Monsanto and the Junk Food Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know What’s in Your Food
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The Chefs’ Collaborative, an organization of professional chefs from around the country, are encouraging Californians to vote for Prop 37, which will require food containing genetically modified ingredients (GMOs) to be so labeled. This organization has been a long-time supporter of organic food—and why not? These professionals want to put the best-tasting dishes on their tables, and that means choosing organic ingredients whenever possible. And since organic foods are not allowed to be made from or contain GMOs, their preference naturally extends to the backing of the food labeling requirement.
In announcing their support of Prop 37, this is what Chefs’ Collaborative had to say:
“As chefs, we are on the frontlines of feeding America and we have an enormous stake in ensuring transparency in our food system. It is our duty to nourish our guests, both in body and soul. However, we can’t prepare the best food we know how when information about the ingredients we purchase is hidden from us with labels that are missing basic facts. This includes foods that are genetically engineered or contain GMOs. While Proposition 37 does not require restaurants to label their food as genetically engineered, it provides chefs the ability to knowingly source ingredients made without GMOs.
“Fifty countries around the world–representing more than 40 percent of the world’s population–already require GMO labeling, including all of Europe, Japan, India and China. Polls show that more than 90 percent of Americans want to know if their food is genetically engineered.
“We demand the right to know what’s in our food and we are adding our collective voices to this movement!”
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In other news about this important food measure, Tom Fendley of the California Right to Know public interest group (www.carighttoknow.org) says the following:
“Farmers overwhelmingly support Prop 37. They agree that we have the right to know what they’re growing for us. In fact, more than 2,000 farmers and agricultural organizations say Yes on 37, including the National Family Farm Coalition, the California State Grange, and California Certified Organic Farmers.
“Monsanto and the rest of the Big 6 pesticide companies hide behind people like Ted Sheely in their Million Dollars a Day television ads. Sheely grows genetically engineered cotton in the San Joaquin Valley on his 8,700-acre farm. At least we suspect it’s genetically engineered cotton. Food companies aren’t required to tell us, even it winds up in our food as cottonseed oil.
“Ted appears in one of the many TV ads deliberately lying to California voters about Proposition 37. The ad featuring Sheely asserts that Prop 37 will raise food costs by ‘billions of dollars.’ There is no independent evidence—nor coherent logic—supporting that claim, of course. Prop 37 simply requires a label on genetically engineered foods, which will cost consumers, well, nothing.”
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In yet further news about Monsanto and friends’ propaganda, Zack Kaldveer of OpEdNews writes to tell us that “The $36 million No on 37 campaign, bankrolled by $20 million from the world’s six largest pesticide companies, has been caught in yet another lie, this time possibly criminal.
“To date, the No on 37 campaign has been able to repeat one lie after another with near impunity. But has this pattern of deceit finally caught up to it?
“Yesterday, the Yes on 37 campaign sent letters to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting a criminal investigation of the No on 37 campaign for possible fraudulent misuse of the official seal of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“The No on 37 campaign affixed the FDA’s seal to one of the campaign’s mailers. Section 506 of the U.S. Criminal Code states: ‘Whoever…knowingly uses, affixes, or impresses any such fraudulently made, forged, counterfeited, mutilated, or altered seal or facsimile thereof to or upon any certificate, instrument, commission, document, or paper of any description…shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.’
“The letter also provides evidence that the No on 37 campaign falsely attributed a direct quote to the FDA in the campaign mailer. Alongside the FDA seal, the mailer includes this text in quotes. ‘The US Food and Drug Administration says a labeling policy like Prop 37 would be ‘inherently misleading.’ The quote is entirely fabricated. The FDA did not make this statement and does not take a position on Prop 37.
“In addition, the three identified authors of the ‘Rebuttal to Argument in Favor of Proposition 37’ include a Dr. Henry I. Miller, who is identified solely as Founding Director, Office of Biotechnology of the Food & Drug Administration. Dr. Miller in fact, does not currently work for the FDA in any capacity – as millions of California voters have been erroneously led to believe.
“This is not the first blatant act of deception that the No on 37 campaign has been caught perpetrating on the citizens of California – particularly relating to their ‘top scientist’ Dr. Henry Miller.
“Miller has a sordid history of parroting the talking points of some of the world’s most notorious corporate bad actors: he’s a founding member of a now defunct tobacco front group that tried to discredit the links between cigarettes and cancer, he’s repeatedly called for the reintroduction of DDT — known to cause premature birth, fronted for an oil industry funded climate change denial group for Exxon, claimed that people exposed to radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster ‘may have benefitted from it,’ and attacked the FDA’s efforts to ensure proper vetting and testing of new drugs’ safety while urging it to outsource more of its functions to private industries.
“This is the man the No on 37 campaign has portrayed to voters as an arbiter of good science and promoted as an expert worthy of our trust. In reality, Miller is nothing more than a corporate shill that will say whatever his paymasters ask him to, be it Exxon, Phillip Morris, Monsanto, or DuPont.
“Does the No on 37 campaign stand behind Miller’s fringe views on tobacco, climate change, nuclear radiation and DDT?
“Who should we trust when it comes to our right to know what’s in the food we eat: Monsanto, DuPont, and Henry Miller, or the millions of California consumers and leading consumer, health, women’s, faith-based, labor and other groups; 61 countries that already require GMO labeling; and a growing stack of peer-reviewed research linking genetically engineered foods to health and environmental problems?
“Who has our best interests at heart, the pesticide and junk food industry, or Prop 37 supporters like Consumers Union, California Nurses Association, California Democratic Party, California Labor Federation, United Farm Workers, American Public Health Association, Sierra Club, Whole Foods Market, California Council of Churches, Organic Consumers Association, Center for Food Safety, Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen, and Food Democracy Now!?”
