NY Times Reports Doubts about GMOs
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Danny Hakimoct of The New York Times has investigated GMOs and began his article on the front page of October 29 this way:
“The controversy over genetically modified crops has long focused on largely unsubstantiated fears that they are unsafe to eat. But an extensive examination by The New York Times indicates that the debate has missed a more basic problem — genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides.
“The promise of genetic modification was twofold: By making crops immune to the effects of weedkillers and inherently resistant to many pests, they would grow so robustly that they would become indispensable to feeding the world’s growing population, while also requiring fewer applications of sprayed pesticides.
“Twenty years ago, Europe largely rejected genetic modification at the same time the United States and Canada were embracing it. Comparing results on the two continents, using independent data as well as academic and industry research, shows how the technology has fallen short of the promise. Europe did not embrace the technology, yet it has achieved increases in yield and decreases in pesticide use on a par with, or even better than, the United States, where genetically modified crops are widely grown.
“An analysis by The Times using United Nations data showed that the United States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields — food per acre — when measured against Western Europe, a region with comparably modernized agricultural producers like France and Germany. Also, a recent National Academy of Sciences report found that “there was little evidence” that the introduction of genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops.
“At the same time, herbicide use has increased in the United States, even as major crops like corn, soybeans and cotton have been converted to GMO varieties. And the United States has fallen behind Europe’s biggest producer, France, in reducing the overall use of pesticides, which includes both herbicides and insecticides.
“One measure, contained in data from the United States Geological Survey, shows the stark difference in the use of pesticides. Since genetically modified crops were introduced in the United States two decades ago for crops like corn, cotton and soybeans, the use of toxins that kill insects and fungi has fallen by a third, but the spraying of herbicides, which are used in much higher volumes, has risen by 21 percent.
“By contrast, in France, use of insecticides and fungicides has fallen by a far greater percentage — 65 percent — and herbicide use has decreased as well, by 36 percent.
Profound differences over genetic engineering have split Americans and Europeans for decades. Although American protesters as far back as 1987 pulled up prototype potato plants, European anger at the idea of fooling with nature has been far more sustained.”
Although Hakimoct doesn’t mention it in these paragraphs, Monsanto is the corporation behind the introduction of GMO crops and is also the purveyor of glyphosate herbicide, which, as the report points out, has risen steeply in the United States since GMOs were introduced 20 years ago. Maybe that was the idea all along. If so, it’s a diabolically ingenious way to sell more herbicide.
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WHAT’S THE UPSHOT OF THE MONSANTO TRIBUNAL IN THE HAGUE?
On October 14-16, over a thousand activists, journalists and witnesses from around the world gathered in The Hague, Netherlands, headquarters of the International Court of Justice, to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and nature (“ecocide”), according to Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association.
Before a distinguished international panel of judges, 30 witnesses—including farmers, consumers, scientists, indigenous people, and former governmental officials—from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, North and South America, delivered detailed and shocking testimony on how Monsanto and its agribusiness accomplices have poisoned the environment and devastated public health.
Victims and witnesses described how, over the past 50 years, Monsanto has duped, assaulted, injured, and killed farmers, farmworkers, rural villagers, and urban consumers with its reckless use of toxic chemicals and pesticides (PCBs, DDT, Agent Orange, Dioxin, Roundup, 2,4D), and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The insidious political clout and growing control over the world’s seeds and food by Monsanto and a new global agribusiness cartel constitute a serious, indeed catastrophic, threat to our health as well as to the health of our soils, watersheds, oceans, wetlands, forests and climate.
Monsanto’s chemical- and fossil fuel-intensive GMO crops (corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugar beets, eggplant, potatoes, alfalfa, and others) and the toxic pesticides used to grow them are now polluting 400 million acres in 28 nations, comprising almost 10 percent of the world’s croplands. As a result, GMO ingredients and pesticide residues now contaminate much, if not most, of the world’s (non-organic) processed foods, animal feed, meat, dairy and poultry. Meanwhile GMO soy and chemical-intensive palm oil plantations, commodities utilized for junk food, animal feed, cosmetics, and biofuels, are the primary driving forces of the tropical deforestation that threatens to smother the literal lungs of the planet, as well as most of the planet’s biodiversity.
