GMO Labeling Has Its Day In Court

29 October 2013

Story at-a-glance

• On November 5, Washington State will cast their votes for the people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act." Your support is urgently needed
• Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed suit against the GMA in Thurston County Superior Court on behalf of the State of Washington, alleging the association violated the state’s campaign disclosure laws
• Ferguson alleges the GMA illegally collected and spent more than $7 million on the No On Initiative 522 campaign, while hiding the identity of its contributors in order to shield them from consumer backlash
• The lawsuit forced GMA to establish a political committee, aptly named Grocery Manufacturers Association Against I-522. A list of the financial donors has now been disclosed to the Public Disclosure Commission
• Biotech are now trying to find a way to label that will still permit them to exist and make a profit. Pushing for federal labeling is one part of the plan to dilute the value of the label

By Dr. Mercola

We’re now only DAYS away from the next big GMO-labeling vote in the United States; this time in Washington State, where citizens will cast their votes for the people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act," on November 5.  

As in last year’s California Proposition 37 GMO labeling campaign, the opposition from industry is fierce, with millions of dollars being poured into the anti-labeling campaign.  

This year, they’ve really outdone themselves, being caught in a money laundering scheme designed to protect the identity of food companies contributing money to defeat Initiative 522. As reported by SeattlePi.com:¹

“The food industrial giants gave individually in California last year, contributing to a $46 million war chest that narrowly turned back the labeling measure.

In planning the anti-522 campaign, however, Grocery Manufacturers Association CEO Pamela Bailey recommended creation of a fund — which became the Defense of Brand Strategic Account — in part to “better shield individual companies from attack.” Donations would be laundered through the account.”

Most of the funding for the anti-labeling campaign in Washington State was donated by the Grocery Manufacturers Association of America (GMA). The big food- and beverage companies that spent millions on last year’s No on Prop 37 campaign, however, remained curiously absent from any list of donors throughout most of this year’s No on Initiative 522’s campaign.

Attorney General Files Suit Against Grocery Manufacturers Association 

On October 16, Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit² against the GMA in Thurston County Superior Court on behalf of the State of Washington, alleging the association had violated the state’s campaign disclosure laws. According to the press release:³

“Ferguson alleges the GMA illegally collected and spent more than $7 million while shielding the identity of its contributors. The funds were spent to express opposition to Initiative 522...

“When Washington state voters overwhelming approved Initiative 276 in 1972, they voiced their desire for transparency and openness in elections,” Ferguson said. “Truly fair elections demand all sides follow the rules by disclosing who their donors are and how much they are spending to advocate their views.”

... The AGO [Attorney general’s office] is preparing to seek a temporary restraining order asking the court to order the GMA to immediately comply with state disclosure laws. The AGO is also requesting civil penalties and costs of investigation and trial, including reasonable attorney’s fees, injunctive relief and any other relief the court deems appropriate.”

According to the filed complaint, the GMA began plotting and planning how to best defeat Initiative 522 back in December of 2012, placing particular emphasis on the establishment of a separate GMA fund to “combat current threats and better shield individual companies from attack.”  

You can find a summarized timeline of the development of the anti-labeling campaign in Joel Connelly’s article on SeattlePi.com.⁴ For example, in it he reveals that:

“The Grocery Manufacturers Association names its fund the “Defense of Brand Strategic Account” and determines that association members would be assessed, separate from their normal association dues. The account would be segregated...”

The Attorney General has requested the Superior Court impose the following penalties on the GMA, which, according to Ferguson, are meant to serve as deterrents in future state elections as well:

• Assess a penalty for failing to comply with state campaign finance laws in a “timely properly” manner
• Pay for the costs of the investigation, plus the state’s attorney fees, and
• If found guilty of intentionally violating state campaign finance laws, be ordered to pay triple the damages

 

Who’s Trying to Block Your Right to Know What’s in Your Food? 

As you may recall, after defeating Prop. 37 in California by a tiny margin, several companies that had contributed to the anti-labeling campaign suffered significant repercussions—from being barraged by critical press and humiliating attacks by angry consumers on social networks like Facebook.

To sweeping boycott campaigns. General Mills, Pepsi Co, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Heinz and Campbell Soups were among last year’s anti-labeling campaign contributors.  

As one parent stated in a comment on Cheerios Facebook page at the time:

"So sorry that the food my kids loved as toddlers is one I can't support anymore. I can't believe that General Mills has the well-being of its customers in mind when it contributes to movement against labeling of GMOs."

Recent polls show that 64-66 percent of likely voters in Washington State strongly support GMO labeling. No wonder many of the same companies wanted to circumvent having to reveal their unchanged stance on this issue. Now they’ve been forced to reveal themselves however, and I suspect the backlash could very well become even greater than before.  

On October 17, in response to the Attorney General’s suit, the GMA established a political committee to oppose the GMO labeling initiative, aptly named Grocery Manufacturers Association Against I-522.⁵ A list of the committee’s donors has also been disclosed to the Public Disclosure Commission. According to a statement issued that same day:

"In the spirit of continuing cooperation and in an effort to provide Washington voters with full transparency about GMA's funding for the "No on 522" campaign, the association has voluntarily decided to establish a Washington State political committee and to file reports with the PDC disclosing the source of all funds used in connection with Washington State elections."

