• GM mustard is modified so it is able to absorb huge amounts of herbicide. Usually, it is roundup but in this case it is another one known as glufosinate, a known neurotoxin. In India, what is the reason to introduce herbicide tolerance in a seed by the company, especially when it is illegal to introduce herbicide tolerance in plants in India? All safety regulations have been by-passed. The ‘developers’ are yet to produce a single serious health test to the public and it is without any blood analysis of animals that have consumed GM mustard. The three months testing period is scientifically inadequate and disregards all rules of scientific bio-safety assessment.
• The GM mustard is only bred to absorb more and more of herbicide, which in this case is glufosinate. It will increase corporate sales of herbicide and spread its vicious poisons all over India.
• There are hundreds of varieties of indigenous vegetables in India because of its rich and diverse Indian tradition, this is particularly true for brinjal, but also to a lesser extent for mustard. Each time with the GM debate, agro-business and biotech industry puts huge pressure on the Indian government to destroy food culture and to replace many old nutritious-rich foods with by patented toxic monocultures. Today Indian mustard, is under the same attack, by threatening India with the GM Mustard, corporations are destroying the centre of diversity of mustard for the world. By losing native varieties of mustard, India will not only lose the taste of its food culture but also put at risk the health of 1.5 billion Indians.

Details of GM Mustard and Its Uses:

• Mustard is not only a digestive plant, but was one of the first foods eaten by humans. Proto-Historians have found mustard in Paleolithic sites. It is a widely used detoxifying plant since the middle ages in Europe, Asia, and in India for instance in numerous ayurvedic medicines. Not only are the seeds important but the leaves are good and edible in many Indian food preparations.
• Herbicides and pesticides in general interfere drastically in the body. They have in them petroleum sand, because they are made with it; which then penetrate our cells to prevent them and also surround them, disrupting communications between cells and health.
• Farmers have been using mustard to detoxify their soils and also to fix nitrogen when used as a green fertilizer. But far from that, if glufosinate pesticides is sprayed on these soils, it will increase the toxicity in the soils and water table. All drinking water will also get contaminated by this pesticide.

Plant Aromas:

• We must also understand that the aromas of plants have not been invented only for our tongues and flavour.
• It is with the help aromas plants attract insects, which then facilitate pollination and sexual reproduction in plants. Simultaneously the aromas help cells breathe as they detoxify, and consequently they have a therapeutic effect on the beings, animal or human, that consume them.
• Plant aromas in food, in general, stimulate papillas and saliva which play a vital role in human digestions as they, by reflex, increase the production of gastric and hepatic juices.
• In our laboratory experiments, organic plant aromas have helped to eliminate pollutants from the body, which are plenty. This is crucial to bringing down chronic diseases which almost every family is suffering.
• The link between the poisons in our food and disease is a direct one and forged by industries that are pumping chemicals into our food systems.