From Sri Lanka, India, Argentina, Bangladesh, China, the Philippines, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, and dozens of other nations, including the industrialized nations of the North, the same tragic, brutal, criminal, narrative emerged: Monsanto, aided and abetted by its shareholders and business allies, has deliberately poisoned people, communities and the environment in order to maximize profits. Meanwhile, indentured scientists, politicians and mass media—Monsanto’s minions—have done little or nothing to stop this mass homicide and ecocide.
For 20 years, Monsanto, with its army of lawyers and PR flacks, has spread lies in the mass media and scientific journals; intimidated or sued farmers and scientific critics, and infiltrated or bribed politicians, regulatory officials and academics.
As the Corporate Europe Observatory put it: “Corporations like Monsanto have limitless resources to buy political power through lobbying. Not only are they represented by numerous lobbying associations at every level from local to global, they also have an army of hired gun lobbyists, fund scientists to act as their mouthpiece, and participate in ‘greenwashing’ projects.’”
In addition, Monsanto has routinely carried out acts of biopiracy—robbing indigenous communities and traditional farmers of their knowledge, plants, and seeds and then patenting these life forms as their corporate “intellectual property.” Overturning or simply ignoring national laws, common law, farmer and consumer rights, and international trade and environmental norms, Monsanto and the other, now merging, chemical-biotech giants (Dow, Dupont, Syngenta, ChinaChem, Bayer, BASF) have essentially organized themselves into a powerful and monopolistic global cartel.
This Monsanto-led cartel, drawing comparisons to the Nazi I.G. Farben cartel of the 1930s and 40s, has managed to gain a certain degree of public, media and scientific acceptance by repeating its “big lies” over and over again in the mass media, including: (1) toxic industrial and agricultural chemicals are safe; (2) seeds and life forms can legitimately be patented and monopolized; (3) GMO crops use less pesticides and chemicals; (4) GMO crops are the only way to feed the world; (5) genetically engineered crops and trees and the chemicals sprayed or laced into them are climate friendly; and (6) Foods derived from GMOs are “substantially equivalent” to non-GMOs.
By destroying the health and livelihoods of literally millions of people, Monsanto has earned the dubious distinction of being the most hated corporation on Earth. No wonder the Biotech Bully of St. Louis is currently trying to change its name and bury the historical record of 115 years of crime and mayhem by merging with the giant chemical, biotech, and pharmaceutical giant, Bayer.
Monsanto refused to appear and testify at the Tribunal, despite being served with a citizens’ subpoena in St. Louis. But on December 10, the Tribunal judges plan to issue legal advisory opinions based upon international law, including the category of human rights violations that fall under the category of “ecocide.”
While the Monsanto Tribunal was busy putting the multinational corporation on trial under international law, a few miles away across the city, 500 global activists participated in the People’s Assembly, where they discussed how to further expose Monsanto and its industrial agriculture collaborators in the court of public opinion.
The Assembly held three days of interactive workshops on how to strengthen national and international public education, and how to use boycotts and marketplace pressure campaigns to undermine and destroy Monsanto’s profitability and eventually drive it (and companies like it) off the market. The People’s Assembly was organized and funded by a broad coalition of organizations including Regeneration International, Navdanya (a grassroots based organization in India founded by Vandana Shiva), IFOAM Organics, Organic Consumers Association, Biovision, Via Campesina, Corporate European Observatory, and others.
Ultimately the People’s Assembly agreed that we need to not only get rid of Monsanto, but the entire degenerative system of food, farming, and land use that is driving global warming, catastrophic droughts and floods, soil erosion, desertification, water shortages, mass biodiversity loss, rural poverty and war, and deteriorating public health.
Leading farmer and campaign activists around the world led the workshops on GMOs, pesticides, seeds, corporate accountability, agroecology, and regenerative agriculture. Sessions included: How to Ban GMOs Worldwide; Strategies and Campaigns to Ban Pesticides and Toxic Chemicals; Steps toward Seed Freedom and Struggles Against Unjust Seed Laws; How to Hold Transnational Corporations Responsible for their Acts; and How We Can Mitigate and Reverse Global Warming and Feed the World.
Here are some of the major strategy ideas that came out of the workshops and plenaries:
(1) Globalize the Struggle. There’s no way to bring the Monsanto and industrial agriculture cartel to heel without organizing and successfully carrying out powerful, global, strategically designed campaigns, both in the marketplace and in the realm of public policy.
