Illegal GMO Wheat in Kraft Mac and Cheese?

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Americans, boycott, CEOs, children, consumers, contamination, corruption, cover-ups, Deadly, England, exports, farming, food dye, fraud, Genetic engineering, Genetically Modified Wheat, GM food, GM wheat, GMO Ban, GMO labeling, GMOs, greed, Health, health hazards, Health Problems, Illegal, imports, Kraft, Kraft Foods, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, macaroni & cheese, Monsanto, Oregon, photos, safety violations, synthetic, tainted crops, Tesco, Tony Vernon, Toxic, U.K., U.S, United Kingdom, United States, USDA, Video, warning label, wheat

Should you like to call or contact Kraft Foods via the internet and inquire about this, then listed in the picture above is the UPC code on the box of Kraft Mac & Cheese sent with the warning label along with their phone number and web link!

See video here:  http://youtu.be/4igqCeXcyFw

5/31/2013 Update: In the video above filmed on 5/31/2013, Flo, who is a Food Babe reader, visited Tesco Extra in Ponders End, Enfield, North London to demonstrate there are boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese that are imported into the United Kingdom from the United States that require these special warning labels to alert consumers of potentially harmful ingredients that Kraft is using in their products. This video further verifies that Kraft’s flagship product “Macaroni & Cheese” sold in the UK requires a warning label stating the product may cause an adverse effect in activity and attention in children and is made with GMO wheat. (Note: GMO wheat is illegal in the US.)

It was just announced that Kraft’s CEO Tony Vernon made 49% more this year than he did last year. This fact kicked me right in the face. These are millions of dollars that could be used to stop the production of artificial food dyes. These are millions of dollars that could be used to improve Kraft’s product line for the safety of Americans. These are millions of dollars that could send a statement to us that Kraft really does care about the safety of their consumers (like they’ve said in their canned written statement already).

While Kraft has reformulated their Mac & Cheese for other countries using safer ingredients and natural dyes – they continue to exploit and feed Americans dyes made with petroleum linked to a myriad of diseases and GMOs.

But wait – you must be thinking – what?! There are GMOs in Mac & Cheese? And it’s not just any old GMO.

Kraft Mac & Cheese is made with Genetically Modified Wheat.

Below is a picture of the warning label that is placed on a box of Macaroni and Cheese (the same one we buy here) imported into the UK from the United States. The UK and other European countries require a warning label if a product contains artificial food dyes and/or GMOs. This label has a warning for both!  Someone sent this in after a picture of it was posted on Kraft’s facebook page (Thank you Flo!!!). This box of Mac & Cheese is available and sold in a special imported “international food” section in a grocery store called Tesco. The box clearly states that it is from the US – specifically “Northfield, Illinois.”

On the label of Kraft Mac & Cheese there are 2 different warnings:

Warning #1: This Product May Cause Adverse Effects On Activity And Attention In Children (This warning label is required because The US version of Kraft Mac & Cheese has artificial food dyes yellow #5 and yellow #6 which are proven to be linked to hyperactivity in children.)

Warning #2: GMO Declaration: Made from genetically modified wheat. (May contain GMO) (This warning label is required because the US version of Kraft Mac & Cheese contains GMOs.)

Please note: It is uncertain at this time who places these warning labels on products once they are imported into the UK and this is something that is still being investigated. I know it is not the grocery store themselves and not Kraft, but likely the importer/distribution company. 

2 New Pictures Above added on May 31, 2013

If Kraft is using genetically modified (GMO) wheat in their Mac & Cheese, it is SERIOUSLY ALARMING for a number of reasons:

1. GMO Wheat is not approved by the USDA for U.S. Farming. So where the heck is Kraft getting this wheat to put in their Mac & Cheese?
2. It was recently discovered that GMO wheat had been illegally growing in Oregon. So this begs the question – is there illegal GMO wheat in Kraft Mac & Cheese?
3. The USDA is investigating the illegal crop in Oregon – Don’t you think they should investigate companies that are using GM wheat like Kraft too?
4. If Kraft is not using GMO wheat grown in the United States, they could be getting genetically engineered wheat from other countries that allow the production, and are importing it into the US. It is crazy to think that a company could be importing a crop that is not approved for use in the US and putting it in U.K. products without labeling!
5. There is only one other likely scenario for the GMO Declaration on Kraft’s Mac & Cheese. The farm land that wheat is grown on in the US is so contaminated from GMO crops like corn and soy, they have no choice but to declare wheat genetically modified on the warning label when exported to other countries. This fact is very concerning if true and has dire implications for the entire farmland here in America.
6. The labeler could have mistaken GMO corn for GMO wheat, but if that is the case, Kraft needs to confirm this either way and RIGHT AWAY!

