Bioengineered food also known as GMO or genetically modified organisms is now the latest term found on packages of food in the USA. What we used to call "GMO" on food packaging has been changed by the FDA. That means you will need to look for new wording at the grocery store to avoid foods that have been modified genetically. Many people don't even care but when I see the words on the packaging that say GMOs are in something, I avoid it like the plague.
This past week while in the grocery store, we found GMOs on boxes of cereals, some spreads for toast, and some canned soups. They say it is in about 80% of the foods we consume in the United States. I am disgusted by this. How about you?
If you don't know what I am talking about, look up GMOs, Monsanto, and read some scary things. Here is another article coming from Harvard University.
Good Monday morning. I woke up just after 6am and turned on the TV. They were carrying the coffin of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II out of Westminster. I missed the church portion of the funeral coverage.
Right now, they are marching through the streets of London, most in their military uniforms, a few in plain clothes as they have been stripped of their military privileges. As I sat here, I skimmed through Facebook and some were talking about the Queen going to heaven and telling people about Christ. Others were saying she was pure evil. Still others were talking about her being a reptile who actually died three years ago. What?
Now the commentators are glorifying Camilla, the person who broke up the marriage of Charles and Diana. Twenty-five years ago, she was a much hated tramp and now they are allowing her to be the Queen Consort and talking about all of the royal duties that she will perform. That is not right at all. With Charles acting the way he did, he should have been skipped over in my opinion to bring dignity to the monarchy like the Queen did.
It is now 7am and still a bit dark. It is 75°, cloudy and humid. I wish it would cool off and we could have some more rain.
I went out and unlocked the store. The fish were all there to be fed. Now I am back in my home office doing some work while I watch the funeral coverage.
It is 10:30am now. I just came in, cleaned up, and changed because I was all sweaty from being outside, transplanting a lot of snake plants. They are also known as Mother In Law's Tongue. I had to break a bunch of them down into smaller plants. I still have many more to do but the sweat was pouring down and getting into my eyes. I am watching the final service for the Queen at Windsor. Either this evening or tomorrow morning, I will have to finish transplanting the snake plants and then get them over to the store's plant area so we can sell them. There are so many plants to take care of out there. It seems a monumental task.
I also have to transplant fruit trees that will not be for sale, but are for us to use. That will be a big job. If it were cooler, I would have already done it all. I believe I transplanted 15 plants this morning. Aaron and another employee are out there digging up the lawn, looking for the underground pipes so they can tap into them and make more hose hookups. They have their pipes and glue right in my work area for my plants. There just isn't enough room for the both of us.
The USDA defines bioengineered foods as "foods that contain detectable genetic material that has been modified through lab techniques and cannot be created through conventional breeding or found in nature."
I have been going through my food pantry and, to my surprise, I have found quite a few foods that contain one or more bioengineered foods. I am just sick about it. Ritz, FiberOne, Hungry Jack, Nutella, most cereals, and even the Cousin T Pancake Mix that I just got in the mail on Friday all have bioengineered foods. Coffeemate, Campbell's Soup, and Knorr's Soup Mix all have bioengineered food.
I did check some sauces and pastas and did not find any. From this exercise, I know what I will no longer be buying. Looks like I will have to start making more food from scratch. Surprisingly, Del Monte corn in the can does not have GMOs.
Good Tuesday morning! I got out to planting area bright and early and transplanted six trees today. I was completely drenched by the time I was finished and I still have another seven left to transplant. I am exhausted but it is time to go to the store. In fact, it is already 9:30am.
I transplanted one peach tree, two lime trees, and three lemon trees. I still have an avocado tree, two lime trees, and four lemon trees to go. Then I need to transplant a lot of other plants that were stuck in the greenhouse and need tending. It has just been too hot. I am almost out of soil so we need to get plenty of that. I had to drill holes in the large pots this morning that someone gave us. They did not have drain holes. I used the electric drill and that was fun.
I found some more bioengineered food in my pantry this morning, breakfast bars. What types of bioengineered foods did you find in yours? Haven't looked yet? Go ahead. You will find some. I was shocked that we had it in our house.
The high is supposed to be 97° so it will be more of the same misery with humidity as yesterday.
