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Loading...What Monsanto and Pepsi Don’t Want You to Know About Your Food
NOTE: This is a guest blog post from Stacy Malkan, media director for the Yes on 37 California Right to Know Campaign.
Welcome to election season, when big corporations spare no expense trying to get us to vote against our own self interest. Here in California, we’re bracing for a bomb of television commercials designed to convince us that labeling food is scary, weird and expensive.
In just the past week, a parade of corporations have donated nearly $25 million — before Labor Day is even upon us — to try to kill Proposition 37, a historic ballot initiative that would require labeling of genetically engineered foods.
New contributions freshly posted on the Secretary of State website reveal the companies that are forking over huge contributions to, and staking their brand names behind, a front group called “The Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labeling Scheme,” which claims that Proposition 37 would “ban the sale of groceries” — even though it wouldn’t.
Proposition 37 would require companies to add a few words to existing labels to inform consumers if their food has been genetically engineered. Who could be against giving us accurate information about what’s in our food?
The Pesticide Peddlers: Monsanto leads the pack with $4.2 million and a newly posted honor at the bottom of the opposition website that says, “Major funding by Monsanto…”
Joining Monsanto are the rest of the “Big Six” chemical companies — DuPont, BASF, Bayer, Dow and Syngenta — who have poured a combined $13.5 million into fighting Proposition 37. Why?
These are the guys who make the pesticides and also sell or push the seeds that are genetically engineered to withstand the pesticides, thereby allowing them to … sell more pesticides. You get the picture.
“Rather than reducing the need for hazardous pesticides, herbicide-resistant seeds have driven a massive increase in herbicide use that has been linked to significant environmental and public health concerns,” explains Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network, in a statement supporting Proposition 37.
“It’s clear that genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant seeds are the growth engines of the pesticide industry’s sales and marketing strategy. These seeds are part of a technology package explicitly designed to facilitate increased, indiscriminate herbicide use and pump up chemical sales,” Dr. Ishii-Eiteman said.
According to a 2009 report by Chuck Benbrook, PhD, chief scientist at the Organic Center, farmers applied 318 million more pounds of pesticides over the first 13 years of commercial GE crop production (1996-2008), as a direct result of planting genetically engineered seeds. “GE crops are pushing pesticide use upward at a rapidly accelerating pace,” Dr. Benbrook wrote in the report.
Read more: CA Right to Know, GE foods, genetic engineering, genetically engineered, labeling, Right to Know, Stacy Malkan
Photo: thinkstockphotos.com
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202 comments
+ add your ownLots of large corporations use GMOs. It's best to find out which ones are using them and boycott them all. Thanks Tammy A. for the list.
Yes on Prop 37. I have a right to know what's in a product and the right to decide whether I still want to eat it or not. Either way, I'll be voting with my wallet. Don't want to have full disclosure on the label? Well, I don't want to buy it then.
I want my food explicitely labeled.
I like residing in the state that almost always sets the precedence for the rest of the country(no smoking in hospitals, restaurants and animal rights). I will definitely be voting for prop 37.
Thank you for the interesting post.
If you mess with the original the price can be enormous. There is enough disease without adding to the mix. Organic is best for those who can afford it and GM foods are something I definitely want to avoid - they need to be labelled.
My husband and I are making the switch to eating only non gmo foods. In Canada, if it is certified organic, it has no gmo's. Also, greenpeace has a downloadable pdf file on companies or brands that produce gmo free food. It won't be easy, but enough is enough for us.
Are you friggin' kidding me? This sucks, I eat organic and I am being fooled, CRAP!
Visit the Alliance for Natural Health site for more info about the Great Organic Decievers and to sign petitions insupport of labeling GMO's
http://www.anh-usa.org/the-great-organic-deceivers/
Suggest to also Boycott:
•Santa Cruz Organic
•Sierra Mist Natural
•Silk
Instead, buy the following brands that have donated in support of Label GMO:
•Amy’s
•Baby’s Only Organic
•Dr. Bronner’s
•Eden
•Lundberg
•Nature’s Path Organic
•Nutiva
•Organic Valley
•Straus Organic
•Uncle Matt’s
From the Allaince for Natural Health:
The Great Organic Decievers
Which organic brands really believe in organic—and which are working behind the scenes to betray natural health consumers? It’s time for a boycott.
Many of the conglomerate companies that produce so-called natural foods—and even some labeled “organic”—are allied with the biotech industry fighting by any means to defeat “Label GMO,” a.k.a. Prop 37, the California Right to Know 2012 Ballot Initiative. Why are they doing such a thing? Because they sell more food that has GMO ingredients than organic food, and don’t want consumers to have a choice about the GMO. They especially don’t want consumers to know what is actually in their so-called “natural” products.Money talks. Tell the parent companies of these brands of “natural” and organic foods—companies that oppose your right to know what’s in your food—that if they want your business, they can’t sell out organic values. We join with other friends in calling for a global boycott.
We would suggest boycotting the following brands:
•Alexia Foods
•Bear Naked
•Cascadian Farm Organics
•French Meadow Organic Bakery
•Gardenburger
•Honest Tea
•Horizon Organic
•Izze Sparkling Juice
•Kashi
•Larabar
•Lightlife
•MorningStar Farms
•Muir Glen Organics
•Naked Juice
•Odwalla
•R.W. Knu
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