As of this writing, the list of donors and amount of each company’s donation submitted to the Public Disclosure Commission includes the following, which totals up to $7,222,500^{6, 7}. Looks like Pepsi, Coke, and Nestle are the top funders trying to hide their identity. Quite the triangle of authority of junk food producers, and purveyors of chronic disease:

Company	Amount donated	Company	Amount donated
Abbott Nutrition	127,459	Bimbo Bakeries USA	94,693
Campbell Soup Co	265,140	Bruce Foods Corp	3,006
Cargill Inc	98,601	Bumble Bee Foods	36,073
Coca-Cola	1,047,332	Bunge North America	94,993
ConAgra Foods	285,281	Clement Pappas & Co. Inc	21,043
Dean Foods	120,245	Clorox Company	12,024
Bush Brothers & Co	16,233	Flowers Foods	141,288
Del Monte Foods	86,576	Hormel Foods	52,908
General Mills	598,819	J.M. Smucker Co	241,091
Hershey	248,305	Knouse Foods	14,429
Hillshire Brands	97,398	Welch Foods	28,859
Kellogg	221,852	Land O'Lakes	99,803
Moody Dunbar	1,804	McCormick & Co	102,208
Nestle USA	1,052,743	Mondelez Global	144,895
Ocean Spray, Cranberries, Inc	55,313	Pinnacle Foods Group	120,846
PepsiCo	1,620,899	Rich Products Corp	24,049
Sunny Delight Beverages Co	21,043	Shearer's Foods, Inc	25,251

 

Beware: Big Business Will Try to Dilute the GMO Label

Big Biotech is seeing the end of their game now and are scrambling to rescue what they can, by any means possible. Such “backup plans” appear to include carefully selected mouthpieces writing “independent” opinion pieces, ostensibly agreeing that labeling is a good idea, while simultaneously proposing plans that would significantly dilute the value of the label. One way to do this would be to make it ubiquitous, i.e. so prevalent that you encountered it on virtually every single food item in every single store, regardless of whether the food actually contained traces of it or not in the final product. 

This tactic was suggested by one of  Biotech’s primary spokespeople, Mark Lynas, in a recent article.⁸ In it, he states that people are “getting increasingly scared of GMOs precisely because the industry is fighting a rearguard battle not to tell people which foodstuffs contain them,” calling the industry’s fight against labeling “the worst PR strategy ever.” Correctly, he also states that this is “the opposite of advertising – instead of telling people about the benefits of your product and encouraging them to seek it out, you have to smuggle your core products into peoples’ shopping baskets so that they can only buy them either unknowingly or by mistake.” 

This epic fail of a strategy has been incredibly successful up until this point though. Keeping you in the dark about what’s in your food and calling it ‘natural’ has been the number one “sales strategy” of junk foods producers utilizing heavily subsidized ingredients since the inception of genetically engineered food crops. And had educational- and labeling campaigns by concerned citizens, scientists and organic organizations failed, the “worst PR strategy ever” would have been left in force indefinitely.  

The Prop 37 campaign was the first truly effective education campaign in this regard, which is why you cannot look upon it as a failure. It raised an enormous amount of awareness about this issue. Before last year, many Americans had no idea what genetically engineered food was, or that they were eating it daily, or that it might be a component causing their health problems. Now that labeling is reaching the point of inevitability, Big Biotech are trying to find a way to label that will still permit them to exist and make a profit. But how to dilute the label to where people don’t care if a product is labeled or not?

“Consumer right to know, however unjustifiable on scientific grounds, is an argument that – once a critical mass of people are demanding it – it is be political suicide to oppose. However, simply giving in is not an option either,” Lynas writes.

“Having different laws in every state would indeed be a short-cut to prohibition, which is exactly why the labeling activists have chosen it as their strategy. So those of us who want to defend science and who understand the true potential of biotechnology have no option – we have to change the game... And maybe, just maybe, the most powerful weapon the antis have in their arsenal will ultimately turn out to be their Achilles heel.”

 

Industry Will Seek Refuge in Ubiquity 

In his article, Lynas proposes a way forward that would virtually guarantee GMO label ubiquity. Quite simply, you’d be hard-pressed to find an item that didn’t have one, and it would hit you all at once. In short order, you’d be so used to seeing the GMO label, and so overwhelmed by lack of options (or so their reasoning goes) the GMO label wouldn’t even register as an item calling out for a choice to be made.  To accomplish this kind of saturation to the point of complacency, GMO labeling must be:

• Mandatory; industry-wide; and operated at the federal level
• Designed in such a way that there’s no implication of health- or safety issues
• Process-based, so that the label must be used whether the final product contains any residue of GMO or not

According to Lynas, “ubiquity is surely the industry’s safest refuge.” Personally, I believe the industry may be underestimating the depth of the concerns that people have about the safety of genetically engineered foods and the giant chemical companies that make them.  

The FDA battle will be significant, but the existing European standards along with a few state laws will set a bar that will likely need to be matched or result in political disaster for the administration.  I have never supported FDA labeling strategies as a first step as they are too highly influenced by lobbyists, you can bet the agency is receiving pressure from the biotech and junk food industry to set a standard before they lose more ground through state and international laws– an FDA ruling is inevitable. 

Recent history has shown that food companies will relent and change their ingredients once they realize that you, and millions of others, really don’t want GMO’s in your food, and won’t buy it if it contains GMO ingredients. There are alternatives, but biotech companies like Monsanto have been so efficient in their takeover of agriculture, even to the point of buying up seed companies to eliminate competition, that many food manufacturers now have a hard time obtaining non-GMO ingredients. The upshot, of course, is that increased demand for non-GMO ingredients by major food companies will encourage farmers to revert back to conventional, non-GMO crops.  

