GMOs; Eyeglass Clinic; Free movies in SJ

 LABELING OF GM FOODS: YES OR NO

Photography by Denise Blasor

Do you have the right to know what's in the food you eat?

According to Monsanto, E.I.du Pont, PepsiCo, Bayer Cropscience, Dow Agrosciences, Nestle USA, Coca-Cola North America, and Conagra Foods, the answer to that question is NO.

These are the companies that a San Jose Mercury News story, published in August, listed as major contributors to the multimillion dollar campaign to defeat Proposition 37, a citizens' ballot initiative that, if approved on Election Day, would make California the first state in the U.S. to require the labeling of genetically engineered foods, including raw fruits and vegetables. Opponents raised $25 million to fight the initiative ( in contrast to under $3 million raised by supporters), with Monsanto donating the highest amount: $4.2 million. But then this company, a leading producer of GE seeds, has a vast stake in the GMO business.

Known as the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, Proposition 37 is one of 11 measures that Californians will be asked to vote on (early voting begins Oct. 9). Its approval would have a significant impact: advocates say it could herald national labeling of GMO foods.

Considering that 75 to 85 percent of all processed foods contain GMOs, it
would seem a no-brainer that products should carry the GMO label. After all, many nations in Europe and other parts of the world label genetically engineered food. Not so the U.S. The only GMO mention stateside consumers are likely to see on a package or container is a disavowal by the manufacturer that the product in said package or container contains genetically engineered ingredients.

Why so much fear to inform consumers? Opponents argue that a label could confuse the public, lead to higher food prices, and harm the agricultural sector.

Proponents insist on their right to know. They also have serious concerns about the safety of GMOs even though the federal Food and Drug Administration insists they pose no health hazards. Some studies have raised red flags, however.  Earlier this month, Agence France Press reported that rats fed on a genetically-modified corn made by Monsanto or exposed to the weedkiller Roundup, also made by Monsanto, developed tumors, according to a study by scientists at the University of Caen. Meanwhile, scientists in Norway recently released the findings of a 10-year-long feeding study carried out on rats, mice, pigs and salmon which found a link between genetically engineered feed and obesity; the diet also resulted in significant changes in the digestive system and major organs.

Genetic engineering is the process of manipulating the DNA of organisms; as applied to agriculture, it entails tinkering with the basic genetic fabric of the food supply, modifying seeds so they will be able to withstand the use of herbicides and pesticides (some seeds are modified to carry the pesticide within them), or even adding new characteristics to enhance the nutrients in a crop. It's a complicated science and for many people, one filled with many unknowns and dangers.

Many consumers are comfortable buying GM foods. Others are not. But regardless of a person's stand on this white-hot issue, surely most consumers would agree that buyers are entitled to know what they are buying, especially in the case of a product that one ingests, feeds one's family, and has implications on individual health. It is time for companies that produce and sell GM foods to give up secrecy in favor of full disclosure. It's the right thing to do.

Photography by Juliette Blasor

Oh, the feeling of aloneness. 
Not lonely. But aloness.
Tracy Emin

 EYEGLASS CLINIC in San Juan

Photography by Denise Blasor

There are clinics for people, for pets, and yes, even for eyeglasses which can be a blessing

 if your glasses fall apart, like when the arm (known as temple) falls off and you're stuck with a skewed spectacle.

 Rafael Meinhofer is the reserved but efficient  man in charge of Clinica de Gafas, a repair center for eyeglasses and sun specs. His small store  might be easy to overlook except it is right next door  to Kamoli, the funky eatery on the corner of Taft and Loiza Street. Meinhofer will restore your glasses to good health, thus extending their useful life, but also provide other services like selling frames and making new glasses. The store is open Monday through Saturday.

Clinica de Gafas #1704 Loiza St.   
Monday-Friday: 9 am-1 pm; 2 - 4 pm

Saturday: 9 am - 1 pm         787.728.0450

                                

Photography by Denise Blasor

My eyes are tired. For over half a century,
they have gazed into nullity
where they have found a
lovely nothing.

