I really appreciate Costco’s attempts to provide organic, healthy foods, but your article about Foster Farms in the July 2010 issue of The Costco Connection highlights a blind spot.

Ron Foster proudly states that his chickens dine on the best of corn and soybeans. Well, besides the fact that’s not what chickens were born to eat, producing less nutritional value than naturally-fed chickens, that diet creates a world of problems.

Because what goes into the chicken also goes into the people who eat the chicken.

Almost all corn and soybeans come genetically modified these days. Most of Europe has outlawed GMO because of the damage it does to DNA. Singapore beats the tar out of you if you sell GMO food. The FDA, beholden to Agribusiness, is thinking about it.

But besides the GMO problem, soy is poison.

I know, I know, lots of people sing its praises. Just not anybody familiar with the science.

Here are a few particulars:

1. Soy floods our bodies with bogus estrogen, throwing our entire endocrine system for a loop. Get enough of it, and men grow breasts, get prostate cancer and so on. Girls go into premature puberty. Boys deal with lifelong low testosterone levels. And women? Yikes! Endometriosis, PMS, breast cancer, all sorts of unlovely things.

2. Soy causes kidney stones

3. Soy sucks the minerals out of our bodies–and most of us are already wildly deficient.

4. Soy depresses thyroid gland action, throwing people into hypothyroidism.

5. Soy is loaded with glutamate, a brain excitoxin, which damages the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls both the endocrine system and the nervous system. A damaged hypothalamus can lead to many endocrine issues, peripheral neuropathy and auto-immune diseases.

6. Etc, etc, etc.

And you want me to eat that chicken? Drink the soy milk you sell? Buy all the products on your shelves that contain soy?

I believe your intentions are honorable and your hearts are pure, but you need to take another look at soy. With that, Costco could make a huge difference in the nutrition of our country.

Well, that and getting rid of high fructose corn syrup, which is even worse.

But besides going tsk-tsk, I want to thank you for the very positive steps you have taken. I’ve noticed and appreciate your efforts.

Bette Dowdell

http://TooPoopedToParticipate.com

http://BettesHealthBog.com

http://PepForThePooped.com