Yet another tactic that industry could reach for is labeling similar in its requirements as those for other nutrients, like sodium or trans fats. Oftentimes, if a product contains less than a certain amount per serving, it doesn’t have to be disclosed on the label. This is why you oftentimes find products listing ridiculously tiny serving sizes. Many products containing GMOs could slip below the radar this way as well.   

 

Wild Card Could Shift the Status Quo on GMOs 

Unforeseen wild cards could come into play too. The American press has been anything but astute in its reporting on GMO’s. This could quickly change however, should Pierre Omidyar and Glenn Greenwald’s new media organization aimed at providing independent in-depth journalism take off, for example.⁹ At that point, any journalist interested in a career would have to quit regurgitating industry propaganda and start digging around for the real story. In the case of GMO’s, the tipping point for genetically engineered foods would quickly be reached were the real story to hit the masses as part of their daily news feed.  

As Jeffrey Smith explained in a previous interview:

“In January 1999, the biotech industry boldly predicted that within five years 95 percent of all commercial seeds in the world would be genetically modified and patented. They did not anticipate the gag order of a scientist being lifted three weeks later in Europe.

A firestorm of media reported on his results of a GMO-feeding study. Over 700 articles were written within a single month in the UK. In 10 weeks, the tipping point of consumer rejection was achieved in Europe – heralded not by the European Commission banning GMOs, but by Unilever banning GMOs, then Nestlé, and then virtually everyone in Europe because they realized that using genetically modified ingredients had become a marketing liability.”

 

Monsanto Sponsors Food Prize... and Awards it to Itself 

Before I wrap this up, there’s a related story that is too hilarious not to include, in light of these discussions about transparency, honesty and integrity. On October 17, Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, Robert T. Fraley, a scientist with Syngenta, along with a third scientist from private industry, were awarded the World Food Prize¹⁰ at a fancy red carpet event. The prize, totalling $250,000, was awarded for "feeding a growing global population." 

A testament to growing public awareness on these issues, the move was widely ridiculed as a joke taken straight from the parody publication The Onion.  Why? Well, first of all, Monsanto itself donated $5 million to the fund. Syngenta is also a financial backer. Besides such obvious conflicts of interest, Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First¹¹ commented that awarding the World Food Prize to monopolies that profit from hunger is like giving the Nobel Peace prize for going to war—noting, with some irony, that this too has been done in the recent past...

“The World Food Prize has become a corporate celebration of self,” he writes. “Even The New York Times¹² suggested that this award may be a PR attempt to counter the growing global backlash against GMOs. It is also an effort to fibrillate the industry's flat economic performance that has followed the heady days of the 2008-09 food crisis (in which they made record profits while a billion people were pushed into the ranks of the hungry).”

 

Kuai Ousts GMO’s 

While Big Biotech pays their lackeys to pat themselves on the back, yet another area of the world has taken a firm stand against genetically engineered foods. According to the Huffington Post:¹³

“After a marathon hearing, the Kauai County Council passed a hotly debated bill... that could lead to prison time or fines for employees of agricultural companies if they don’t divulge specifics about pesticide use, abide by strict setback rules for spraying chemicals or disclose when they grow genetically engineered crops... The law is set to take effect in nine months — with or without the mayor’s signature, because bills receiving five or more votes are veto-proof.

... Attorneys for the biotech companies said during the hearings that aspects of the bill are “vague and ambiguous” or amount to an “illegal taking” of property. Council members said that they expect biotech companies to file lawsuits in response to the bill's passage. (Small farmers are exempt from the bill’s pesticide provisions.)

Earlier this month, nine local attorneys, including prominent environmental lawyers, released a statement urging council members not to bow to pressure from the biotech companies. "We believe that Bill 2491 is sound, and the mere threat of a lawsuit by industry interests should not prevent the council from taking action they believe is important to their community," the statement read.”

 

Join Us in Your Right to Know by Getting GMOs Labeled!

 

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. In the past few weeks, Connecticut and Maine have passed GMO-labeling bills, and 20 other states have pending legislation to label genetically engineered foods. So, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal and get labeling across the country—something 64 other countries already have.
I hope you will join us in this effort. 

The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act," will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. Please help us win this key GMO labeling battle and continue to build momentum for GMO labeling in other states by making a donation to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).  

 

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn't have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let's not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can.

• No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
• Sign up to learn more about how you can get involved by visiting Yeson522.com!
• For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
• Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

[-] Sources and References

• ¹ SeattlePi.com October 18, 2013
• ² State of Washington Thurston County Superior Court, Complaint Filed October 16, 2013 (PDF)
• ³ Attorney General Press Release, October 16, 2013
• ⁴ SeattlePi.com October 17, 2013
• ⁵ Heraldnet.com October 17, 2013
• ⁶ Cornucopia Institute October 19, 2013
• ⁷ SeattlePi.com October 18, 2013
• ⁸ MarkLynas.org October 15, 2013
• ⁹ The Guardian October 16, 2013
• ¹⁰ WorldFoodPrice.org
• ¹¹ Foodfirst.org
• ¹² New York Times June 19, 2013
• ¹³ Huffington Post October 16, 2013

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/29/gmo-labeling-campaign.aspx

...Mission to Change the Food Industry ...

“Food Babe” – A Woman on a Mission to Change the Food Industry, and How You Can Too

July 07, 2013

            
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Click Here to Watch the Full Interview!

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By Dr. Mercola 

Vani Hari, better known as “Food Babe,” is a blogger and food activist in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her blog, FoodBabe.com¹, and her “leading by example” style of activism is an inspiration to a growing number of people not just in the US but around the world. 