Local and even national campaigns no longer suffice. For example, the mass destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the environment and public health currently taking place in South American countries such as Brazil, Paraguay, Colombia and Argentina, brought on by the out-of-control production of GMO soy and corn and the reckless use of pesticides such as Monsanto’s Roundup (glyphosate), Syngenta’s atrazine and paraquat, and Bayer’s glufosinate, can be stopped only by a global North-South campaign that strengthens resistance at home, but also shuts off market demand for these GMO animal feeds in the nations where they are exported.
South Americans cannot possibly stop the deadly production of these pesticide-intensive GMOs in their own countries without the support of activists and consumers in the countries (especially China and Europe) that are importing billions of dollars of these animal feeds for their domestic factory farm production of meat, dairy and poultry. If proper laboratory testing of these GMO animal feeds can be carried out, in combination with testing for the poisons that end up in the EU and China’s meat, dairy and poultry products that are derived from them, then a mass consumer boycott can possibly be organized. Reinforcing this marketplace pressure, groups can simultaneously press for laws requiring the labeling of meat and animal products derived from GMO- and pesticide-tainted feeds. Alongside these market-based campaigns we’ll need to continue our global effort to stop cartel-friendly Free Trade agreements such as the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), and to enact a global ban on GMO companion pesticides, such as Roundup/glyphosate.
(2) Globalize Hope. A recurrent theme at the People’s Assembly was the need to move beyond gloom and doom and to emphasize that regenerative food, farming, and land use (utilizing agro-ecology, organic, agro-forestry and holistic grazing techniques) not only can mitigate global warming, deteriorating public health, rural poverty, environmental destruction, and endless war, but actually reverse these trends. One of the lesser known positive developments in the world today is that 25-50 million farmers and ranchers (5-10 percent of all producers) are already practicing regenerative agriculture practices, sequestering massive amounts of excess carbon from the atmosphere and safely storing it in the soil, grasslands, forests, and wetlands through improved soil management, crop biodiversity, reforestation, and conservation. Strengthening this regenerative agriculture movement are hundreds of millions of conscious consumers who are starting to reject GMO and factory farmed foods and are choosing organic, grass-fed, local and regenerative foods instead.
(3) Connect the Dots. Coming out of the Monsanto Tribunal and People’s Assembly is a growing commitment among activists all over the world to move beyond language and cultural barriers, beyond national and continental borders, beyond single-issue campaigning, and to begin building a new 21st Century movement based on mutual solidarity and concrete cooperation in globally coordinated campaigns. Given the catastrophic consequences of “business as usual,” and continued domination by the global “1 percent,” we can no longer afford to operate as separate movements such as the anti-GMO movement, the organic movement, the Fair Trade movement, the economic justice movement, the climate movement, the forest movement, the ocean movement, and the anti-war movement. Nor can we operate as regional or national movements of farmers, workers, students and consumers.
We must connect the dots between interrelated issues and we must work together, from the local to the international level, with fellow leaders of the global grassroots who see the “big picture.” Harnessing the enormous power of the global grassroots, we can build a new diverse Regenerative Movement strong enough and inspirational enough to overturn the dictatorship of Monsanto and the global elite. Coming out of the Monsanto Tribunal and People’s Assembly at The Hague, there is a new sense of urgency and determination. A critical mass of grass roots people are ready to embark on this Long March of resistance, movement-building, and regeneration.
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BIG AG WANTS HYDROPONICS, GENE EDITING AS PART OF ORGANIC RULES
When Congress passed the landmark Organic Foods Production Act in 1990 it created the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) – the unique expert 15-member citizen’s body – to advise the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) about what is appropriate for organic production. The critical role of the NOSB is to protect the interests of the organic community from attacks by corporate lobbyists sent by Industrial Agriculture to water down organic integrity.
In a decisive vote in 2010, the NOSB voted not to allow Hydroponic Production – industrialized, artificial, soil-less production systems totally reliant on imported inputs – in organics. This was a courageous – and correct position – because it recognized and respected that for the one hundred years organic farming has been around it has always been a revolutionary system of food production based on growing in and improving the soil.