If Kraft is using illegal GMO wheat in Mac & Cheese – are they using it in the rest of their products too? This alone is reason enough to BOYCOTT this company – As if we didn’t have enough reasons before!

How To Vote With Your Dollars And Hit Kraft’s Bottom Line:

Kraft is a food giant which used to be even larger before they split with Mondelez late last fall. Here is a list of major brands that Kraft produces now that you need to know to avoid. I’ve included some alternatives to check out instead…

• Study This List & Share It With Your Friends and Family
• Don’t Buy Any of These Products In The Future
• Search Your Pantry and Fridge For These Products
• Take Them Back To The Store and Get a Refund

Kraft Brands To Avoid	Brands to Choose Instead
A1	Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Back To Nature	Annie’s Branded Snacks and Mac & Cheese
Bakers	Organic Baking Chocolate by Sunspire
Boca	Sunshine Burgers or make your own
Bulls Eye	Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Café Collection (Coffee Mate)	Use real organic milk or almond milk, dried non fat organic milk powder works too
Capri Sun	Squeeze Your Own Fresh Juice or Choose Whole Food’s or Trader Joe’s (FYI – they recently found mold growing in Capri Sun packages)
Cheez Whiz	Just eat real cheese
Corn Nuts	Stick to real nuts
Country Time	Make homemade lemonade or choose Lakewood Juice
Crystal Light	Ban this altogether – this stuff is not good for your health, try infusing water with fruits instead
Dream Whip	Make real whip cream instead or go with Tru whip
General Food International	Recipe for homemade creamer from Deliciously Organic
Gevalia	Larry’s Beans or another organic coffee brand you like
Good Seasons	Simply Organic has dressing mixes that don’t have harmful ingredients
Gravy Master	Here is a recipe for homemade gravy
Grey Poupon	Annie’s Mustard
Handi Snacks	Mary’s Gone Crackers and Cheese
Jell-O	Mama Natural shows you how to make healthy jello
Jet Puffed Marshmallows	Vegan Marshmallows without artificial food dyes and corn syrup are available at Natural Food Stores
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese	Make your own or choose Annie’s Mac & Cheese
Kraft Cheese	Organic Valley or local
Kool-Aid	Just don’t do it.
Lunchables	Make your own! Check 100 Days of Real Food for Lunch Ideas
Maxwell House	Larry’s Beans or another organic coffee brand you like
Miracle Whip	Spectrum or Veganaise
Open Pit	Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Oscar Mayer	Applegate Farms
Philadelphia	Organic Valley, Trader Joes has organic cream cheese
Planters	Woodstock Farms
Sanka	Choose organic coffee always
Tang	Don’t do it! Consider adding some fresh OJ to your water instead
Tapatio	Choose an organic hot sauce
Tassimo Professional	Do not buy this coffee machine – choose breville or cusinart instead
Twist	Lakewood Juice
Velveeta	This stuff is gross, just don’t do it. Stick to real cheese – try Organic Valley
Yuban	Larry’s Beans or another organic coffee brand you like

Please take the time to share this crucial information with your family and friends. We must keep the social media pressure on Kraft – they need to know that we are not going away or letting them off the hook for this madness!

Source:  http://foodbabe.com/2013/05/30/illegal-gmo-wheat-in-kraft-mac-cheese/

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Food Industry Front Groups Exposed: Monsanto, Coke, Pepsi and More

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agriculture, Alliance to Feed the Future, bias, Big Tobacco, Biotechnology, Center for Consumer Freedom, Center for Food Safety, Coke, consumers, control, corruption, Deadly, deception, environment, food, food industry, front groups, GM food, GMOs, greed, Health, health hazards, Health Problems, junk food, Kraft Foods, Mars, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, money, Monsanto, New York City, Pepsi, Philip Morris, processed food, propaganda, Public, public relations, regulations, Toxic, U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance

Some say it’s the best public relations that money can buy, because when you can’t refute the truth about an issue, the next-best thing to do is stack the deck in your favor.