One of her most celebrated achievements is her participation in the Democratic National Convention, in which she drew massive media attention by standing up with a makeshift “Label GMOs” sign in the front row, during Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack’s speech. 

This interview was taped a week after the March Against Monsanto where I participated in one of the local marches and had a chance to witness first-hand people working in the activist movement. It really helped me understand that there’s a widespread opportunity for virtually anyone to participate, get inspired, and to really make a difference.  

Vani’s personal story is a perfect example of just how influential a single person can be, not just in educating others, but also in enticing major food chains to do the right thing and make positive changes.

The Painful ‘Birth’ of a Food Activist

Perhaps she was destined for the role of the activist, as her name actually means “voice” in Hindi. Indeed, a nationally ranked debater during her school years, Vani does not shy away from voicing her beliefs and sharing her ideals, and there’s little doubt the world is becoming better for it.

“Shortly after college, realizing that debate wasn’t really going to get me a job, I ended up switching my major to computer science and did what everybody else did. I entered the rat race,” she says.

“I got picked up by one of the top consulting firms in the country... managing large-scale projects, mergers, acquisitions, and integration work. I was travelling Sunday through Thursday, and quickly, at the age of 22 to 23 years old, I became really sick...

It was that life-changing moment that I realized, ‘Wait a minute, I gained 25 to 30 pounds within a three-month period, and then I had appendicitis?’ There’s something seriously wrong with what I’ve been doing and what I’ve been eating. What’s in the food, and what caused my body to be so out of whack?

Everyone says appendicitis is this random occurrence... But I don’t think it’s random, because it’s definitely related to your digestive system. And I was overloading my digestive system with tons of toxins.”

So, when she was 22, Vani made the decision to make her health her number one priority, vowing not to let work get in the way. By doing her own homework, she quickly realized that, first of all, not all calories are created equal—a concept clearly described by Dr. Robert Lustig, who states that fructose is "isocaloric but not isometabolic."  

This means you can have the same amount of calories from fructose or glucose, fructose and protein, or fructose and fat, but the metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the identical calorie count. This is largely because different nutrients provoke different hormonal responses, and those hormonal responses determine, among other things, how much fat you accumulate.  

She also realized that not only are the vast majority of American food products loaded with toxic ingredients, from pesticides like glyphosate to artificial additives banned in many other countries, the food she was eating also fell short in terms of healthful nutrients—especially healthy fats like saturated fat.

“I’d been duped by the food industry,” she says. “I thought that eating a six-gram fat or less; 250-calorie or less Subway sandwich was healthy for me. I didn’t realize that the nine-grain bread had over 50 ingredients, with one ingredient that’s banned in Singapore. If you get caught using it, you get fined 450,000 dollars. I didn’t know that information. I ate those things because of the calories.

I thought, ‘Oh, look at all these vegetables inside.’ But I didn’t realize that the jalapenos have been dipped in petroleum-based dyes: Yellow #5 and Yellow #6. I didn’t realize that all of these buildups of chemicals in my body were causing these issues. And it wasn’t just appendicitis. I had asthma and allergies growing up. I was on three or four asthma medications... I had to see the doctor on a very frequent basis, even put on steroids to control my asthma. Now I have zero asthma. I’m on zero medications right now.”

 

The Power of One 

Her corporate work, which involved loads of travel, forced her to perfect the art of eating organically while on the road—a feat that can be quite challenging. Her solution was to travel with a cooler stocked with her own food, and looking for organic food sources in the various cities she traveled to regularly. Spurred on by friends and coworkers who wanted to learn more, she started blogging about her discoveries in 2011. The following story is a potent example of just how influential a blogger can be:

“One day, I saw this frozen yogurt company at the mall, and their sign said, ‘Organic tastes better.’ I thought, ‘Oh, organic frozen yogurt at the mall. This is fabulous!’ I went in and asked for the ingredients, and they couldn’t give them to me. I went through my same investigative research that I developed in high school and tried to find out exactly what was in the ingredients.

I found out that they were using a little bit of organic milk, but then they were adding a slew of other chemicals, including trans fat and Blue #1 and Blue #2 to color my favorite flavor that I thought was organic... I started writing about that. It went viral. This was a local so-called organic yogurt company [with] about 30 or 40 stores. The CEO wrote me a letter, and they took down the signs. I said right then, ‘Wait a minute, hold on. I have this power as a blogger. I have this power as an activist to change the food system. If I can get a yogurt company to take down a sign, what else can I do?’"

This was the beginning of a series called “Food Babe Investigates,” where she digs deeply into the products sold by major food companies, such as Starbucks, Subway, and Chipotle. The latter resulted in another “one-woman victory” for Vani. Chipotle did not have a list of ingredients on their menus or website, and the corporate headquarters refused to supply her with one when she contacted them directly².

“I said, ‘But your label says ‘Food with Integrity.’ How am I going to know that it’s food with integrity if I can’t know the ingredients and I can’t read them for myself?'” she says.

Shortly after her article appeared on her blog, Chipotle called her. The chain recently made the decision to not only release the lists of ingredients, but also started labeling genetically engineered (GE) ingredients for full transparency. They’ve also swapped out some of the GE ingredients, such as soybean oil, replacing it with rice bran oil.

 

Food Babe Takes on Kraft 

These successes inspired her to take on Kraft, one of the biggest food corporations in America. Kraft, like many other companies, uses toxic ingredients in the products made for the US market, while formulating the exact same products differently for other countries. It’s quite eye-opening to compare the labels of the same food sold in the US compared to the exact same food sold in, say, the UK.