So central is soil to the foundational concept of organic that its very name – ‘Organic Farming’ – originates from the life-giving organic matter content of the soil, which organic farmers know to cherish and work hard to protect and increase. As organic consumers, we all understand that healthy food comes from healthy plants grown in healthy soil. Soil is and must forever be the foundation of organic farming.
Citizens have been outraged by the reckless actions of the USDA-NOP that, ignoring that major NOSB ruling against hydroponics, has allowed corporate hydroponic operations to have their production labeled ‘Certified Organic.’
Much of this fake “organic” hydroponic production is being imported from countries like Canada, Mexico, and Holland, and would not qualify for organic certification in much of the rest of the world, including some of the countries in which it is grown.
Even worse than the current efforts to undermine soil-based organic farming is a brand new effort by the corporate organic self-promoters at the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and UNFI (United Natural Foods Incorporated) announcing they want to consider new “gene editing” techniques to be allowed in organic food production. That’s right, the same people who sold us out on GMO labeling are now trying to sneak the latest genetic engineering techniques into organic standards.
In a September 22 blog earlier this year, OTA board member and UNFI lobbyist Melody Meyer wrote about allowing “gene editing,” a new form of genetic engineering, into organic standards-–a clear sign that the OTA and the corporate paymasters at UNFI want to include these new techniques over the objections of virtually all organic farmers and consumers.
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NATIVE HAWAIIANS VIE TO OUST PRO-GMO MAUI COUNCIL
While national attention is focused on the important North Dakota Pipeline protests by native people and earth justice activists, a similar battle for water and land is being led by native Hawaiians on Maui to take back power from Maui Council’s Monsanto-boosting majority.
A “Maui Ohana”(family) slate of nine native Hawaiians and grassroots housing and environmental activists are running in a historic election this November that may replace the Maui County Council’s pro-GMO majority and bring ecological stewardship of land and water to center stage across the islands.
Aina Protectors United leader Alika Atay speaks for the earth, his ancestors, and future generations when he says. “I am speaking for the land, for the water, for the children. Everything we do has a connection to the earth and our resources.
“Given our responsibility under Aloha Aina, we must stand up and protect. We have to look at the damage heavy chemical pesticides are doing to the soil and the aquifer. Not only what affects us now but more so the long-term future concerns. What kind of water will our future generations have to drink?”
That is the same question being asked by the Native Americans and earth activists who have converged near the banks of the Missouri River in North Dakota. The difference in Maui is that instead of protesting against the government, they stand a decent chance of becoming the government.
“We the people have the power,” Atay says. “We the people are going to make this change.”
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NUMBERS OF WILD VERTEBRATES ON EARTH PLUMMETING, REPORT SAYS
The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds of its 1970 level by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends. The Living Planet Index, compiled by researchers from World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, shows that vertebrate populations are set to decline by 67 percent from 1970 levels unless urgent action is taken to reduce humanity’s impact.
The collapse of wildlife is, with climate change, the most striking sign of the Anthropocene, a proposed new geological era in which humans dominate the planet. Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF, said: “Lose biodiversity and the natural world and the life support systems as we know them today will collapse.”
I, Jeff Cox, have been learning and writing about health, wholeness, ecology, organics, and humanity’s reliance on the natural world since 1970. I can sum up what I’ve learned over these 46 years in one sentence:
The greater the biodiversity, the healthier the ecosystem.
So this report, if accurate, is sickeningly disturbing. The quality of human life is diminished with the disappearance of any species, great or small, and by the disappearance of the numbers of that species. For, as Shakespeare said, “Nought so vile that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give.”
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Sonoma County Health Inspectors Harass Heirloom Expo Vendors
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This year, for the first time in the history of the National Heirloom Exposition at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California, local county health inspectors showed up and started harassing vendors for things like allowing visitors to taste test organic apples before they bought them, Food Democracy Now reports.
Not only that, this year a visitor from Monsanto showed up with a camera and a hidden video recorder. When asked what he was doing, he said that he was there to find out more about the genetics behind all the diversity of heirloom seeds at the festival. That’s certainly within his rights, but why the hidden equipment?
It’s hard to know what’s changed from the previous five years of the Expo’s existence, but it’s suspicious that this year someone from Monsanto shows up, and then people start getting harassed.