The third edition of a report released last month by the International Food Information Council Foundation is anything but the “reasonable and helpful document” it may outwardly appear to be, writes Michele Simon, JD, MPH, of the Center for Food Safety, in a recent blog post.

Rather, she says, it “is in fact the product of a well-oiled PR machine whose board of trustees includes executives from such food giants such as Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and Mars.”

Phony front groups pushing bad biotechnology

The report, “Food Biotechnology: A Communicator’s Guide to Improving Understanding,” was written and reviewed by lots of folks with great credentials, but they clearly are pushing a “biotechnology” answer to today’s food issues. From the “Dear Colleagues” intro:

As farmers and other food producers discover the opportunities provided by food biotechnology, there is a growing interest in the safety and sustainability of these foods. Although foods produced through biotechnology have been safely consumed for more than 15 years, they remain a controversial topic around the world, with some individuals raising questions about their safety, environmental impact, and regulation.

To understand the complexity of the issues, access to current, scientifically sound, and consumer-friendly information on food biotechnology is needed. …

Such doublespeak doesn’t fool other experts like Simon. Being very familiar with the industry, she can spot a forgery, if you will, a mile away.

Noting the make-up of the IFICF’s board, Simon has written a report for her organization, titled “Best Public Relations Money Can Buy: A Guide to Food Industry Front Groups,” “that exposes the well-funded organizations and highly-sophisticated public relations strategies increasingly deployed to defend the food industry,” she writes.

The report goes onto to describe how the combo of “Big Food” and “Big Ag” (agriculture) trot out front groups that sound consumer-friendly and oriented organizations. They include names like the “U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance”; the “Center for Consumer Freedom“; and the “Alliance to Feed the Future”. All appear as though they have us, the little people, uppermost in mind when it comes to the formation of food production policy.

However, Simon notes, the notion is not to educate and inform. The goal of these shady front groups “is to fool the media, policymakers, and general public into trusting these sources, despite their corporate-funded PR agenda.”

That’s because of the growing concern over the negative impact of the world’s increasingly industrialized and over-processed food industry, and the resultant health problems that have arisen from GM foods and other agricultural biotechnology:

With growing concern over the negative impacts of our highly industrialized and overly-processed food system, the food industry has a serious public relations problem on its hands. Instead of cleaning up its act, corporate lobbyists are trying to control the public discourse. As a result, industry spin is becoming more prevalent and aggressive.

She provides some examples.

‘Name-calling and scaremongering’

In the case of the International Food Information Council, the group not only publishes reports that are friendly to the agriculture and food-production industries, but it also “infiltrates professional conferences” like the annual meeting of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the group representing registered dieticians, to push its agenda.

Consider also the case of “the notorious industry attack dog,” the Center for Consumer Freedom, which was formed in the 1990s with funding from tobacco giant Philip Morris. In response to the recent NYC controversy involving Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on sugary drinks in excess of 16 ounces, CCF bought full-page ads in major newspapers depicting Bloomberg as a “nanny” with an accompanying tagline, “New Yorkers need a Mayor, not a Nanny.”

“Name-calling and scaremongering are very effective tactics for distracting away from the issue at hand: a serious public health problem,” wrote Simon.

“…[W]e can’t allow these disingenuous and deceptive tactics to undermine our good work,” she concludes. “It’s imperative that reporters, policymakers, and the general public do their homework to learn exactly who is behind these industry front groups and not fall for their biased propaganda and public relations stunts.”

Source:  http://www.naturalnews.com/040640_front_groups_food_industry_processed.html

 

The Answer To Why Gas Prices Are So High!

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Americans, Big Oil, consumers, crude oil, demand, Energy, federal gas tax, gas, gas prices, gas taxes, hybrids, investments, state gas tax, supply, United States

American consumers are keenly aware of the price of gasoline, but uninformed about what drives that price.  When asked about the federal gas tax, for example, six in ten Americans said the tax rate goes up every year.¹   In reality, the federal gas tax hasn’t budged from its 18.4 cent rate in almost twenty years, and roughly half the states haven’t seen their gas tax rates change in a decade or more.²

Stagnant federal and state gas taxes have become an increasingly small fraction of what drivers pay at the pump.  At the turn of the century, roughly one-third of the amount drivers paid for gasoline went toward funding transportation infrastructure through federal and state gas tax collections.  As Figure 1 shows, that share has plummeted to just 14 percent today.