David took his truck in for an oil change this morning. It looks like he will be having some medical testing done closer to the end of the week.
David and I picked up the truck this afternoon and then went to Walmart. I was looking around and even Blue Bell Ice Cream has bioengineered food in it. How? Why? Almost everything I picked up had that phrase on the packaging. It is just horrible.
I will be roasting a chicken and vegetables this afternoon for dinner tonight. It sounds really good to me. I am already hungry.
There is now an organization called the Non-GMO Project. From their own website, they are "a mission-driven nonprofit organization dedicated to building and protecting a non-GMO food supply."
The Non-GMO Project has created its own label known as “the Butterfly” that ensures a food does not contain GMOs or bioengineered ingredients. You can look for the Butterfly label on foods if you want to be sure the food is GMO-free. I have not found any of these foods with a butterfly in my pantry and I do not recall seeing any at the store. I will start looking.
I did not find any packages with the butterfly on it today at Walmart but I did find a whole lot of food items with the term bioengineered food on them.
Well, good morning. The sun has just come up and I made pancakes for breakfast. Yes, they do have some bioengineered food ingredients in the mix. That makes me ill. I will have to stop buying pre-packaged mixes and start making foods from scratch.
I unlocked everything outside and fed the fish. I need to get to transplanting some more. My body does not feel like it. But it needs to be done...
I manned up and went out to my backyard planting area. I transplanted 12 trees. To clarify, there was one large avocado tree, two lime trees, and three lemon trees that were more difficult. Then there were another six tiny papaya trees that we started from seed that needed to be put in larger pots.
The avocado tree was the biggest and I just could not pull it from the current pot. Fortunately, Matt happened to be walking by outside and I asked him to help me. I held the tree and pulled while he pulled the pot the opposite way. It finally came out and I was able to place the Joey Avocado tree into the new, larger pot without breaking the tree.
After that, I transplanted the two lime trees that were still in small pots and then the three lemon trees.
There were actually eight papaya trees, but only six were in tiny pots and needed transplanting. By the time I finished, I was soaked from the humidity and my muscles were killing me. I went inside and cleaned up. Then I took care of paying some bills, starting laundry, and doing the dishes.
By the time I got out to the business, there were some PTO problems from some of our people wanting time off. This is something that I never knew anything about before. So Matt and I are both working on figuring out how many hours each of our team members has left for the year. This was always handled by the manager we had hired for six years. We will get it all straightened out
Tomorrow, David and I have to go into San Antonio for some medical testing. That will be expensive for sure. We have Christian Healthcare Ministries so we have to pay up front and then submit the itemized bill in to them for reimbursement. Sometimes, the provider makes us wait for several months before they will give us a bill. Then it takes four months for CHM to reimburse us if they cover what was done.
We don't know for four months whether they will pay or not. We found out the hard way that they will never cover an ambulance charge and those can be thousands of dollars. If a charge is under $800, they will not cover it unless it is part of a continuing charge that has already cost more than $800.00. Another thing we found out is that we only have four months to submit a charge. If not, they will not cover it. It is cheaper than traditional healthcare costs. Now the price is going up again. So far, they have paid most charges, including David's very expensive surgery and hospital costs since 2018 when he first got ill.
After we closed the Farm Store, we got ready and left for a new Bible study. We had never met any of the people. The home and property are amazing. It was a good study and we got home a bit late. I wish we had chosen that area instead of where we are but we didn't even know it existed back when we were looking for land. They have nice soil with beautiful green grass.
Here, we have sand and stickers, very little grass. We have planted grass seed and pallets of grass over and over. Plus, the business is here and lots of people, sometimes seven days a week so it never really feels like home. I love the fact that I don't have to drive to work but I hate that I can't just step out of the house without making sure I look okay.
The USDA has created an official List of Bioengineered Foods. Here is the list:
These bioengineered ingredients are used to make many food products found on store shelves — including those that contain cornstarch, corn syrup, canola oil, high fructose corn syrup, granulated sugar and soybean oil.
Good Thursday morning. Happy first day of fall! However, it still feels like summer for most of the day with dreadful heat and humidity. We have to go into San Antonio this morning for a CT scan. That should be a fun and expensive trip.
We are planning to stop by Sam's on the way back for snacks and drinks for the store.