“For example, McDonalds French fries here in the United States are made with genetically engineered ingredients, trans fat oils that clog the heart (people say you shouldn’t even have 40 calories of that a day and that it increases your risk of heart disease by 23 percent), and they have this ingredient that is the key ingredient in Silly Putty to prevent the foaming of the oil.

In the UK, they have the exact same French fry. It’s made with basic ingredients: sunflower oil, potatoes, salt (actually, they add the salt after they cook it, so you control the salt), and a little dextrose, which is sugar. Completely different ingredient list, the same exact product. The same goes for Betty Crocker cake mix,” she says.

Clearly, food companies have the capacity to simply switch over to selling the same formulations in the US as they do in other countries. But they consciously choose, depending on the market, what is the most economical and profitable approach to use. In this case, Americans get the synthetic additives because it’s cheaper to make and we don’t demand “the good stuff.” Many other countries also seem to have more health conscious regulators who actually have a modicum of concern for their citizens’ welfare.

“Exactly. I found out that they did this for Kraft macaroni and cheese,” she says. “They actually took out two petroleum-based dyes [from the European version] because they didn’t want to put a label on their product that says, “May cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children.

The European version of Kraft macaroni and cheese has paprika and beta-carotene, but the one here [in the US] has Yellow #5 and Yellow #6. Attention deficit disorder, autism, and all of these things linked to hyperactivity disorder have increased dramatically in the United States. Nobody’s really looking at the chemicals, and kids everywhere are eating this Mac & Cheese. It’s really not fair that Kraft figured out that this ingredient was causing harm—because they found out when the Europeans told them: “You’re going to have to put this label on there, or you’re going to have to reformulate it.” They reformulated it, so it’s not like we’re asking them to reinvent the wheel.”

 

Why Won’t Kraft Give American Kids a Safer Mac & Cheese? 

To address the issue and raise awareness, Vani started a Change.org petition³ asking Kraft to remove artificial dyes from American Mac & Cheese. The petition went viral, collecting more than 200,000 signatures within the first couple of days. A month later, she hand-delivered about 270,000 signatures to Kraft’s Chicago headquarters.  Yet to this day, Kraft has not responded to the petition that has gathered 336,000 signatures as of this writing, and the company has not in any way indicated that it’s considering changing their formulation to protect American children from the well-known harms of these ingredients... Instead, Kraft responded by stating that:

“We carefully follow the laws and regulations in the countries where our products are sold. So in the US, we only use colors that are approved and deemed safe for food use by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Again, Kraft clearly knows the ingredients in question have been linked to adverse effects on activity and attention in children because regulators in Europe have informed them of this. The moral thing would be to acknowledge the discrepancy and apply the precautionary principle. Just because the FDA says it’s okay doesn’t mean they have to use those ingredients!  

Still, there is hope. By inspiring people to collectively act together, our voices can be heard, because we clearly outnumber the people running these food companies. The challenge is that we’re not effectively organized to let them know our views and understand the intention of those views. Yet this is the transformative power that we have, and Vani is an excellent example of how we can make a difference.

 

Americans are Denied Fundamental Right to Make Informed Food Choices 

As I’ve stated on many occasions, over 90 percent of processed foods sold in the US contain genetically engineered (GE) corn and soy. These two ingredients are so pervasive they’re in foods you’d never expect, including baby food and condiments of every sort.

“They can actually mimic other real food ingredients using corn and soy,” Vani says. “The majority of the food that I’d been eating was either GE corn or soy. No wonder my entire body was acidic, not alkaline, and was completely overrun with the lack of nutrition, because I was getting my nutrition from one or two ingredients. I wasn’t getting my nutrition from kale, superfoods, and good sources of nutrition.”

And then I found out that not only is it in the 90 percent of the processed foods, it’s in 90 percent of the restaurants. It’s in almost all foods in America, but not in other countries. They require a label in other countries. Over 65 countries right now require some type of regulation [on GMOs]. And the United States does not. Our fundamental rights are being denied right now as Americans.”

Indeed, Monsanto has repeatedly demonstrated its cleverness, sophistication, and overwhelmingly successful lobbying efforts, to prevent GMO labeling in the US and to keep Americans in the dark about what we’re eating. Monsanto now controls virtually every single federal regulatory agency that has governance over their ability to do their business. They’ve effectively circumvented all the possibilities of regulating them through the federal process.  

That’s why we’re so excited that last year’s ballot initiative in California was able to act as such a tremendous springboard to catapult Americans into greater awareness. We’re now seeing this explosion of states taking local measures to counteract the willful ineptitude and corruption within our federal agencies. So although it looked like we lost, and Monsanto undoubtedly uncorked quite a few bottles of champagne when Prop 37 failed, I believe we actually won the war despite losing that battle. Prop 37 catalyzed a tremendous amount of interest and activism that has since inspired a whole network of grassroots action.

“I think voting with your dollars is such a powerful movement,” Vani says. “I love seeing people starting to boycott Kraft in general, because they haven’t listened to over 336,000 people on our petition [at the time of this writing].”

 

How Vani Made Headlines at 2012 Democratic National Convention  

Vani became a delegate for North Carolina at the 2012 Democratic National Convention on the platform of genetically engineered foods. She’d previously helped get President Obama elected in 2008, and as you may recall, in 2007 Obama promised to label genetically engineered foods should he get into the White House.  

Vani was outraged to realize that not one single activist group was represented at the Democratic National Convention. So, just as Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture and staunch Monsanto proponent, was about to speak, she made a makeshift sign out of her program leaflet by writing on it with her lipstick. “LABEL GMO’S” and then she stood up, in the front row, holding her sign high as Vilsack took to the podium.