Rather than being driven by taxes, higher gas prices are almost entirely attributable to the rise in the price of crude oil—the main ingredient that goes into making gasoline.  Growing worldwide demand for gasoline, oil industry mergers, OPEC’s supply decisions, and a host of other factors have pushed crude oil prices upward, and gasoline prices along with them.³   Meanwhile, refiners’ decisions to keep less gas on hand in their inventories, as well as a growing reliance on imported gasoline, have allowed for the wild up-and-down swings in gas prices with which American drivers are familiar. ⁴

Gas taxes, meanwhile, have had virtually no impact on the increasingly high and volatile price of gasoline.  The average combined state and local gas tax has increased by less than 5 cents per gallon since 2000, while the federal gas tax has remained completely unchanged over that period.⁵   Growth in crude oil prices by contrast, has tacked an additional $1.73 onto the price of each gallon of gasoline—rising from a cost of 61 cents per gallon of gas to $2.34 per gallon, as Figure 3 below shows.

Few drivers enjoy paying more for gasoline, but paying more because of a gas tax increase is very different than paying more because of rising crude oil prices.

Enacting increases in federal and state gas taxes—whose purchasing power has been decimated by construction cost growth and the switch to more fuel-efficient cars—would bring with it significant benefits in the form of funding for a safer and more efficient transportation system.⁶   At a time when American drivers waste over 5 billion hours and nearly 3 billion gallons of burnt fuel stuck in traffic each year, the need for such investments could not be more clear.⁷

While the stubbornly high price of gas has made it politically difficult for lawmakers to propose raising the gas tax, voters should be aware that the gas tax is not to blame for those high prices.  Continuing to delay raising the gas tax because of crude oil price growth will bring with it enormous costs for American infrastructure and the hundreds of millions of people that use it every day.

Source:  http://itep.org/itep_reports/2013/05/dont-blame-the-gas-tax-for-high-gas-prices.php#.UZulJ6LVB8F

**Thanks Barb Powell for sending me the article! : )

READER ALERT! Monsanto and Congress Move to Stomp on States’ GMO Labeling Rights!

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2013, Agent Orange, agriculture, Amendments, Americans, Biotech Rider, California, Civil Rights, Congress, consumers, corruption, cover-ups, covert operations, crops, Deadly, dirty politics, Dow Chemical, EPA, EU, European Union, farm bill, farmers, food supply, Genetically modified food, Genetically Modified Organisms, GMO, GMO Ban, GMOs, greed, Grocery Manufacturers Association, Health Problems, herbicides, Human Rights, human rights violations, I-522, Iowa, King Amendment, lobbyists, Monsanto, Monsanto Protection Act, Occupy Monsanto, Organic Consumers Association, poison, power grab, Proposition 37, Rep. Steve King, Roundup, scientific evidence, scientists, Toxic, U.S. citizens, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Unconstitutional, United States Environmental Protection Agency, violations, Washington, Washington D.C.

Reliable sources in Washington D.C. have informed the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) that Monsanto has begun secretly lobbying its Congressional allies to attach one or more “Monsanto Riders” or amendments to the 2013 Farm Bill that would preempt or prohibit states from requiring labels on genetically engineered (GE) foods.

Let’s put every member of Congress on notice: If you support any Farm Bill amendment that would nullify states’ rights to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we’ll vote – or throw – you out of office!

On Wednesday, May 15, an amendment to the House version of the Farm Bill, inserted under the guise of protecting interstate commerce, passed out of the House Agricultural Committee. If the King Amendment makes it into the final Farm Bill, it would take away states’ rights to pass laws governing the production or manufacture of any agricultural product, including food and animals raised for food, that is involved in interstate commerce. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), largely in response to a California law stating that by 2015, California will allow only eggs to be sold from hens housed in cages specified by California.  But policy analysts emphasize that the amendment, broadly and ambiguously written, could be used to prohibit or preempt any state GMO labeling or food safety law.

Will the King Amendment survive the Senate? No one can be sure, say analysts. However few doubt that Monsanto will give up. We can expect that more amendments and riders will be introduced into the Farm Bill–even if the King Amendment fails—over the next month in an attempt to stop the wave of state GMO labeling laws and initiatives moving forward in states like Washington, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and others.

Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have admitted privately that they’ve “lost the battle” to stop GE food labeling at the state level, now that states are aggressively moving forward on labeling laws. On May 14, Maine’s House Ag Committee passed a GMO labeling law. On May 10, the Vermont House passed a labeling bill, 99-42, despite massive lobbying by Monsanto and threats to sue the state. And though Monsanto won a razor-thin victory (51 percent to 49 percent) in a costly, hard fought California GMO labeling ballot initiative last November, biotech and Big Food now realize that Washington State voters will likely pass I-522, an upcoming ballot initiative to label GE foods, on November 5.

If Monsanto can’t stop states from passing laws, then the next step is a national preemptive measure.  And all signs point to just such a power grab.  Earlier this year, Monsanto slipped its extremely unpopular “Monsanto Protection Act,” an act that gives biotech immunity from federal prosecution for planting illegally approved GE crops, into the 2013 Federal Appropriations Bill.  During the June 2012 Farm Bill debate, 73 U.S. Senators voted against the right of states to pass mandatory GE food labeling laws. Emboldened by these votes, and now the House Ag Committee’s vote on the King Amendment, Monsanto has every reason to believe Congress would support a potential nullification of states’ rights to label.

The million-strong OCA and its allies in the organic and natural health movement are warning incumbent Senators and House members, Democrats and Republicans alike, that thousands of health and environmental-minded constituents in their Congressional districts or states will work to recall them or drive them out of office if they fail to heed the will of the people and to respect the time-honored traditions of shared state sovereignty over food labels, food safety laws, and consumers’ right to know.

Trouble in Monsanto Nation.
Over the past 20 years Monsanto and the biotech industry, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and corporate agribusiness, have begun seizing control over the global food and farming system, including the legislative, patent, trade, judicial and regulatory bodies that are supposed to safeguard the public interest.

In the U.S., despite mounting evidence of the damage GE crops inflict on human health and the environment, approximately 170 million acres of GE crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa, papaya, and squash, are currently under cultivation. These crops, untested and unlabeled, comprise 41 percent of all cultivated cropland, or 17 percent of all cropland and pastureland combined. According to the GMA, at least 70 percent of non-organic grocery store processed foods contain GMOs. And GE grains and mill byproducts now supply the overwhelming majority of animal feed on the factory farms that supply 90 percent to 95 percent of the meat, eggs and dairy products that Americans consume.

Yet despite their marketplace dominance, record profits and enormous political clout in Washington D.C., Monsanto and the biotech industry are in deep trouble. Evidence is mounting that Monsanto’s top-selling herbicide, Roundup, is a deadly poison, destroying important human gut bacteria and likely contributing to the rapid increase of food allergies and serious human diseases including cancer, autism, neurological disorders , Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), dementia, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Those most susceptible to poisoning by Monsanto’s Roundup are children and the elderly.

Scientists aren’t the only ones raising new questions about Roundup. Farmers are complaining that they’re being forced to spray more and more chemicals on crops increasingly under siege from a growing army of herbicide-resistant weeds.  The situation is so bad that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just raised the limits of Roundup residue allowed on grains and vegetables to even more dangerous levels. But just in case the EPA someday stops raising the limits, Monsanto, Dow and the biotech industry are working on a new “solution” to the onslaught of herbicide-resistant Superweeds: They’ve applied  for approval of a new and highly controversial generation of super toxic herbicide-resistant GE crops, including “Agent Orange”  (2,4-D and dicamba-resistant) corn, soybeans and cotton.

As a recent widely-circulated article points out,

• “The use of 2,4-D is not new; it’s actually one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. What is new is that farmers will now ‘carpet bomb’ staple food crops like soy and corn with this chemical at a previously unprecedented scale—just the way glyphosate has been indiscriminately applied as a result of Roundup Ready crops. In fact, if 2,4-D resistant crops receive approval and eventually come to replace Monsanto’s failing Roundup-resistant crops as Dow intends, it is likely that billions of pounds will be needed, on top of the already insane levels of Roundup being used (1.6 billion lbs were used in 2007 in the US alone).”

In addition to these Agent Orange crops, an expanded menu of genetically engineered organisms are awaiting approval. Next on the menu?  GE apples, trees, and salmon.

State Labeling Laws: The ‘skull and crossbones’ that terrify Monsanto
Monsanto’s greatest fear isn’t a federal government charged with protecting the health and safety of its citizens.  Congress and the White House seem only too happy to oblige the biotech industry’s unquenchable thirst for growth, power and dominance. No, it’s the massive, unstoppable (so far) grassroots movement of Millions Against Monsanto that strikes fear in the heart of the Biotech Bully. U.S. citizens are waking up. They’re demanding labels on genetically engineered foods, similar to those already required in the European Union. They’re calling for serious independent safety-testing of GE crops and animals, both those already approved (especially Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant crops) and those awaiting approval.