James Joyce

FREE MOVIEs

Casa de la cultura Nilita Vientós Gastón has launched a series of monthly screenings of French and Spanish movies and the best thing is that it is free. The next movie in the lineup is L'enfer, a 1994 film by French director Claude Chabrol, featuring Emmanuelle Béart and Franḉois Cluzet in the leading roles. The plot centers on a husband who, suspecting his wife of being unfaithful, descends into paranoia.

Upcoming movies include: El verdugo by director L. García Berlanga on Oct. 24; French Cancan by Jean Renoir, Nov. 7; Viridiana, by Luis Buñuel, Nov. 28; Betty, by Claude Chabrol, Dec. 5; and Calabuch, by L. García Berlanga, Dec. 19. Sponsored by: Universidad del Este, the Alliance Franḉaise de Puerto Rico, and the Spanish Consulate in San Juan.

The screenings begin at 7 p.m. 

Casa de la cultura Nilita Vientós Gastón

#55 Cordero St., Ocean Park

 ( between Loiza Street and McLeary) 

© 2012 Lorraine Blasor All Rights Reserved♥

                      A Perfect Apple 
                          (or remaking nature)


Of all the senses, taste is probably the least appreciated. Yet the memory of a juicy, plump, delicious heirloom tomato, or any other luscious fruit or vegetable from a local farmer's stand, lives on for a long time to remind us of the unequaled glory that is nature.

Fruits and vegetables found at most supermarkets, don't usually get high marks for taste. Oh, they look fine alright: smooth skin, bright color, proportionate shape. If there are any imperfections, they are minimal, nothing dire. As for taste, that's a different story.  It seems consumers are willing to forsake the  essence of a food, its very taste, just as long as the produce they purchase looks all nice and polished to high sheen.

Appearance looms large in the public consciousness. And it doesn't just extend to produce. Just consider the photo shopped beauties that stare out of magazine covers, yet another example of society's pursuit of perfection coupled with its insatiable obsession for youth. These faces have little in common with reality, in fact they hardly look human at all. How can they when there is nary a pore, wrinkle, pimple, blotch or marking in sight! Robbed of all individuality, these homogenous faces stare vacuously at the world, the embodiment of a vision of flawless beauty that has no room for idiosyncrasy or imperfection, precisely the qualities that give each face its lovable uniqueness.

If we are so obsessed with looks, is it any surprise that a company from British Columbia should now step forward to offer American consumers a genetically engineered apple that will not brown when sliced or bruised? According to a recent New York Times story, Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc. thinks that apple slices, a popular snack these days, would be more attractive to serve or sell if they didn't brown at all.  Never mind that the fruit's discoloring is the result of being exposed to air and Mother Nature's way of prodding people to hurry up and eat the apple before it loses its nutrients. Companies that sell apple slices take care of the browning problem by adding vitamin C and calcium but a splash of orange juice is said to work as well.

Nature has been around for a very long time, a lot longer than human beings, yet it would seem that it is no longer considered good enough. Which is behind the current push to remake nature. Why let an apple get brown when you can easily manipulate its genes in a lab and do away with this apparently bothersome characteristic. And since we're at it, why not do away with other characteristics, be it the color of a vegetable or fruit (hey, wouldn't it be great if avocados were red and had polka dots all over?) or its shape (how about a square watermelon, now that would be cool!) or its skin (bananas are such a breeze to peel why not make other fruits equally easy to eat?).

Tinkering with nature, no matter how well intentioned, carries unknown and unpredictable dangers, not least of which is uncertainty about the future effects of those changes on man and nature. The worse part is that genetic engineering is becoming so entrenched, with behemoth corporations such as Monsanto aggressively pushing this technology, that there is no turning back. Those concerned with this trend can opt to support organic farming and avoid buying foods that are genetically engineered (assuming they are so identified which is not always the case). They can also put in their two cents' worth of opinion before the appropriate government agencies. In the case of the non-browning apple, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is accepting public comments either online or by mail.
Online: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=APHIS-2012-0025-0001
Or mail to the following address:
Docket No. APHIS-2012-0025, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD,
APHIS, station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238. The deadline for submitting comments is Sept. 11, 2012.