“Within 20 seconds cameras besieged me,” she says. “I mean, completely took the focus off of his speech and completely besieged me. I was on C-SPAN, and people were writing on my Facebook page. ‘Oh, my God! Food Babe’s protesting at the Democratic National Convention.’ It was crazy.

My whole delegation behind me who were elected from other districts and who hadn’t heard my spiel during my district run were all confused. They’re like, ‘What is she doing? She’s causing a ruckus here?...' It wasn’t until all of that commotion was of over that I realized the impact of what I did that day: I educated my entire delegation... People started reading about this labeling issue because the reporters were capturing it and it was being broadcasted across the nation. .... I got a personal security guard for the rest of the convention dedicated to me. He gave me a really hard time for the rest of the convention and I was banished to the back.”

The theme of last year’s Democratic Convention was “Moving Forward.” But how can we move forward as a country when our farm policy and our food policy are so backward and American citizens are getting increasingly ill from the food we eat, the water we drink, and pollutants in our immediate environment?

“The bottom line is that food is medicine. If our food is sick, we’re going to be sick,” she says.

 

What Can YOU Do to Create Change?

Here are a few of Vani’s tips to start becoming a food activist, starting with leading by example. Truly, one of the most powerful ways to inspire others to change is to demonstrate your beliefs by walking the talk and being the healthiest, happiest, most empowered version of yourself that you can be. This way, when people ask how you lost all that weight, or how you got that fabulous complexion, or how you’re able to keep your energy levels up all day without two pots of coffee, you can simply share what you know rather than preach to those who might not be open to hearing what you have to say.

“It’s really important for all of us – the people who are reading the blogs, participating, and caring about what they put in their food – to tell their friends and family about it. Do it from a loving, giving standpoint, not from a critical or judgmental standpoint,” Vani says

Other tips for cleaning up your own diet and reaching out to others to share what you’ve learned include:

• Figure out healthy replacement foods. “I think that’s one of the questions I get on the blog the most: ‘Food Babe, you’re taking away all my food. If I can’t eat all this stuff, what can I eat instead?'” she says. Rest assured, while it may not be immediately obvious for people who have grown up relying on ready-made, pre-packaged foods and snacks, you can replace those foods with something equally satisfying that will support, rather than wreck, your health.
• Swap out your local grocer. Swapping out your local grocery store for a natural health food store is one way that can help you find better replacement foods, since many of health food stores like Whole Foods and Earth Fare do not allow certain ingredients to begin with. Also, start shopping at the farmer’s market, and eliminate processed foods from your diet. 
• Shop online. “That has been one of the most fascinating things to me: if I can’t find an ingredient in my town, I can usually get in on the Internet,” she says
• When eating out, ask your server about ingredients, such as: “Are you using any corn or soybean oil in these products that you’re feeding me today? My salad dressing, does it have soybean or corn oil?” You can open the conversation up in a positive way by asking questions about the foods you’re about to order at a time when everyone’s looking at ingredients anyway.
• Throw organic dinner parties. “Having people come over to your house and trying organic food has really helped inspire my friends to realize that you can eat really healthy and have organic food that tastes great,” Vani says. It’s also a great way to, again, lead by example and show how to cook without processed foods and questionable ingredients.

‘Pay the Farmer, or Pay the Hospital’  

Vani brings up a point that I too have shared on countless occasions, which is that you can either spend your money on healthy foods now, or you can spend it on medical bills down the road. According to Vani:

“There’s this great young individual Birke Baehr, a 14-year-old genius who wants to be a farmer. He’s spreading his message. He came up with that. He says, “You can either pay the farmer, or you can pay the hospital.

I think people, when they start to eliminate processed foods, eliminate GMOs, buy organic food, eliminate the toxins and the chemicals in their food, and start feeling well... the people around them are going to say, ‘I want some of that. I want to feel like that person. Wow, look at her. Look at all the energy. And look what she’s giving back to the world.’ There is no way I would be able to have become a consultant, live that lifestyle, and started a blog, had I not been taking care of myself 100 percent. There’s no way I would have been able to give back to society that way. I wouldn’t be able to do it.

I think feeling good should be everyone’s kind of number one priority in life. What’s the point of living life, traveling the world, and doing things that you want to do, if you can’t feel good?

As someone who has spent the greater portion of my adult life making my health a priority in my life, I cannot think of anything that could possibly compete with feeling good and aging well. What’s your take?

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food 

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act," will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients.  

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn't have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let's not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can.

• No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
• Sign up to learn more about how you can get involved by visiting Yeson522.com!
• For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
• Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

[-] Sources and References

• ¹ Foodbabe.com
• ² 100daysofrealfood.com February 11, 2013
• ³ Change.org Kraft Petition

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/07/van-hari-food-babe.aspx? 

The Invisible Poison You'll Probably Eat Today

The Invisible Poison You'll Probably Eat Today - Linked to Cancer and Alzheimer's   
You're told it's as "safe as aspirin," yet a new report suggests it is perhaps the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies - find out how to avoid it...