The anti-GMO movement has finally figured out, after 20 years of fruitlessly lobbying Congress, the FDA and the White House, that the federal government is not going to require labels on GE foods. Instead the movement has shifted the battleground on GMO labeling from Monsanto and Big Food’s turf in Washington D.C. to the more favorable terrain of state ballot initiatives and state legislative action—publicizing the fact that a state GMO labeling law will have the same marketplace impact as a national labeling law.

State laws spell doom for Monsanto. Companies like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Coca-Cola, Pepsi/Frito-Lay, Dean Foods, Unilever, Con-Agra, Safeway, Wal-Mart and Smuckers are not going to label in just one or two states.  Monsanto knows that U.S. food companies will go GMO-free in the entire U.S., rather than admit to consumers that their products contain GMOs.

As Monsanto itself has pointed out, labels on genetically engineered foods are like putting a “skull and crossbones” on food packages. This is why Monsanto and their allies poured $46 million into defeating a California ballot initiative last year that would have required labels on GMO foods. This is why Monsanto has lobbied strenuously in 30 states this year to prevent, or at least delay, state mandatory labeling laws from being passed. This is why Monsanto has threatened to file federal lawsuits against Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Washington if they dare grant citizens the right to know whether or not their food has been genetically engineered or not.

And this is why Monsanto’s minions are trying to insert amendments or riders into the Farm Bill that will make it nearly impossible, even illegal, for states to pass GMO labeling laws. And there’s nothing to stop them when Congress is filled with pro-biotech cheerleaders who could care less that 90 percent of U.S. consumers want mandatory labels and proper safety testing of genetically engineered crops and foods.

Countering Monsanto’s Final Offensive: Throw the Bums Out!
Only a massive grassroots resistance will deter the U.S. Senate and House from stomping on our rights. Only an unprecedented campaign of public education, petition-gathering and grassroots pressure will be able to convince the ever-more corrupt and indentured politicians in Washington D.C. to back off.

Eighteen state constitutions have century-old provisions for state registered voters to collect petitions and recall state and local officials, forcing them to either resign or stand for reelection. But what very few Americans, and even members of Congress, realize is that 11 states have constitutional provisions to recall U.S. Senators and House of Representative members, as well as state elected officials.

It’s time we exercise the full power of direct democracy, not just state and municipal ballot initiatives. We must continue to support efforts like the current state ballot initiative to label GMOs in Washington state, and county ballot initiatives to ban GMOs, factory farms and other corporate crimes, in the 24 states and hundreds of counties and municipalities where these are allowed.  But we also need to use the power we have to recall and throw out of office our out-of-control Congressional Senators and Representatives as well.

If our elected officials in Congress continue to represent Monsanto and big corporations, rather than their constituents, then let’s throw the bums out! If the Washington political Establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, continue to trample on our inalienable constitutional rights and contemptuously disregard the 225-year principle of a shared balance of power between the federal government, the states and local government, then we have no choice but to recall them or throw them out of office.

Please join the nation’s organic consumers and natural health advocates in this strategic battle, the Food Fight of Our Lives. Please join this campaign to save, not only our right to choose what’s in our food, but our basic right to democratic representation and self-determination as well.

Tell your Congressmen and women, especially the 73 incumbents who voted last year to eliminate states rights’ to legislate on GMO labels, and those in the House this week who voted to support the King Amendment that “enough is enough!”  Power to the People!

Find Your Representative:  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Find Your Senator:  http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Sign OCA’s & MoveOn.org’s petition here:  http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/congress-dont-pass-a?source=c.url&r_by=5382364

Source:  http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27540.cfm

 

BP Wins Most Pentagon Fuel Awards in Year After Gulf Explosion

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Americans, Big Oil, Bloomberg News, BP, British Petroleum, Chevron, Congress, consumers, contracts, corruption, cover-ups, Deadly, Deepwater Horizon, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, defense contractors, Defense Logistics Agency, Energy, environmental disaster, ExxonMobil, fuel supply, greed, Gulf of Mexico, History, Lawsuits, oil, oil companies, oil spills, Pentagon, Project on Government Oversight, Shell Oil, taxpayer-funded, taxpayers, U.S, U.S. Defense Department, U.S. Government, U.S. Military, United States, Valero Energy Corp., Washington D.C., World Fuel Services Corp.