I went out to my plant area this morning and I watered everything. I pulled out the dead plants and then pulled out the trays that all of the plants are sitting in. Some of the water has turned to algae and I do not need that. I was going to pull all of my plants out by myself and arrange them the way I wanted but David directed some of our team to do it so I had no say. I am saying now by working out there each morning. I did not do any transplanting today because I did not want to get all muddy before going in to San Antonio.
I still have four more papaya trees out front to bring to the back and work on. They are all very small. I need to get them from the front and bring them back to my area but it is just so hot out there right now. It is supposed to get up to 98° today. It already feels like it is 100°.
We went for the CT scan and I had to pay in cash in order to get a 30% discount. We had to wear masks again. Now we take the paper they gave us and submit it to Christian Healthcare Ministries. I asked for an itemized bill but I really did not get one. I hope they will accept it because I would like that money back in four months. I will send it in tomorrow for possible reimbursement.
We had bank business and then went to Taco Cabana for lunch. After that, we got to Sam's for some drinks and snacks for the store. We filled the truck up with gas and then came home. By the time we got here, my leg and my head were in quite a bit of pain.
David and Matt unloaded the truck at the Farm Store. One of the dogs
threw up in the living room while we were gone so I had to clean that
up. Fun times.
So I am in my home office this afternoon working and finally starting on Season Four of The Crown. I watched the other seasons but have not had time. I love the Royal Family so I am making time while I work.
At 5pm, I fed the fish and tried to backwash the sponges. The water would not come on. The sponges were so muddy. I finally got some water to come out and then I could not turn it off. All of a sudden, the water gushed out. I called Matt and finally got him. He came over and unplugged the pump on the other side to make the water stop. The pond was down a good six inches so I had to refill it.
You’ll find the new bioengineered food or BE labels on processed foods and other products, such as:
Additionally, bioengineered foods are used to make animal feed. This means even if you aren't buying and eating GMOs, your farm animals could be and when you eat their eggs, drink their milk, consume their dairy products, or their meat, you will be eating GMOs without even realizing it. It seems that bioengineered foods are everywhere these days.
Good Friday morning. Our housekeeper is coming early today.
The housekeeper got here late because a car was flipped upside down by Dollar General and the police had traffic at a complete stand still for a while.
Aaron washed all of the sponge in the pond filter but the filter is still shooting water out. It is completely broken. Not sure how or why. David is going to contact the store where we purchased it and see if we can get a new one.
The monarch butterflies are thick again, committing suicide on every car window. They are also throwing themselves into any water they can find and drowning. I wonder how some of them manage to stay alive during their migrations to and from Mexico.
The store bells went off and I looked on camera to see customers so I rushed over. There was a very nice couple from San Antonio and they bought a lot of seeds, eggs, fudges, and canned foods. I stayed with them the entire time. Now I am back at my home office working.
It is 4pm and 98°. It started out this morning at 69°. Since I did not transplant this morning, I will have to do some this evening.
Tomorrow, the Farm Store will be open from 10am until 4pm. Please come by and get your fall seeds and so much more. We have had several couples come in today but most of our in store traffic comes on Saturdays.
A package came this afternoon for David. He ordered us a new Keurig. We donated ours to the employee breakroom about five years ago and have not had one.
For two weeks now we have been looking forward to seeing the Live Season Premiere of Shark Tank as advertised on ABC. The powers that be on the local affiliate in San Antonio, KSAT, decided to put some local program about special needs kids on at 7pm instead of letting us watch the live season premiere. If KSAT thinks this is something we need to see, why don't they take off their news show for it instead of a live season premiere? You can bet we are not the only ones in the viewing area who turned their TV set off in disgust.
Why? Why couldn't they put it on at a different time? We are so disgusted with them that we are no longer going to pay them to air our TV commercial. Prior to this, they would take off Svengoolie on Saturday nights where we had paid to run out TV commercial. Instead they put arena football or local high school football. We are paying good money and they pull the shows and put on stuff no one wants to watch. So we are through with them.
I heard the live show was great but we will never know. We love Shark Tank because we are entrepreneurs.
