If you or anyone in your family (parents or grand-parents) have lived on a farm or close to nature, you already know that nature knows best. In other words, animals, unless forced to eat nasty food in concentration camps – Oops! Commercial farms, they will know instinctively what’s good for them and avoid what’s bad for them. Don’t ask me how. I am a chef, not an animal behavior scientist. All we have to do is stop and observe animals in the wild.
Buffalo
In India, animals are allowed by farmers to graze on cotton plants after harvest. In an Andhra Pradesh village, buffalo grazed on regular cotton plants for eight years without incident. In January 2008, 13 buffalo were allowed to graze on Bt cotton plants for the first time. All died within three days. Other buffalo in Haryana refuse to eat cottonseed cakes made from GM cotton.
Pigs
Pigs won’t touch genetically modified corn. A Midwest farmer grinned as he told his visitor, "Watch this!" He called out his pigs, which ran quickly towards him to be fed. But when he scooped out corn feed and threw it on the ground, his pigs sniffed it and refused to touch it. The farmer then scooped corn feed from another bin and flung it next to the previous corn. His pigs ran over and quickly devoured it. He said, "The first corn was genetically engineered. They won't eat it." Similar trials with other hogs gave the same results for two years in a row.
Chicken
In South Africa, Strilli Oppenheimer's chickens won't eat genetically modified corn.
Cows
In 1998, Howard Vlieger harvested both natural corn and a GM Bt corn variety on his farm in Maurice, Iowa. He decided to conduct an experiment. He led a few of his cows at a time into a feeding area with two separate troughs. The first one contained shelled Bt corn. The other one had natural shelled corn. The cows sniffed at the GM corn, turned around and walked over to the other one. They then proceeded to finish it off. After they were led out, he tried the same experiment on a new group of cows. They all behaved in the same exact manner. The same experiment was conducted the same way on about six or seven farms in Northwest Iowa, in 1998 and again in 1999 with similar results.
In a 1999 Acres USA article, we are told that cattle broke through a fence, ambled through a field of Roundup-ready corn, and finally got to what they really wanted, the non-GM corn they ate happily. They sniffed at the GM corn and left it untouched.
Gale Lush from Nebraska mentions, "If a field contained GM and non-GM maize, cattle would always eat the non-GM first."
Gary Smith from Montana tells us, "A neighbor had been growing Pioneer Bt corn. When the cattle were turned out onto the stalks they just wouldn't eat them."
Tim Eisenbeis from South Dakota observes, "While my cows show a preference for open-pollinated corn over the hybrid varieties, they both beat Bt-corn hands down."
Another farmer said this, “Well, if you want your cattle to go off their feed, just switch them out to a GMO silage.”
Deer
Writer Steve Sprinkel described a herd of about forty deer that ate from the field of organic soybeans, but not the Roundup Ready variety across the road.
Elk
Susan and Mark Fitzgerald in Minnesota report that a captive elk ran away and set up shop in one of their fields of organic corn and soy. Right next door, it had free access to a buffet of GM crops, but somehow, it knew better than to nibble on it.
When put out for them to feed on, elk, deer, raccoons, and rats all avoided GM grains.
Field mice
A farmer, wondering about what he read on social media, decided to do his own experiment with his own neighborhood’s squirrels. In preparation for the upcoming winter, he stored two bags of corn ears in his garage, one of GM corn, one of regular. When he went back to fetch the corn for his experiment on squirrels, he found that his friendly and hungry neighborhood mice did all the work for him. They chewed through the non-GM corn bag and pretty much ate all of it while they left the GM corn bag untouched. I guess even mice are smarter than humans when it comes to GM food.
Another farmer in Holland wanted to verify if his barn mice would make the same choice. He left one pile of GM corn and one pile of natural corn for them to feast on. The GM pile was left untouched while the non-GM pile had disappeared.
Even field mice will move natural over GM crops when given a choice. What is it that they know instinctively that most of us ignore?
Geese
Geese with bad habits for a farmer, not for themselves. A farmer in Illinois had been planting regular soybeans on his fields for years. Unfortunately, he also had a flock of migrating soybean-eating geese that took up residence in a pond nearby. Being creatures of habits, these noisy creatures returned to the same spot. Much to this farmer’s surprise, once he decided to plant new genetically engineered soybeans on part of his land, his winged visitors got picky. They chose to eat only the regular soybeans and ignored the GM soybeans. He could even see exactly where the geese chose to eat as there was a clear line down the middle of his field with the natural beans on one side, and the untouched genetically engineered soybeans on the other.
Raccoons
Another farmer noticed that a family of raccoons were having a banquet on his organic corn, his Bt corn field was left untouched. You know these guys tend to eat anything that falls into their grubby paws. Not the GM corn.
Sheep
When shepherds let sheep graze on Bt cotton plants, thousands died. Investigators said preliminary evidence "strongly suggests that the sheep mortality was due to a toxin... most likely Bt-toxin." In a separate small study, all sheep fed Bt cotton plants died; those fed natural plants remained healthy.
Squirrels
Even squirrels which usually devour natural corn during the coldest days of Iowa winter, refused to touch the GM variety. For years, a retired Iowa farmer had fed squirrels on his farm through the winter months by placing corncobs on feeders. Being curious, he decided to see if the squirrels preferred natural corn over Bt corn. He placed a natural corncob on one side and Bt corncob about twenty feet away. His squirrels ate all the corn off the natural cobs but didn't touch the Bt. Wanting to make sure, he repeated his experiment once more and the Bt corn was left untouched again. Then he wondered, “What if only left one choice to my furry friends?” He put out only Bt corn. Guess what, even though they were hungry, his squirrels still did not nibble at the Bt corn. They went somewhere else for food. Feeling sorry for his friends, he gave them natural corn again and they ate it all.
Lab animals
In lab studies, twice the number of chickens fed Liberty Link corn died.
The Washington Post reported that laboratory mice, usually happy to feast on regular tomatoes, turned their noses up at the genetically modified FlavrSavr tomato. Researcher Roger Salquist said about his GM tomato, “I gotta tell you, you can be Chef Boyardee and mice are still not going to like them.”
These mice were eventually force-fed the tomato through gastric tubes and stomach washes. Several developed stomach lesions and seven of forty died within two weeks. Result: the GM tomato was approved for human consumption without further tests.
No one knows why animals – wild, domesticated or the lab version – refuse to eat GM food. They seem to instinctively know. Nature has a way to show us the right way, if we pay attention. Maybe we should take a lesson from these animals and beware of what we eat.
Speaking of animals... Are your pets sick of GMOs?