption in men and women with coronary heart disease(1). The subjects were randomized to consume either two eggs, ½ cup of egg substitute or a high-carbohydrate breakfast for six weeks as part of their typical diet. The subjects who ate either whole eggs or egg substitute did not experience any negative impact in total cholesterol, blood pressure, body weight or endothelial function. The researchers concluded that whole eggs can be a part of a heart healthy diet, even in those with existing coronary heart disease.

Whole Egg Consumption Promotes Favorable Lipid Changes in those with Metabolic Syndrome

Research from the University of Connecticut suggested that daily whole egg consumption may have a positive effect on the function and composition of HDL cholesterol in adults with metabolic syndrome. Subjects followed a carbohydrate-restricted diet, and consumed either three eggs per day or an equivalent amount of egg substitutes(2). After 12 weeks, subjects consuming whole eggs experienced improvements in HDL (good cholesterol) composition and ability to remove cholesterol from the blood.

Those eating three whole eggs daily also had HDL that was lower in triacylglycerol and higher in a beneficial component of egg yolks (phosphatidylethanolaime)(2). “Taken together with previously established benefits of egg intake on HDL profiles, these findings further support the notion that eggs serve as a functional food to reduce cardiovascular disease risk in individuals with metabolic syndrome,” says Catherine Andersen, lead study author and PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut.

High Protein Breakfast Results in Decreased Daily Calorie Intake

Researchers at University of Missouri presented data comparing the effects of a normal-protein cereal breakfast (15% meal calories), high-protein egg and pork breakfast (40% meal calories) and no breakfast on satiety in overweight/obese adolescents who normally skip breakfast(3). The group that consumed the high protein egg and pork breakfast reported a decrease in hunger and an increase in fullness compared to the normal protein and breakfast-skipping group. The individuals eating a high protein breakfast also voluntarily reduced their intake by more than 400 calories per day over the 12-week study. No significant differences were seen in weight between groups; however, breakfast skippers were found to have significant increases in percent body fat mass compared to those who ate the normal and high protein breakfasts. This study supports the benefits of a high protein breakfast as a weight management strategy among overweight and obese adolescents(3). …

via New research points to benefits of eggs, even for those at cardiovascular risk.

‘Seeing’ the flavor of foods

 

The eyes sometimes have it, beating out the tongue, nose and brain in the emotional and biochemical balloting that determines the taste and allure of food, a scientist said here today. Speaking at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), he described how people sometimes “see” flavors in foods and beverages before actually tasting them.

“There have been important new insights into how people perceive food flavors,” said Terry E. Acree, Ph.D. “Years ago, taste was a table with two legs—taste and odor. Now we are beginning to understand that flavor depends on parts of the brain that involve taste, odor, touch and vision. The sum total of these signals, plus our emotions and past experiences, result in perception of flavors, and determine whether we like or dislike specific foods.”

Acree said that people actually can see the flavor of foods, and the eyes have such a powerful role that they can trump the tongue and the nose. The popular Sauvignon Blanc white wine, for instance, gets its flavor from scores of natural chemicals, including chemicals with the flavor of banana, passion fruit, bell pepper and boxwood. But when served a glass of Sauvignon Blanc tinted to the deep red of merlot or cabernet, people taste the natural chemicals that give rise to the flavors of those wines.

 

The sense of smell likewise can trump the taste buds in determining how things taste, said Acree, who is with Cornell University. In a test that people can do at home, psychologists have asked volunteers to smell caramel, strawberry or other sweet foods and then take a sip of plain water; the water will taste sweet. But smell bread, meat, fish or other non-sweet foods, and water will not taste sweet.

 

While the appearance of foods probably is important, other factors can override it. Acree pointed out that hashes, chilies, stews and cooked sausages have an unpleasant look, like vomit or feces. However, people savor these dishes based on the memory of eating and enjoying them in the past. The human desire for novelty and new experiences also is a factor in the human tendency to ignore what the eyes may be tasting and listening to the tongue and nose, he added.

Acree said understanding the effects of interactions between smell and vision and taste, as well as other odorants, will open the door to developing healthful foods that look and smell more appealing to finicky kids or adults. …

Read the rest: http://phys.org/news/2013-04-flavor-foods.html

 

Flawed Government Report Thwarts State Raw Milk Initiatives

… A recent CDC study claims that unpasteurized milk and products made with unpasteurized milk cause 150 times more outbreaks than pasteurized milk or products made from pasteurized milk. After careful analysis, The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) finds the CDC study to be substantially flawed and misleading.

