17 Thank You, Monsanto

Zach Bush, Doctor of medicine and merchant of well-being lays out the whole sorry saga that is Glysophate and the story of chemical farming. What Monsanto and the glyphosate saga has helped into existence is a completely new understanding of the role played by the enteric system, the gut and the human biome.  The gut membrane, stretched out, is the size of two tennis courts (in comparison, our skin covers less than 2 metres). It is one micron, one-cell thick. The gradual damage that has been delivered to the gut membrane over the last 30-40 years has given us clusters of diseases and conditions that have forced us to understand how we need to live in the environment. We can all stop our feverish research and get on with our lives. Thanks Zach, you are a legend.

The more I look into the Monsanto and glyphosate story the more I am convinced that this company and the global phenomenon that is Round Up is going to be the trigger for our salvation.

What has emboldened me to make such a crazed comment? It was listening to a YouTube podcast with Zach Bush MD, a Virginian doctor. Zach Bush has a compelling story to tell on GMO, Glyphosate and Gut Health, and it such a rich story that I feel like my podcasting contributions are going to be a footnote to this man for a while. He has stitched together a fantastically complex amount of information to construct a picture that I have been pursuing piece by piece over several years.

MONSANTO BAILS

Monsanto is a company so lacking in faith in its own trajectory that it recently sold itself for a minuscule amount of money.  $66 Billion dollars might look like a lot from the average person’s perspective; but considering Monsanto have a stake in 85-90% of the food chain in the US and beyond from their control of GMO seed (mainly soy, corn, cotton and canola) and the herbicide used in its growing, $66 billion bucks is a knockdown price.

And here is the kicker – they sold to Bayer, a massive pharmaceutical company - meaning that the mob that helped collapse soil and human health across the planet is now subsumed within the company who would sell us the drugs to manage all the chronic symptoms we are coping with across environmental and human health spectrums! That is Black humour funny.  It will be instructive to see how Bayer get out from under emerging lawsuits and what product they will unveil with the familiar claim to ‘feeding the planet’ if they have not got a paradigm shifting Plan B under their belts.

GM CROPS IN AUSTRALIA

In Australia we have GM cotton, (since 2011), canola and safflower. Close to 100% of cotton is GM seed. There is a page on GM crops in WA on the DPIRD (Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development) website that says – and I quote- that GM cotton traits assist growers with pest and weed management and may reduce the environmental impacts of farming when compared with non-GM crops….OK. 34% of total canola crop in WA are GM with other crops undergoing research. Apparently, a major market for canola is the European Union and crops gets a premium for non-GM seed. As for crop yields – it depends on who you speak to. Obviously, anti-chemical farming types think GM cropping is a race to the bottom in terms of environmental degradation – and really – what is the point of counting yields without also counting soil and water quality and the health of the farmer/family and community? https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/genetic-modification/genetically-modified-crops-western-australia

THE GUT MEMBRANE

What Monsanto and the glyphosate saga has helped into existence is a completely new understanding of the role played by the enteric system, the gut and the human biome.  The gradual damage that has been delivered to the gut membrane over the last 30-40 years has given us clusters of diseases and conditions that have forced us to understand how we need to live in the environment.

This is why I say Thank You Monsanto – because if they hadn’t helped collapse human health we might never have got to a true understanding of the role of the gut membrane or extracted the deeper truths from this understanding – we might still be ignoring a concerned minority instead of being part of an empowering spirit that has been unleashed across the world as we take matters of wellness back into our own hands

Here is a brief synopsis of the gut membrane and its functions as I understand it. This membrane is a barrier that starts in the sinuses and encompasses the whole enteric system. I did a bit of research online and found that they are thinking of giving the gut membrane its own new category – maybe even upgrading it to ‘organ’ status – that’s big..

This membrane, stretched out, is the size of two tennis courts (in comparison, our skin covers less than 2 metres) It is one micron, one-cell thick. Pluck a human hair and halve it down its length and you have the thickness of the gut membrane. This appears to be, in Zach’s words, an ‘unbelievably under-engineered’ piece of anatomical equipment – if you were going to design a barrier that stands between the immune system of the human body and the outside world would you have thought to make it a one micron, wafer-thin membrane, in size?