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide May Be Most Important Factor in Development of Autism and Other Chronic Disease

June 09, 2013       
         

Story at-a-glance

• Two key problems caused by glyphosate in the diet are nutritional deficiencies, especially minerals, and systemic toxicity
• Glyphosate is possibly "the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies,” according to researchers
• Your gut bacteria are a key component of glyphosate’s mechanism of harm, as microbes have the pathway used by glyphosate to kill weeds
• Glyphosate causes extreme disruption of microbes’ functions and lifecycles. What’s worse, glyphosate preferentially affects beneficial bacteria, allowing pathogens to overgrow
• Two key problems in autism unrelated to the brain yet clearly associated with the condition are both linked with glyphosate exposure: gut dysbiosis, and disrupted sulfur metabolism/impaired sulfate transport

            

Visit the Mercola Video Library

 

By Dr. Mercola

In recent weeks, we’ve learned some very disturbing truths about glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup, which is generously doused on genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready crops. 

GE crops are typically far more contaminated with glyphosate than conventional crops, courtesy of the fact that they’re engineered to withstand extremely high levels of Roundup without perishing along with the weed. 

A new peer-reviewed report authored by Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant, and a long time contributor to the Mercola.com Vital Votes Forum, and  Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reveals how glyphosate wrecks human health. 

In the interview above, Dr. Seneff summarizes the two key problems caused by glyphosate in the diet:

• Nutritional deficiencies
• Systemic toxicity

Their findings make the need for labelling all the more urgent, and the advice to buy certified organic all the more valid.

The Horrific Truth about Roundup

In 2009, a French court found Monsanto guilty of lying; falsely advertising its Roundup herbicide as "biodegradable," "environmentally friendly" and claiming it "left the soil clean."  

Mounting evidence now tells us just how false such statements are. I don’t believe that Monsanto is one of the most evil companies on the planet for nothing. The company has done absolutely nothing to improve their worldwide influence on human and environmental health.  

In the video above, Jeffrey Smith, author of the bestseller Seeds of Deception, says Monsanto, during some reflective moment, must have asked “What would Darth Vader do?” Because what they’ve come up with is a way of pretending that they’re beneficial and then insinuating themselves into the food and agriculture industry, and now it turns out that what they have is very, very dangerous. 

Indeed, according to Dr. Seneff, glyphosate is possibly "the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies,” including but not limited to: 

Autism	Gastrointestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, chronic diarrhea, colitis and Crohn's disease	Obesity
Allergies	Cardiovascular disease	Depression
Cancer	Infertility	Alzheimer’s disease
Parkinson’s disease	Multiple sclerosis	ALS, and more

How Glyphosate Worsens Modern Diseases

While Monsanto insists that Roundup is as safe to humans as aspirin, Seneff and Samsel’s research tells a different story altogether. Their report, published in the journal Entropy¹, argues that glyphosate residues, found in most commonly consumed foods in the Western diet courtesy of GE sugar, corn, soy and wheat, “enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease.” 

Interestingly, your gut bacteria are a key component of glyphosate’s mechanism of harm. 

Monsanto has steadfastly claimed that Roundup is harmless to animals and humans because the mechanism of action it uses (which allows it to kill weeds), called the shikimate pathway, is absent in all animals. However, the shikimate pathway IS present in bacteria, and that’s the key to understanding how it causes such widespread systemic harm in both humans and animals.  

The bacteria in your body outnumber your cells by 10 to 1. For every cell in your body, you have 10 microbes of various kinds, and all of them have the shikimate pathway, so they will all respond to the presence of glyphosate!  

Glyphosate causes extreme disruption of the microbe’s function and lifecycle. What’s worse, glyphosate preferentially affects beneficial bacteria, allowing pathogens to overgrow and take over. At that point, your body also has to contend with the toxins produced by the pathogens. Once the chronic inflammation sets in, you’re well on your way toward chronic and potentially debilitating disease. In the interview above, Dr. Seneff reviews a variety of chronic diseases, explaining how glyphosate contributes to each condition. So to learn more, I urge you to listen to it in its entirety. It’s quite eye-opening.

The Overlooked Component of Toxicity

The research reveals that glyphosate inhibits cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, a large and diverse group of enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of organic substances. This, the authors state, is “an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals.” One of the functions of CYP enzymes is to detoxify xenobiotics—chemical compounds found in a living organism that are not normally produced or consumed by the organism in question. By limiting the ability of these enzymes to detoxify foreign chemical compounds, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of chemicals and environmental toxins you may be exposed to.  

But that’s not all. Dr. Stephanie Seneff has been conducting research at MIT for over three decades. She also has an undergraduate degree in biology from MIT and a minor in food and nutrition, and I have previously interviewed her about her groundbreaking insights into the critical importance of sulfur in human health. Not surprisingly, this latest research also touches on sulfur, and how it is affected by glyphosate from food.

“[W]e show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport,” the authors write.  

“Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.  ... [T]he recent alarming increase in all of these health issues can be traced back to a combination of gut dysbiosis, impaired sulfate transport, and suppression of the activity of the various members of the cytochrome P450 (CYP) family of enzymes.”

The Roundup-Autism Connection

For the past 30 years, Dr. Seneff has been passionate about teasing out potential causes of autism, after seeing what it was like for a close friend whose son was diagnosed. She points out the clear correlations between increased glyphosate use over recent years (the result of genetically engineered crops causing weed resistance, necessitating ever-larger amounts to be used) and skyrocketing autism rates.  

The rate of autism has risen so quickly, there can be no doubt that it has an environmental cause. Our genes simply cannot mutate fast enough to account for the rapid rise we’re now seeing. The latest statistics released by the CDC on March 20 show that 1 in 50 children in the US now fall within the autism spectrum^2,3, with a 5:1 boy to girl ratio. Just last year the CDC reported a rate of 1 in 88, which represented a 23 percent increase since 2010, and 78 percent since 2007. Meanwhile, I remember when the incidence of autism in the US was only 1 in 100,000—just short of 30 years ago! 