Here’s how the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported the situation: “Vendors and exhibitors at a popular natural foods event contend they were harassed and unfairly targeted by Sonoma County health inspectors who cracked down this week with fees and fines, as well as permit requirements.
“Organizers of the Exposition said previous health inspectors were positive and supportive of the three-day event, which ended Thursday. But this year was different.
Organizers said the treatment by health inspectors threatens the future of the Heirloom Exposition, which draws more than 15,000 people. They said it makes it challenging for the participation of backyard farmers and hobbyists who can’t give away an apple or tomato without a permit.
“’We feel we’re not really wanted,’ said farming entrepreneur Jere Gettle, who co-founded the Heirloom Exposition and the Petaluma Seed Bank. ‘It’s taken the heart out of the event.’” There was talk of moving the event out of Sonoma County.
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PESTICIDE, HERBICIDE USE ON GMO CORN AND BEANS TALLIED
A new study published in Science Advances (31 Aug 2016:
Vol. 2, no. 8, e1600850. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600850.) looks at how genetically engineered crops affect the use of herbicides and insecticides.
The study shows that farmers growing GMO soybeans used 28 percent more Roundup on their Roundup-resistant beans than farmers growing non-GMO beans. Farmers growing GMO corn used about an ounce less Roundup on 2.2 acres than farmers growing non-GMO corn. And farmers growing GMO corn that produces an insecticidal toxin in its tissues used about three one-hundredths of a pound (less than half an ounce) less pesticide on 2.2 acres than farmers growing non-insecticidal GMO corn.
So the application of Roundup herbicide and pesticide on corn is about the same for GMO-using farmers and regular conventional farmers, but GMO soybean growers use substantially more herbicide than their conventional non-GMO counterparts.
The economists conducting the study (Edward D. Perry, Federico Ciliberto, David A. Hennessy, and GianCarlo Moschini) end by noting that the change in herbicide use on soybeans is consistent with the development of Roundup resistance in weeds, and that the increase in Roundup on soybeans is due to the presence of resistant weeds.
Monsanto has consistently claimed that its introduction of GMO beans has led to a reduction in herbicide use, and that resistance to glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) is a natural adaptation that’s not its fault. Yet Monsanto’s colleagues at Bayer, the German pesticide and chemical firm, have introduced new chemicals, such as Alion, that they guarantee will kill glyphosate-resistant broadleaf weeds.
Until the weeds make an adaptation to Alion as well, I might add. Tillage works well controlling weeds, and while not without its problems, at least tillage isn’t dousing America’s farmland with poison. But then, you can’t sell tillage.
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ORGANIC FOOD CAN HELP CONTROL SUPERBUGS
The Organic Center has authored an article in the Modern Wellness Guide about how organic can act as a tool to fight superbugs. In it, the group discusses how choosing organic goes beyond protecting consumers from pesticide residues; organic also reduces the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
These diseases have been on the rise lately, and have reached a point where the World Health Organization declared antibiotic-resistant bacteria to be a global health epidemic.
One of the reasons for the prevalence of superbugs is the widespread use of antibiotics in conventional agriculture as a prophylactic and growth-promoting agent. Organic, on the other hand, raises livestock without the use of antibiotics. This means that organic farming doesn’t select for microbial resistance, and can even protect consumers from coming into contact with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. To examine this issue in depth, The Organic Center developed and published a report showing how organic can be used as a model to produce healthful food while preventing the spread of antibiotic resistance.
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SOCIAL, FAMILY STRESS INTENSIFIES PESTICIDE-RELATED EFFECTS
Pre-natal pesticide exposure effects greater in stressful environments
A new study published in the journal Neurotoxicology demonstrates that social stressors such as economic strain or poor learning environments can magnify the negative impacts of pre-natal exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides.
Researchers found that higher levels of total social stress as well as negative parent-child relationships and poor learning environments were generally correlated with lower IQs for all test subjects, but the negative correlation was significantly stronger for children of mothers who were exposed to pesticides during their pregnancy.
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37 MILLION BEES DEAD AFTER GMO SEEDS PLANTED NEARBY
Dave Schuit, a beekeeper who produces honey in Elmwood, Canada, claims that since GMO corn was planted in the nearby area, his farm has lost around 37 million bees (approximately 600 hives). According to reports, Schuit and other local beekeepers believe neonicotinoids, or “neonics” are to blame for the influx of bee deaths.