Washington Street in San Juan
Learn to wander, to dawdle.
Lose your bearings.
Just drift.
Tiziano Scarpa

                   ☛ The Happy Store 

For the young and young at heart

Step inside "Everything but Match " in Old San Juan and you're likely to break into a smile. But make
sure to bring along a kid for this is a space geared to the young. This candy-colored concept store bursts

with high energy:  doodles of faces and cats decorate the walls, stars and a big sun hang from the ceiling, and the striped floor is painted vivid primary hues. Greeting you at the entrance is a bejeweled orange giraffe and in front of the fitting room is a brightly colored, reupholstered car seat rescued from a discarded Subaru; the register sits on a counter propped by two gaily decorated garbage drums. The merchandise, lovingly handmade by Puerto Rican artists, will delight young girls or boys: t-shirts, toys, clay houses, papier-mâché faces, bags made with recycled materials, craft jewelry that any little girl would love to wear. Dolls are "adopted" instead of "purchased" and t-shirts are sold in small canisters doubling as "piggy banks." It's never too early to teach the young to save. Owner Lilly Quiñones says the store was inspired by her oldest daughter, Valeria Sofia, a precocious six-year old with an interest in fashion and design. "The store is inspired by love and hope," says Quinones, virtues she hopes to pass along to her young clients. Parents may also arrange birthday parties at the store with painting and manual activities as the main entertainment.

Everything but Match, 201-B Tetuan Street, Old San Juan. Tel. 787.690.9578

Photograph by Denise Blasor

You have an obligation to be hopeful
How else can you continue?
We're all full of fear, but don't forget the beauty of what
can happen between people and what you see in the world.

Pina Bausch

© 2012 Lorraine Blasor, All Rights Reserved♥

FOOD takes center stage on OCT. 16 , WORLD FOOD DAY, 

designed to raise awareness about world wide hunger.  This

day also will focus attention on related issues such as the use

of genetic engineering (GE) and the Just Label It-We Have The 

Right To Know campaign to get the federal government to 

require the labeling of GE foods.

FACE OFF: GE VS ORGANIC

©Sam Fentress

     While we are busy living, working, playing, finding love, starting families, divorcing, eating and sleeping, the world  is changing, often in irrevocable ways. 

     One area that has changed dramatically is food production and the reason is genetic engineering. So pervasive is this new 

technology in conventional farming that as of 2010, most of the

leading crops grown in the U.S. were genetically modified to 

include: 93 percent of soy, 86 percent of corn, 93 percent of cotton, and 93 percent of canola seed. Next in line are sweet corn, alfalfa, and sugar beets. GE crops end up in processed foods, are fed to farm animals, and are sold to markets abroad.Depending on who is doing the talking, between 60 to 80 percent of the food sold in grocery stores contains GE ingredients. Yet most consumers are unaware of this.

     GE is a highly sophisticated science that involves the manipulation of the genetic makeup of an organism by introducing foreign DNA or synthetic genes. The aim is to remove or add a trait, or traits, that will make the organism "better."  As with any controversial science, there are supporters and critics. Supporters say its benefits include making food-bearing plants resistant to disease, climate change,  and insect infestations, thus boosting food production and reducing world hunger. But critics warn of its potential to create new allergens, toxins, weeds and harmful vegetation as well as promote mold and fungi. 

      ALTHOUGH the impact of GE on health and the environment is unclear given the absence of adequate testing, pervasive planting of GE crops has led to a greater rather than lesser use of pesticides. That's because weeds and pests have themselves developed greater resistance to toxins designed to kill them. As a result, farmers have seen their costs increase and the yields of their acres decline. Meanwhile, consumers are eating foods overly sprayed  with pesticides that no amount of washing is likely to remove since  some of the toxins are inevitably bound to be absorbed by the crops, much in the same way that human skin absorbs moisturizing creams, radiation, or anything else it is exposed to.