Dr. Seneff identified two key problems in autism that are unrelated to the brain yet clearly associated with the condition—both of which are linked with glyphosate exposure (starting at 10 minutes into the interview, she gives an in-depth explanation of how glyphosate causes the many symptoms associated with autism):

1. Gut dysbiosis (imbalances in gut bacteria, inflammation, leaky gut, food allergies such as gluten intolerance)
2. Disrupted sulfur metabolism / sulfur and sulfate deficiency

Interestingly, certain microbes in your body actually break down glyphosate, which is a good thing. However, a byproduct of this action is ammonia, and children with autism tend to have significantly higher levels of ammonia in their blood than the general population. Ditto for those with Alzheimer’s disease. In your brain, ammonia causes encephalitis, i.e. brain inflammation.  

Another devastating agent you really do not want in your body is formaldehyde, which a recent nutritional analysis discovered is present in genetically engineered corn at a level that is 200 times the amount that animal studies have determined to be toxic to animals. Formaldehyde destroys DNA and can cause cancer. 

Other research backing up the Roundup-autism link is that from former US Navy staff scientist Dr. Nancy Swanson. She has a Ph.D. in physics, holds five US patents and has authored more than 30 scientific papers and two books on women in science. Ten years ago, she became seriously ill, and in her journey to regain her health she turned to organic foods. Not surprisingly (for those in the know) her symptoms dramatically improved. This prompted her to start investigating genetically engineered foods.  

She has meticulously collected statistics on glyphosate usage and various diseases and conditions, including autism. A more perfect match-up between the rise in glyphosate usage and incidence of autism is hard to imagine... To access her published articles and reports, please visit Sustainable Pulse⁴, a European website dedicated to exposing the hazards of genetically engineered foods.  

When Food Is Poison...

What the biotech industry, spearheaded by Monsanto, has managed to do is turn food into poison... quite literally, and in more ways than one. Here, we’re just talking about the effects of Roundup. There are plenty of indications that the genetic alteration of a crop itself can pose significant health concerns. So with the vast majority of GE crops, you have no less than two potentially hazardous factors to contend with, glyphosate toxicity being just one part of the equation. 

As discussed above, glyphosate has a number of devastating biological effects. So much so that it may very well be one of the most important factors in the development of a wide variety of modern diseases and conditions, including autism. In summary, these detrimental effects include: 

Nutritional deficiencies, as glyphosate immobilizes certain nutrients and alters the nutritional composition of the treated crop	Disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids (these are essential amino acids not produced in your body that must be supplied via your diet)
Increased toxin exposure (this includes high levels of glyphosate and formaldehyde in the food itself)	Impairment of sulfate transport and sulfur metabolism; sulfate deficiency
Systemic toxicity—a side effect of extreme disruption of microbial function throughout your body; beneficial microbes in particular, allowing for overgrowth of pathogens	Gut dysbiosis (imbalances in gut bacteria, inflammation, leaky gut, food allergies such as gluten intolerance)
Enhancement of damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and environmental toxins as a result of glyphosate shutting down the function of detoxifying enzymes	Creation of ammonia (a byproduct created when certain microbes break down glyphosate), which can lead to brain inflammation associated with autism and Alzheimer’s disease

How to Protect Yourself and Your Family from This Systemic Poison

It's important to understand that the glyphosate sprayed on conventional and genetically engineered crops actually becomes systemic throughout the plant, so it cannot be washed off. It's inside the plant. For example, genetically engineered corn has been found to contain 13 ppm of glyphosate, compared to zero in non-GMO corn. At 13 ppm, GMO corn contains more than 18 times the “safe” level of glyphosate set by the EPA. Organ damage in animals has occurred at levels as low as 0.1 ppm. If that’s not reason enough to become a label reader to avoid anything with corn in it, such as corn oil or high fructose corn syrup, I don’t know what is. 

You’d also be wise to stop using Roundup around your home, where children and pets can come into contact with it simply by walking across the area.  

Until the US requires genetically engineered (GE) foods to be labeled, the only way you can avoid GE ingredients is to make whole, fresh organic foods the bulk of your diet, and to only buy 100% USDA certified organic processed foods. Meats need to be grass-fed or pastured to make sure the animals were not fed GE corn or soy feed. 

Last but not least, do not confuse the “natural” label with organic standards.  

The natural label is not based on any standards and is frequently misused by sellers of GE products. Growers and manufacturers of organic products bearing the USDA seal, on the other hand, have to meet the strictest standards of any of the currently available organic labels. In order to qualify as organic, a product must be grown and processed using organic farming methods that recycle resources and promote biodiversity. Crops must be grown without synthetic pesticides, bioengineered genes, petroleum-based fertilizers, or sewage sludge-based fertilizers.

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food 

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act," will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:

"Calorie and nutritional information were not always required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin labeling wasn't required until 2002. The trans fat content of foods didn't have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.

Doesn't it make sense that genetically engineered foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The research we have is raising serious questions about the impact to human health and the environment.

I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522 will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or consumers."

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn't have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let's not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you live in.

• No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
• If you live in Washington State, please sign the I-522 petition. You can also volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.
• For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
• Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

[-] Sources and References

• ¹ Entropy 2013, 15(4), 1416-1463
• ² NVIC.org April 10, 2013
• ³ CDC Health Statistics, Report 65
• ⁴ Sustainablepulse.com April 27, 2013

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/09/monsanto-roundup-herbicide.aspx?