WE ARE THE ENVIRONMENT

Well, you would have – if you had done it under the proviso that we are the environment. We are an intricately connected part of the ecosystems that make up our world - we are engineered to hum in tune, to breathe intimately in and out with the world around us – all the subtle energies, every element, every animal, plant, insect, rock and microbiome lives in us. This immediately tells us something about the problem with clinical science – working in laboratories in petri dishes will allow many things to be determined, but it won’t be a great way to work out how humans best thrive in the context of a pulsating web, within other pulsating webs within a universe that has the capacity to literally explode with life when humans take their foot off the throat of Nature.

WHAT ROUND UP ALSO KILLS

I didn’t realise that Glyphosate, which is marketed as a weedkiller or herbicide, is actually an antibiotic. It is designed to block enzyme development in plants through the Shikimate pathway (after the Japanese scientist who first identified it) This pathway is the way plants make amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. When it is blocked, it eventually leads to the death of the plant by starvation. (The shikimate pathway -shikimic acid pathway is a seven-step Metabolic pathway used by bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, some protozoans, and plants for the biosynthesis of folates and aromatic amino acid)

Humans are capable of constructing most of the proteins we need to thrive from a few dozen amino acids, but there are a handful of amino acids that only plants can deliver us. What we now know, is that when this enzyme pathway is blocked in plants, all the animals that eat plants and the animals that eat the animals that eat plants, don’t get these crucial amino acids in their own bodies.

All toxins have off-target effects – what the medical profession calls ‘side effects’. So while glyphosate efficiently blocks the metabolic process in plants that makes some of the essential amino acids, it does more than kill the plant. It also does direct injury to the protein structures that holds our gut membrane together. What lies right behind the gut membrane is the immune system, and when breached the body’s immune system is triggered, and if it is breached repeatedly, the immune system can be overwhelmed.

Round Up is water soluble and is now so prevalent in our lives that it can be counted as an unofficial food additive. It has made its presence felt in every part of our food and water chain. Since 1996 when the EPA in the USA removed bans that stopped Round up from being sold to the general public, it has been so routinely splashed around by domestic gardeners, council workers, as well as broad-acre and small farmers, that is has infiltrated every aspect of the water cycle.

If you are lucky enough to be rained on in Australia, there is a fair chance that Round Up will be part of the shower.

PARADIGM SHIFT

 When I talk to growers about Round Up, a general response seems to be emerging – it is along the lines of: ‘it’s all very well to get rid of glyphosate, but the alternatives are way worse’. They reach back and paint a terrifying picture of the return of DDT and other appalling agents of destruction. This is a pretty weak defence, maybe the only defence when the whole-of-landscape approach has not kicked in as a feasible path to take.

But it is a delicate conversation from this point because we are talking from two different paradigms: it seems the Round up saga can still be shoved into the zone of we-don’t-have-to-believe-this yet – and I get the reluctance. Farmers are under pressure from many factors, the creeping horror that is emerging as the glyphosate effect is just another one – I tread lightly.  Farmers ARE the new heroes – they just don’t all know it yet.

Zach MD gets deep into the science of cell communication to make his point about glyphosate’s effects on the gut membrane and disease consequences. He makes some fascinating points about the behaviour of cancer cells. When communication between cells breaks down and they become isolated from the whole, cells lose their capacity to self-heal and their ability to know what they should be doing. They have one response from this weak and damaged state, they start to multiply frantically. Here is a quote that I hope will drive you to listen to some of Zach’s fascinating talks online:

‘We are losing our self-identity at the cell level because we are eating food that destroys our ability to hold ourselves together at the cell level’….Do you see what I mean about comprehensive? This touches on physiological, psychological, neurological, political, economic, social and spiritual aspects of life. So, Thank you, Monsanto, you didn’t do it single-handedly, but we might still be locked in mechanistic thinking without the back-handed insights your products have given us into the pathways to our own wellness.

