As I grew up and listened to, and watched the news... there was a lot of talk about trade with other countries.... and why we didn't.

As I grew older, thre were such people as Herb Dennenberg in Philadelphia, Pa.,David Horowitz who was syindicated nationwide, and of course Ralph Nader, who were well known media icons that warned consumers about products that did more harm than good.

Now that kind of media coverage has become passe`. It seems that no one in the media reckons consumer protection to be of any service or worth, until somebody gets hurt!

For instance, back to the trade thing.... the US market was celebrated as being one of the best consumer markets to sell products in but the hardest to crack... why? Because, of the aforementioned desire to see cosumers, (i.e. you and me) protected from poorly made products made foreign trade difficult.

I remember reading Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and was almost turned off of eating meat altogther. While it is true that the events chronicled in the "The Jungle" occured at least aa hundred years ago now... It was pretty horrifying, the amount of foreign matter that was commonly allowed into food produced for himan consumption! Thankfully today, because of this book, we have the Pure Food and Drug act!

But, that's not even enough anymoe... For example the scare over contaminated chocolates from China over the summer is a great example of why the FDA needs teeth! Eighteen children died! (and that's with China's strict legal system! The last food scandal resulted in the death of a government official! I guess these folk value money more then their own lives!)

And now we have a new threat to our food supply... GMOs.What is a GMO you ask? Genetically Modified Organism. And why is this complicated scientific term important to the average Joe and Josette? Because you could be eating them and not even know it! Geneitically Modified Organism are being grown right now, and are circulating through our food supply. Now the issue is this... these organisms are manipulated just because they can be manipulated! There's no sound reaon to manipulate foods at the genetic level! Sure one can argue for pesticide free, fungus free food, but then, that was the purpose of hybridization. Take corn strain a that is resistant to certain kinds of bugs and fungus, etc, and cross breed it with corn strain be that is resistant to bugs and fungus different from corn strain a and ...drum roll please, corn strain c is grown. Now GMO's go beyond that kind of experimentation, bypassing the hybridization process and going straight to cloning. Cloning isn't all that great either because with cloning you have what's called replicant fading, when all the negtative aspects of the cloned material is enhanced as the positive aspects of the clone fade.(thanks ST:TNG for that description of replicant fading)- in other words, the copies aren't as good as the original! Scientists found this out with Dolly the Sheep, but there are scientists that still want to clone food anyhow...

And what will that mean for you and me? That means instead of improving the food supply, the food supply becomes worse. Cows that are implanted with hormones to produce more milk don't produce better milk, and those extra hormones are in the milk we drink, and the ice cream and yogurt we eat! And how will these hormones and extra genes react in our bodies?

We already have an epidemic of cancer in this country...? Could it be that what we're eating isn't being processed properly and causing us physical problems?

And if that is the case, wouldn't it make sense to keep a closer watch on what it is we eat?