In 2013, bills to expand raw milk access are being introduced in as many as sixteen states. The CDC report was issued during the 2012 legislative season. Raw milk proponents say the CDC report could have an impact on a number of state bills in 2013 that aim to broaden consumer access to raw milk. Raw milk bills in Indiana, Iowa and Wyoming died in committee. Another example would be Wisconsin where Assistant Majority Leader Glenn Grothman plans to introduce a raw milk bill. Last week, Wisconsin public health officials and medical ‘experts’ put out an anti-raw milk statement that relied heavily on the CDC study.

The study by Langer et al can be viewed here:

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/3/pdfs/11-1370.pdf

“The CDC data released in the Langer paper, March 2012, actually showed no statistical difference in the rate of illness attributed to raw milk or products produced from raw milk compared to those produced from pasteurized milk,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, “so CDC used the number of ‘outbreaks’ to make raw milk look bad. CDC defines an outbreak as two or more illnesses, and outbreaks involving raw milk or raw milk products involve far fewer individuals than outbreaks involving pasteurized milk. What really counts is the number of illnesses.” See WAPF press release, February 2012, CDC Cherry Picks Data to Make Case Against Raw Milk.

The Weston A. Price Foundation is a worldwide nutrition education nonprofit. Their Campaign for Real Milk ( realmilk.com) works to restore this traditional food to its rightful place in the human diet.

The report has numerous scientific flaws that call in to question its credibility. For instance the report claims that there are more outbreaks in states that allow raw milk sales. The premise that allowing raw milk sales in a state leads to more outbreaks is not valid because the researchers lumped all dairy products together for analysis rather than limiting it to fluid milk. “Since they fail to present analysis that compares laws concerning fluid milk and outbreaks attributed to fluid milk, we must conclude that they didn’t find any statistical difference,” says Fallon Morell. “Despite the obvious motive to demonstrate a link between changing the laws to permit raw milk and increased public risk, they in fact demonstrate that they are unable to find any such consequences.”

“The CDC clearly documents the fact that it has no data to show a statistical increase in illnesses in those states that legalized sale. The real effect of changing these laws is to enhance the public health and increase the number of families that have access to wholesome, unprocessed milk with its vital nutrition and enzymes intact,” explains Fallon Morell.

A close examination of reports on illness associated with raw milk reveals that there are an average of 41 illnesses attributed to raw milk each year, of which about 23 are confirmed illnesses. According to a federal agency phone survey, 3.04 percent of the population consumes raw milk. The most recent figures from the CDC published in March 2013 report that there are an estimated 876,209 foodborne illnesses per year in the U.S.

 

 

“Using these figures, we might expect to see 26,637 foodborne illnesses per year among those people drinking raw milk” says Dr. Ted Beals, a retired pathologist who has made a study of raw milk safety. “Of those illnesses we see only about 41 illnesses per year attributed to the raw milk they drink. Only 0.2% of their illnesses attributed to all the foods they eat are associated with the raw milk they drink almost daily. These government numbers show us that raw milk is a very safe food.”

 

 

The report confirms that there have been no deaths from fluid raw milk over the period of the report. By contrast, three people died from pasteurized milk in Massachusetts in 2007. The government reports 15 deaths per year from raw oysters and 30 deaths per year from eggs. “Clearly government agencies are applying a double standard to raw milk, singling it out as ‘inherently dangerous’ when other foods obviously pose a greater threat to health,” says Fallon Morell.

 

 

“We don’t want anyone to get sick from raw milk,” says Fallon Morell, “and with reasonable management practices by farmers and consumers, we could reduce the number of illness even more than the extremely low numbers now experienced. Continued government opposition to freedom of choice is unproductive. Health officials need to acknowledge consumer demand for this nutritious food. Producer and consumer groups are capable of setting reasonable and effective standards. Health departments need to cease their entrenched antagonism and support both public and private measures that benefit raw milk safety. And when illnesses do occur, we need to take an unbiased look at what went wrong so that we can improve milk safety.” …

 

via Flawed Government Report Thwarts State Raw Milk Initiatives – Weston A Price Foundation.