FOOD AS MEDICINE

Zach’s podcast has taken me full circle, back to the idea of Food as Medicine. When I was looking at Wild Food in my time on Edah Station, east of Geraldton, I read a lot about the value of eating micro-nutrients, which are known as the secondary compounds of plants. These are substances that are potentially toxic but are usually present in tiny amounts in food grown naturally – for example solanins in potatoes, oxalates in spinach. These micro-nutrients act as antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, enzyme regulators, adaptogens and micro-sugars.

You know they are there because they give the taste and zest to much food. Compare the rocket in your own garden to the rocket found in a fresh plastic bag in a supermarket. The latter has none of the peppery, sparky tones of the wild-grown stuff – it is a bland cousin, all of the crunch and none of the bite, clearly missing elements that give complexity to the eating experience.

SECONDARY PLANT COMPOUNDS

These secondary metabolites are used, amongst other functions, as front-line weapons against predators. I might have previously told the story of the giraffes and the acacias in South Africa, but here it is again. Giraffes have a particular fondness for a type of wattle, but as soon as they start nibbling at the foliage the plants quickly blast out a secondary metabolite, a chemical defence that will render the plant unpalatable. Giraffes know this, so they approach the acacias stealthily and try to catch them unaware, knowing they have a small window of opportunity to snack without discomfort. The acacias also have the capacity to alert nearby trees of the approaching herbivore danger.

AUTISM SYNDROME DISORDER (ASD)

As well as the 13 major vitamins and major nutrients (protein, fat, carbo, fibre etc) there are literally hundreds of thousands of components in food that are starting to be seen as crucial to good health.

Secondary metabolites are also listed as ‘metal transporting agents’ – this one grabbed my attention concerning the rise and rise of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Apparently severe autism cases can present with symptoms very similar to lead poisoning – have these children lost the capacity to screen heavy toxins in the environment from their bodies?  There has been much talk of the link between ASD and immunisations. I have listened to alternative health podcasts that claim that ASD is caused by the heavy metals used as carriers for the disease molecules, based on the evidence of presence of these metals in the brains of Autistic children. Is it possible that while some kids sail through inoculations, those on the Autism Spectrum with no capacity to screen out the toxins because of their highly compromised immune systems can suffer overload? It seems to me to be worth looking at as more nuanced way of approaching the vexed immunisation debate.

Zach talks of clusters of diseases that have matched the rising tide of glyphosates in the environment from the 1980s. In the 70’s ASD was diagnosed at a rate of 1 in 5000 in the USA, now it is 1 in 36 and it has doubled in the last six years. Zach, tracking public statistics in the USA, says that by 2035 one in three children will be on the Autism spectrum, a health disaster that will place a massive social and economic burden on the public and private purse. But the link between Autism and nutrition, or rather, lack of nutrition, deserves another podcast….

If you don’t have some of the major vitamins in your food you will have symptoms of acute deficiency. But with the secondary compounds it is different:  ‘Disease states may not yet be defined by the absence of these micro-nutrients, but the absence of their protective roles are felt over the longer term.’ That was a quote from a book called ‘Wild food’ by Vic Cherikoff from 2015 (p25) . Zach is pointing in this direction: he is definitely defining disease states by the absence of these micro-nutrients, the medicinal elements of plants.

INFLAMMATION and LEAKY GUT

Zach’s take on disease is that the marker that is the common denominator between all the cancers, neurological diseases, auto-immune, motor-neuron conditions that have risen in exponential numbers since the early 1980s and particularly since the mid-1990s, is chronic inflammation. This will ring bells for you if you are at all interested in health and what’s trending for humans - you would already be toying with the suspicion that it’s all about chronic inflammation and leaky gut.

Is it possible that at the same time as we have been destroying micro-nutrients in our soils and plants we have been destroying our body’s ability to mount effective immune responses by removing the medicinal factors from these very soils and plants?