Imidacloprid and Clothianidin, two of Bayer CropScience’s most widely used pesticides, both contain neonics and have been linked with many large-scale bee ‘die-offs’ in both European and U.S. countries. However, despite the dangers associated with the use of this chemical, the pesticides are still regularly used and sold on the market.
Despite their size, the impact bees have on the environment is almost unparalleled. In fact, bees are responsible for pollinating about one-sixth of the flowering plant species worldwide and approximately 400 different agricultural types of plant.
In 2010, bees helped provide over $19 billion worth of agricultural crops in the U.S alone – estimated to be roughly one third of the food we eat. As a result, it is not hard to see that bees are needed to sustain our modern food system.
However, despite their obvious importance in our ecosystem, bee populations have been rapidly dropping over the past few decades. In fact, 44 percent of honeybee colonies in the United States died off last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last month.
In the past, scientists have tried to conclude why bee populations are in rapid decline. While it is not been proven that pesticides directly kill the bees that come into contact with the chemical, many scientists believe there is a strong link between the use of the pesticide and a phenomenon they refer to as “colony collapse disorder” (CCD).
“We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies,” said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS’s bee research laboratory.
While the cause of CCD is still widely debated, some believe that “the neonicotinoid pesticides are coating corn seeds, and with the use of new air seeders, are blowing pesticide dust into the air when planted.”
However, according to a new study published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, neonicotinoid pesticides kill honeybees by damaging their immune system and making them unable to fight diseases and bacteria.
Although we are unable to definitively determine what is causing the terminal decline of bee populations around the world, using all the scientific evidence that is currently available, it is clear that pesticides are having a significantly negative effect on bee populations.
In fact, it seems more and more countries are also beginning to accept this idea. Canada has banned the use of Imadacloprid on sunflower and corn fields; France has rejected Bayer’s application for Clothianidin; Italy has now banned certain neonicotinoids; and the European Union has banned multiple pesticides.
At this moment in time, EU scientists are reviewing the EU-wide ban on three neonicotinoid pesticides. By the end of January 2017, the EU scientist will finish their risk evaluation and determine the status of the chemical.
Although the United States have yet to follow suit, several states – including California, Alaska, New York, and Massachusetts – are currently considering legislation that would ban neonicotinoids. In fact, just last month Maryland came the first state to pass a neonic-restricting bill; Maryland’s Pollinator Protection Act has eliminated consumer use of neonicotinoids in the state.
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HERE’S A RAMEN SHOP WORTH GOING TO
Yuzu Ramen & Broffee, an authentic Japanese restaurant in Emeryville in the East Bay Area, announced they have added five new all-organic ramen dishes to their menu, and are now offering eight varieties in total. The new additions include a spicy tonkotsu, spicy gyukotsu, spicy veggie, cheesy tonkotsu, and a cheesy gyukotsu.
It takes three days to prepare these ramen broths. Yuzu uses organic vegetables, 100 percent grass-fed meat and bones for their ramen and broths. No antibiotics or GMOs, no artificial coloring or flavoring, and no MSG or preservatives are used. Sticking to unprocessed and organic ingredients is a core part of their business values. Almost every ingredient is delivered fresh daily from local vendors that focus on organic
Yuzu Ramen & Broffee is located at 1298 65th Street in Emeryville. More information: http://www.yuzurb.com/.
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MOVE AFOOT TO REPEAL THE DARK ACT
On July 31, President Obama turned his back on the 90 percent of Americans who want companies to be required to clearly state on food packages, in plain English, whether or not their products contain GMO ingredients.
Instead, the President signed into law the misleading, confusing, and loophole-ridden-DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act.
We all know what happened. Monsanto’s minions in Congress passed a law that nullified Vermont’s mandatory GMO labeling law and essentially guarantees that here in the U.S., food companies will never be required to tell us if the products we buy are contain ingredients grown with massive amounts of Monsanto’s cancer-causing Roundup.
Can we repeal the DARK Act, which is now officially referred to as the “National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard”? Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) thinks so. And even though it’s a long shot, we need to join forces with our allies to repeal this law. Tell your Senators to support Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s efforts to repeal the DARK Act.
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