I have just finished reading a book by Jeffrey M. Smith called the Seeds of Deception in which he outlines the health risks from GM crops. You may think this is rather far fetched in an article about bee pollen nutrition information but it is most relevant, I can assure you.

One of the main arguments in Jeffrey Smith’s book is the epidemic or sickness some years ago where people were taking a synthetic form of the amino acid called L-tryptohan. This had been produced in Japan using genetically engineered bacteria and other methods to produce this amino acid very cheaply. Over 100 people died in this epidemic and it pinpointed very clearly how genetically modified food production can be dangerous and deadly.

As regards the bees and their products, there is a lesson to be learned here. The bees forage widely and some species travel over 10 miles in a day. They are exposed not only to pesticides and insecticides but also GM microbes. In addition, they may be using the pollen from genetically modified crops. That is just one of the ways these microbes can get into the food chain. If we blithely assumed that bee pollen nutrition information is a constant, then these facts I have outlined above will make us think again. Read the rest of this entry »