     GE also is impacting the vibrant and growing organic food industry which uses practices that help preserve soil health, maintain natural resources, and prevent environmental degradation. Techniques include crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control. But agriculture is an open air industry. Wind-blown pollen from fields planted with GE crops is ending up in organic fields, contaminating organic crops (as well as heirloom seed stocks). There is nothing farmers can do to prevent this from happening.

      THE MARCH OF PROGRESS is inevitable and unstoppable. Yet when one considers that crops like corn have been on the planet for thousands of years, their DNA unchanged except through natural processes or, as man developed agriculture, through artificial selection (selective breeding), the idea of altering the very genetic makeup of organisms seems radical and scary. Even more disturbing is the fact that most foods that are genetically engineered, or products containing GE ingredients (GMOs) are not labeled as such. Thus, the vast majority of the public is in the dark.

      COUNTRIES like Europe, Japan, Australia and even China require GE labeling on all foods produced with GE ingredients. Not the United States of America. Which is where Just Label It-We Have  A Right To Know comes in. As part of this national campaign, a legal petition was filed with the Food and Drug Administration in late September calling on the agency to require the labeling of GE foods. "Without labeling of genetically engineered foods, we cannot make informed choices about the food we eat," according to Oregon Tilth, Inc., an organization that certifies organic products.  "We need to flood the FDA with comments from Americans from coast to coast let them know that we care. " 

      MEANWHILE, in California, the Organic Consumers Association is spearheading an initiative to get a minimum of 505,000 signatures to put the "Right2Know" GMO Labeling Act of 2012 on the ballot. If approved by voters, it would make California the first state in the nation with mandatory GMO labeling. OCA also is running a national campaign to 

get one million signatures by WORLD FOOD DAY on a separate Truth-In-Labeling petition which calls for both labeling of GE foods and of animal products that come from industrial-scale factory farms, or Confined Animal Feeding Operations  (CAFOs).

      BIOTECH companies like Monsanto (which gave the world Agent Orange) are opposed to mandatory labeling. This kind of bullying attitude has no room in a democracy and the competitive marketplace. It would be unthinkable for consumers to buy products such as, say a car or a stove, a camera or a computer, without knowing who manufactured them.  Nor would anyone buy medicines without knowing which companies are behind them. So why should food, which is essential for human sustenance and health, be any different? 

      EVERYONE is entitled to eat what they want, be it organic or GE. But ultimately, consumers have a right to be able to choose which foods they and their families will buy.

 www.justlabelit.org

Photograph by Denise Blasor

"What I'll need to be 

happy 

in my old age is flowers, 

dogs, music, gardening, 

painting. Two pairs of 

pants and two blouses. " 

Linda St. John

PIC-NIC TIME: 

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT GE and GMOs?

THEN HEAD OVER TO PARQUE LUIS MUÑOZ RIVERA IN PUERTA DE TIERRA

THIS SATURDAY OCT. 15 AT 4 P.M.WHERE EL DEPARTAMENTO

 BY LORRAINE BLASOR

DE LA COMIDA, AN ORGANIC FOOD DISTRIBUTOR,

WILL BE ON HAND WITH INFORMATION ON GMOs AND

ORGANIC FARMING IN PUERTO RICO. AND SINCE TOO

MUCH TALK CAN WET THE APPETITE, THERE WILL ALSO

BE FOOD TO SNACK ON (THE non GMO KIND). 

PARTICIPANTS ARE WELCOME TO BRING ALONG THEIR

OWN GOODIES TO SHARE WITH OTHERS DURING THE

ACTIVITY TO BE HELD IN THE PARK'S "BUNKER" AREA,

WHICH IS CLOSEST TO THE P.R. SUPREME COURT BUILDING.

EL DEPARTAMENTO DE LA COMIDA, 

#1063 Calle Las Palmas, Trastalleres 787.325.8306

By Denise Blasor

I will complain, yet praise;

I will bewail, approve;

And all my sour-sweet days

I will lament and love.

--George Herbert                      

                                        © 2011Lorraine Blasor