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Holla,
We are new to the forums. My wife and I just purchased a house in Atenas (thanks Jeff H.), which will eventually become our full-time residency. We were wondering about the quality of vegetables.
Have GMO vegetables or seeds made into Costa Rica?
Are pesticides commonly used on vegetables?
(we saw a post on the forums about dogs ingesting Round Up…..very scary to say the least)We have been told that there is a place in Atenas that you can order organics but are there other stores around that carry them? I saw a post in the forums from 2007 that mentions a place to get organics “bajo zuniga”, Is this store still open and where is it located?
Thanks for any information you share, George
i live near bajo zuniga and the vegetable store there does not have a plethora of organic produce. i ask almost everytime i go there which of their stuff is organic and i am told that it’s mostly conventionally grown. so i try to buy most of my organic vegetables from the stand in the feria in san ramon. as for GMO — i shudder to think monsanto may have dispersed gmo seeds in costa rica. most of the farmers i know plant heirloom seeds and i know that the organic stuff i buy is not gmo. we are not near enough to atenas to make it an easy trip to san ramon. i am sure you can ask around and find people who are growing and selling organic foods there. there are a lot of organic farms in zarcero and many of the vendors at the feria get their produce from there, so i almost always ask the vendors what they have that’s organic. if they are selling 5 different things, often one will be organic. the ticos LOVE chemicals, the more the better, especially round-up and certain pesticides. it was truly the biggest disappointment about costa rica. for a country that prides itself on its ecological platforms, they use way too many poisons for me. so i planted my own garden and grow all my own lettuces and herbs and sweet potatoes.
On the 26th July 2009 the US Embassy was advertising for a ‘Medical Research Scientist (FDA)’ a while back
You can see the ad’ at:
[https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/2259.cfm ]
Wonder what they’re up to huh?
Scott
the FDA is setting up shop in costa rica is what i heard from another source. these are the same people who have been bought and sold by big pharma. they are also the ones who claim gmo food isn’t harmful, and i believe them about as much as i believe monsanto the makers of all kinds of harmful things.
Thanks for all your input…….It seems we will have to find an organic farm some where in Atenas.
Its just so scary how the US federal government is full of GMO company execs with the goal of keeping it a secret from the American people. Of course the press doesn’t help there either.
it’s why i try to do organic everything. i simply don’t trust “them” when they say gmo foods are safe, because after doing my own research and editing an article on gmo foods, i think they are anything BUT safe. if you nose around you will surely find some small growers who believe as you do, or better yet, start your own garden. everything grows here, and you’re in a better climate than i am here in the cloud forest.
I know an Engineer who works for Monsanto in Cañas/Guanacaste and he told me that they plant GMO-Cotton for test purposes (which I do not apreciate at all !!!!) but no GMO-Food.
I don´t know about other places growing GMO-Stuff in C.R. but am sure that at least the importet veggies in cans, specially corn, and the soy products(oil) are pretty much GMO 👿About the quimicals used on veggies and fruit, I have read an article some time ago that stated that tests made on “fresh” supermarket veggies showed that 20 years ago the contamination was 80 % higher then now, hope it keeps going this way 😀
just google “dangers of GMO foods” and you will get the education you need. first of all, there is no telling what kind of health problems these foods will cause 20 years after you’ve ingested them. i don’t want to eat a tomato that was cross with a jelly fish. i want real food, like what my grandparents used to eat — food that was nutritious and not sprayed with cancer causing pesticides. someone would have to put a gun to my head before i ate any soy products, with the exception of those products that have been fermented. 99% of all soy is gmo’d. the problem is that the average person will eat anything without even glancing at a label. i go one step further and don’t eat things with a label, and i eat 99% organic. i guess it depends on your food consciousness. and if monsanto had its way we’d all be eating frankenfoods.
What an interesting observation, John.
I just Googled “benefits of genetically modified organisms” and got approximately 1,050,000 hits. So maybe the evidence doesn’t all point in one direction, eh?
[quote=”DavidCMurray”]What an interesting observation, John.
I just Googled “benefits of genetically modified organisms” and got approximately 1,050,000 hits. So maybe the evidence doesn’t all point in one direction, eh?[/quote]
‘zactly!
why would you want to eat foods that have been genetically modified? and if you think that the people who are telling you it’s a good thing don’t have a beneficial interest in selling you on this idea, think again. there is one article in the mountain howler — nov/dec issue http://www.mountainhowler.com that illustrates some of the dangers. i’ve long since stopped trying to figure out why people eat what they do, and i am sure that with all the propaganda spin monsanto will use, even some of the smartest people will fall for this. wasn’t it monsanto who gmo’d some corn in mexico that caused women to spontaneously abort? hmmmmmm. maybe those soybeans will make you sterile, or stupid, or give you cancer. why aren’t people up in arms about this is the real question?
Of course, one must first define just what is meant by “genetically modified”, right? For instance, when one strain of (say) potato is crossed with another, the result is genetically modified, isn’t it. The resulting potato is different from the source strains. The same goes for selective breeding of domesticated animals. And we’ve been doing both of those, and eating the results, for hundreds of generations.
(By the way, in that we are all “crosses” between our parents’ lineages, we, too, are all “genetically modified”. And look how well that’s turned out (in most cases).)
Two more questions arise: First, why would someone want to propagate a genetically modified strain? Increased yield would be one good reason. Improved disease resistance would be another. And enhanced nutritional value of the resulting food product might be a third.
Second, why would someone wish to eat a genetically modified food? Well, decreased cost due to higher yields or lower losses to disease, deterioration in storage or predation might be one reason. Another might be that increased nutritional value. And a third might be improved attractiveness — taste or appearance.
None of the above is to suggest that genetic tinkering always turns out well or that there cannot be pitfalls, but just as the 1,050,000 Google hits on the “benefits of genetically modified organisms” counterbalance the 174,000 hits on “dangers of genetically modified foods”, it serves to illustrate that, as is so often the case, there is no absolute black or white.
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