At one time I feared raw milk, but I drink it from time to time now. I believe that we evolved drinking raw cow’s milk so it can’t be all that deadly. Also, by flash heating raw milk to protect us from pathogens, we disable immune system protective factors that would otherwise protect us. When I start to get a cold, raw milk does the trick.

Top senator apologizes for ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ after public outrage

The blowback caused by a new law that lets biotech companies like Monsanto escape litigation is so tremendous that a senior senator from Maryland has offered the public an apology.
US Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) has issued a statement expressing her regret for letting this year’s Agriculture Appropriations bill — an annual continuing resolution spending act — be signed into law.

“Senator Mikulski understands the anger over this provision. She didn’t put the language in the bill and doesn’t support it either,” begins a statement from her office dated Friday, March 29.

As RT reported earlier, President Barack Obama inked his name last Tuesday to the bill, H.R. 933, and in doing so signed off on a deal that essentially prevented a government-wide shut down. In doing as much, though, the president approved a provision that lets the companies that make genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered (GE) seeds step over legal hurdles in the future regarding lab-made products that may later be proven to be dangerous.

Included in the bill is a rider, Section 735, which says federal courts cannot intervene and haltbiotech companies from planting and selling GMO goods to the public, even if testing proves them to be potentially hazardous to the greater public. Because the legislation largely shields agriculture giants Monsanto from litigation, it has been dubbed by its critics the “Monsanto Protection Act.” But even after more than 250,000 people signed a petition asking the White House to intervene and ensure the bill was not passed, Pres. Obama nonetheless approved it last week.

“It was originally part of the Agriculture Appropriations bill that the House Appropriations Committee reported in June 2012, and it became part of the joint House-Senate agreement completed in the fall of 2012 before Senator Mikulski became Appropriations Chairwoman,” it reads. …

Congress and the president have indeed signed off on a bill that, despite objections a legion of hundreds of thousands of America, still was signed into law.

As RT noted last week, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) has been credited with crafting the language of H.R. 933 by working directly alongside Monsanto. Blunt has received $64,250 from Monsanto towards his campaign committee between 2008 and 2012.

http://rt.com/usa/protection-act-monsanto-apologizes-229/

… Read more

We need a big shake down. No person or corporation should be above the law.

Soaring Bee Deaths in 2012 Sound Alarm on Malady

A mysterious malady that has been killing honeybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers say, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate many of the nation’s fruits and vegetables.

A conclusive explanation so far has escaped scientists studying the ailment, colony collapse disorder, since it first surfaced around 2005. But beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the plants themselves, could be an important factor.

The pesticide industry disputes that. But its representatives also say they are open to further studies to clarify what, if anything, is happening.

“They looked so healthy last spring,” said Bill Dahle, 50, who owns Big Sky Honey in Fairview, Mont. “We were so proud of them. Then, about the first of September, they started to fall on their face, to die like crazy. We’ve been doing this 30 years, and we’ve never experienced this kind of loss before.”

In a show of concern, the Environmental Protection Agency recently sent its acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and two top chemical experts here, to the San Joaquin Valley of California, for discussions.

In the valley, where 1.6 million hives of bees just finished pollinating an endless expanse of almond groves, commercial beekeepers who only recently were losing a third of their bees to the disorder say the past year has brought far greater losses.

The federal Agriculture Department is to issue its own assessment in May. But in an interview, the research leader at its Beltsville, Md., bee research laboratory, Jeff Pettis, said he was confident that the death rate would be “much higher than it’s ever been.”

Following a now-familiar pattern, bee deaths rose swiftly last autumn and dwindled as operators moved colonies to faraway farms for the pollination season. Beekeepers say the latest string of deaths has dealt them a heavy blow.

Bret Adee, who is an owner, with his father and brother, of Adee Honey Farms of South Dakota, the nation’s largest beekeeper, described mounting losses.

“We lost 42 percent over the winter. But by the time we came around to pollinate almonds, it was a 55 percent loss,” he said in an interview here this week.

“They looked beautiful in October,” Mr. Adee said, “and in December, they started falling apart, when it got cold.”