To help you get a handle on that question, more from Zach: Vincristine is one of the most widely used drugs in chemotherapy cancer treatments. (ONCOVIN is one of the brand names) It is one of a group of drugs called plant alkaloids and its function is to stop cells separating. This alkaloid is one that is made in the same Shikamate pathway that is blocked by glyphosate. So Vincristine the drug, is made by extracting one or more ( I’m not sure which) of the secondary metabolites from algae, which are then purified and sold at a fantastic sum per gram as a cancer treating drug.

So the same toxin that all living things should be getting in tiny doses from the plants and animals we eat, is now grown and harvested in plants and fed back to those made sick by this lack in hugely concentrated and toxic doses! More black humour. Are you finding the way knowledge is coming in and tipping the world on its axis is messing with your head?

UNECONOMIC GROWTH

Let’s have a rest from the relentless circularity of the glyphosate/disease treatment effect by looking at other relentlessly circular problem creation and solving cycles. Recently I started writing a podcast called the Wellness Economy. This term caught my eye when I followed a line of bread crumbs from a chance conversation in Perth last month that led me to an online event offered by a woman called Katherine Trebeck.

Katherine and co-author, Jeremy Williams were touring with their book the Economics of Arrival, ideas for a grown up economy . I spent time on their website because I resonated with their concept of UNECONOMIC GROWTH.

They give an example: when all the bees are dead, having start-ups,  work out how to pollinate plants using non-bee methods….. or how about facilitating a housing boom that has to happen after a massive fire or storm event. The catastrophic event being caused by the all round war against nature and intense clear felling of vegetation that has led to the destabilisation of climate functions.

What is implicit in both these examples is, not that we stop being entrepreneurial, rather that we give up destroying natural life cycles to begin with, and start supporting regenerative processes instead. You can probably think of some mind-numbing examples yourself. But, using my imagination, here is my personal best projection of uneconomic growth that I can see coming to the Midwest.

UNECONOMIC GROWTH AND THE FISHERIES

When a local regen farmer came up with an ambitious plan to rehydrate and restore landscape functions in the farm land along the Chapman River Catchment zone - he had no problem getting people in the fishing industry on board.  Some farmers might be slow to get what he was doing, but the people invested in the $500million lobster industry and the group running the local fish farm understand exactly how vulnerable their industries are. When sediment and agri-chemicals flow into the coastal sea grass beds from the Chapman River mouth in the aftermath of a rain event– the fisher people sweat blood. The fish farm has already suffered losses due to flow off farmland areas to the coast and is struggling to find insurers for the business.

The fisheries are described as ‘sustainable’ - and I believe the crayfish industry should be praised for its efforts. But beyond crays, if you consider that the pool of fisher people and the pool of available fish is at about 10% of what it used to be, and falling then in terms of Uneconomic Growth thinking, now’s the time to invest in a start-up that can create fish-tasting flesh, beginning with enzyme action orchestrated in a test tube and flavoured by the addition of a massive amount of ingredients. OR, could it be the time to work out how best to institute practices that halt erosion and stabilise and build up soil inland?  Actually, I just did a quick search, I am way behind the times – vegans and other trend setters are all over this.

Katherine and Jeremy are all for measuring GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by going from: and this is their term : ‘expansion to inclusion’ as an economic model. Isn’t that nice?

I started this story as a homage to Monsanto. It has to be a homage to Zach Bush MD. I am both changed and charged by this knowledge.  

RENAMING RE:EATING

I’ll leave you with one small shift that occurred along the way for me - driven in part by discussions about food-as-medicine and the capacity for diet to help children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  While checking out the Keto diet with some local enthusiasts, I found a new best name for my eating habits. I’ve tossed out Meganism as a descriptor (that is someone who loves the lightness and beauty of a plant-based diet balanced by the earthy tones offered by meat from a free-ranged animal and gratefully received by a free ranging human.) I now call myself a Flexitarian and am into food and practices that keeps me stitched together and humming in tune with my natural habitat, a beach suburb in Geraldton that is allied with the Indian Ocean, the wheat belt and the southern Rangelands of  Western Australia, and beyond…as far as imagination can take me.