Nacho came out this evening to take measurements for a wheelchair ramp up into the store. This is not required out here but five families in the past two plus years have come out with wheelchairs and were upset that we did not have a ramp. What they don't understand is that it is not required out here as there are no restrictions and that we have to pay about $5000 to install it.
Some of the families have given us bad reviews because, get this, we don't have a sidewalk running up and down all four acres so they can push their child on the tour. Matt ended up pushing the wheelchair all over for that family through the sand but they still gave us a bad review. They did not pay a dime for the tour and we were very nice to them. Do they have any concept of how much money it would take to build sidewalks on four acres? We are a small business and we pay taxes like they couldn't imagine while they are getting tax refunds. We have had to make layoffs because of taxes and other business expenses.
As mentioned previously, on January 1, 2022, new food labeling laws took effect in the United States that replace the term “GMO foods” with “bioengineered food” instead.
Right now, GMO or bioengineered food ingredients can be found in more than 75% of processed foods made in the U.S. The US government considers these modern food production methods as necessary to how we feed the world in 2022 and beyond — in order to keep up with growing demand as the population climbs.
Every day millions of American infants, children and adults
are eating genetically engineered foods without their knowledge. Most people see what they want at the store and don't look at the labels. They just throw it in the cart and pay a high price for consuming foods that are not even healthy.
Good Saturday morning. It feels cool out there with low humidity but it will get up to 98° so I just don't get it.
My zinnias are blooming all over the place out by the Farm Store. I noticed when I was feeding the fish.
I ordered some K cups and a drawer to keep them so we can use our new Keurig. David made bacon and eggs for breakfast.
It is time for me to get outside and work on some plants.
I went out and transplanted quite a few plants. Matt came out and videoed me. I looked ridiculous. LOL! I was not camera ready today for sure.
The Farm Store is open. I have already designed two new all heirloom seed sets and took care of our first customer. Come on out and see us. I have two dozen eggs.
I just put up a new article over on David's Garden Seeds® about Bioengineered Foods, using the information from this page. That way, those who are not subscribed to this website will still get information over there. Have you checked your food pantry and your freezer yet for Bioengineered Foods on the labels?
David made taco bowls and we watched Gargoyles on Svengoolie. I think we watched that last year as well. It would be good to watch some new movies on there once in a while. The weeks he has new movies, San Antonio chooses to run something else.
Most of the sugar beets, soy, corn, and canola grown in the United States are GMOs. As such, they have been engineered to be able to take multiple applications of glyphosate, which is the primary ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides, the very chemicals that we the American gardeners are trying to avoid. The WHO or World Health Organization believes that glyphosate is a probable known cancer causing agent.
It is hot and miserable outside. I fed all of the animals and then got ready for church. We had a good message and then took off for Water Garden Gems for a new pond filter since ours broke before the month was up. This one is slightly different with a crank on it. While we were there, I got two more waterlilies which I put in the pond when we got home.
Getting over there took a long time and we finally found a Whataburger to get some lunch at the drive through. We sat there forever. Well, we finally made it over to the pond place. The old owners are gone. New people bought it and they are changing it, adding farm animals and more. Their prices have gone up from $39.95 a lily to $49.95 which is a lot. We were just over there at the beginning of this year to buy some more fish.
We are in the den watching a Godzilla movie with Perry Mason. What? Did Godzilla need an attorney in this one? Godzilla King of the Monsters was made in 1956 and is hilarious.
We have talked a lot about GMOs aka bioengineered foods this week. When you go to the grocery store, read each label. Yes, really read the labels. Look for circular green images that say “bioengineered” or “derived from bioengineering.” These new logos became effective on January 1, 2022.
You will see these logos on many products made with corn, soy, canola oil and sugar, such as cereals, frozen foods, dressings, etc. If you see these words on the label, don't buy them.
Buy organic foods and unprocessed whole foods.
Look for a butterfly logo on food that verifies the food is GMO free and does not contain bioengineered foods.
Buy foods straight from farms like fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, meats, and cheese.
Grow food from your own garden. Buy the seeds from reputable seed companies like David's Garden Seeds®. We have taken the Safe Seed Pledge and we don't have any desire to use, sell, grow, or consume anything with GMOs or bioengineered foods.
Return from Bioengineered Food to Our Fourth Year
GMO Tomato Seeds For The Home Gardener
Insect Butter
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