Mr. Dahle said he had planned to bring 13,000 beehives from Montana — 31 tractor-trailers full — to work the California almond groves. But by the start of pollination last month, only 3,000 healthy hives remained. …

via Soaring Bee Deaths in 2012 Sound Alarm on Malady – NYTimes.com.

… Monsanto introduced three different strains of patented, GE corn between 1997 and 2003 (RoundUp Ready, and two Bt-expressing variants aimed at controlling the European Corn Borer and corn root worm). Clothianidin entered the U.S. market under conditional registration in 2003, and in 2004 corn seed companies began marketing seeds treated with a 5X level of neonicotinoids (1.25 mg/seed vs. .25).

… and in the space of a decade, U.S. corn acreage undergoes a ten-fold increase in average insecticide use. By 2007, the average acre of corn has more than three systemic insecticides — both Bt traits and a neonicotinoid. Compare this to the early 1990s, when only an estimated 30-35 percent of all corn acreage were treated with insecticides at all….

Neonicotinoids are known to synergize with certain fungicides to increase the toxicity of the former to honey bees up to 1,000-fold, and fungicides may be key culprits in undermining beneficial bee microbiota that do things like make beebread nutritious and support immune response against gut pathogens like Nosema. Fungicide use in corn is likewise destroying beneficial fungi in many cropping systems, and driving the emergence of resistant strains.

As with insecticides and herbicides, so too with fungicide use on corn: Corn farmers are stuck on a pesticide treadmill on high gear, with a pre-emptively pressed turbo charge button (as “insurance”). Among the many casualties are our honey bees who rely on corn’s abundant pollen supply.

Keeping us all tethered to the pesticide treadmill is expected behavior from the likes of Monsanto. But what boggles the mind is that all of this is being aided and abetted by a USDA that ties cheap crop insurance to planting patented Bt corn, and a Congress that refuses to tie subsidized crop insurance in the Farm Bill to common-sense conservation practices like bio-intensive IPM. …

via CommonDreams

No farmer in their right mind wants to poison pollinators. When I spoke with one Iowa corn farmer in January and told him about the upcoming release of a Purdue study confirming corn as a major neonicotinoid exposure route for bees, his face dropped with worn exasperation. He looked down for a moment, sighed and said, “You know, I held out for years on buying them GE seeds, but now I can’t get conventional seeds anymore. They just don’t carry ‘em.”This leaves us with two questions: 1) What do GE seeds have to do with neonicotinoids and bees? and 2) How can an Iowa corn farmer find himself feeling unable to farm without poisoning pollinators? In other words, where did U.S. corn cultivation go wrong?

The short answer to both questions starts with a slow motion train wreck that began in the mid-1990s: corn integrated pest management (IPM) fell apart at the seams. Rather, it was intentionally unraveled by Bayer and Monsanto.

Honey bees caught in the cross-fire

Corn is far from the only crop treated by neonicotinoids, but it is the largest use of arable land in North America, and honey bees rely on corn as a major protein source. At least 94% of the 92 million acres of corn pl

anted across the U.S. this year will have been treated with either clothianidin or thiamethoxam (another neonicotinoid).

As we head into peak corn planting season throughout the U.S. Midwest, bees will once again “get it from all sides” as they:

• fly through clothianidin-contaminated planter dust;
• gather clothianidin-laced corn pollen, which will then be fed to emerging larva;
• gather water from acutely toxic, pesticide-laced guttation droplets; and/or
• gather pollen and nectar from nearby fields where forage sources such as dandelions have taken up these persistent chemicals from soil that’s been contaminated year on year since clothianidin’s widespread introduction into corn cultivation in 2003.

Over the last 15 years, U.S. corn cultivation has gone from a crop requiring little-to-no insecticides and negligible amounts of fungicides, to a crop where the average acre is grown from seeds treated or genetically engineered to express three different insecticides (as well as a fungicide or two) before being sprayed prophylactically with RoundUp (an herbicide) and a new class of fungicides that farmers didn’t know they “needed” before the mid-2000s.

A series of marketing ploys by the pesticide industry undergird this story. …

via http://www.panna.org/blog/ge-corn-sick-honey-bees-whats-link

In my view this goes beyond corporate greed:  It seems the US is now under a massive bio-attack from a foreign government which has taken control of OUR government from the inside, through corporations. People in positions to undo this should.