The scorn heaped upon BP following the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history in 2010 wasn’t echoed at the U.S. Defense Department. It stepped up purchases from the London-based company, making it the Pentagon’s biggest fuel supplier.

BP’s contracts with the military surged 33 percent to $1.35 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 from $1.02 billion in fiscal 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government. BP received 49 percent more in defense contracts than the No. 2 fuel supplier, San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp.

To critics, BP’s favored spot at the Pentagon cash window adds insult to the injury caused by the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The incident killed 11 workers, sullied hundreds of miles of coastline and crippled the region’s fishing and tourism industries.

“When BP still owes billions of dollars in possible fines and penalties for their spill in the Gulf of Mexico, our military shouldn’t renew lucrative contracts” for the company, said Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. It’s time “for our government to stand up to BP,” Markey said in an e- mail.

A trial to determine compensation for businesses and residents victimized by the spill is scheduled to begin Feb. 27 in New Orleans federal court. The company also faces hundreds of other lawsuits, at least 40 filed by survivors or relatives of the 126-member crew that was aboard the rig.

‘Not Right’

“BP still hasn’t fulfilled its commitment to fund the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico, but they pocketed $26 billion of profits last year, thanks in part to these government contracts, and that’s not right,” Jeremy Symons, senior vice president at the National Wildlife Federation in Reston, Virginia, said in an interview.

Most of the contract money awarded to BP by the Defense Department was subject to full and open competition, according to federal procurement data. The company offered the lowest price, said Michelle McCaskill, a spokeswoman for the Defense Logistics Agency, which buys fuel for the Pentagon.

Government agencies are allowed to suspend or disqualify companies from receiving contracts if they have committed or are suspected of committing wrongdoing.

“BP is neither suspended nor debarred and is therefore eligible to offer on and receive U.S. government contracts,” McCaskill said in an e-mail.

Biggest Consumer

The company’s facilities in the Gulf of Mexico don’t play any role in its government work, said Scott Dean, a BP spokesman in Warrenville, Illinois. He declined to comment further on the company’s contracting.

The Pentagon awarded $14.7 billion in fuel contracts in fiscal 2011. Eleven suppliers accounted for half of the total, led by BP, the world’s sixth-biggest oil company by market value.

Also among the top 10 Pentagon fuel suppliers are No. 6 Chevron Corp., the fourth-largest oil company by market value and No. 4 Royal Dutch Shell, which ranks third by the same measure. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, was the Pentagon’s 12th-largest supplier last year.

Too Big

The military’s hunger for oil may make it too difficult to eliminate major providers, said Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group in Washington. Excluding countries, the Defense Department is the world’s biggest consumer of energy.

“There is a sense that large federal contractors, like BP, are too big to suspend or debar,” Amey said in an e-mail.

“The government’s over-reliance on such companies can make it nearly impossible to hold them accountable, absent a monetary penalty and promises to keep clean,” he said. “Temporarily cutting off millions or billions in taxpayer funds seems like a better way to get a company’s attention and truly alter corporate culture.”

The military’s global reach makes geography an important determinant of the Pentagon’s fuel suppliers. Valero, Chevron and World Fuel Services Corp., a Miami-based marketer of marine and aviation fuel, are the only U.S.-based companies among the top 10. World Fuel ranked No. 5 last year with $858 million in fuel contracts, a notch ahead of San Ramon, California-based Chevron, with $620 million.

Local Purchases

“Almost all of the fuel used by the military services overseas is purchased overseas,” the Defense Logistics Agency’s McCaskill said. “As a result, many of the contract dollars are awarded to foreign-based companies.”

It’s often less costly and easier for the government to buy oil from local suppliers, said Pavel Molchanov, a Houston-based analyst with Raymond James & Associates Inc.

“When I talk about those geographies where U.S. companies have very limited access, I’m thinking of places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Horn of Africa,” Molchanov said in an interview. Even in countries like Germany and Japan, where the Defense Department “has a very large presence,” it may be cheaper to use a local supplier, he said.

The Gulf catastrophe may yet cost BP some of its business with the Pentagon, from which the company received $7.06 billion in fuel contracts in the last five years.

Read more here:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-24/bp-wins-most-pentagon-fuel-awards-in-year-after-gulf-of-mexico-explosion.html

New App Lets You Boycott Companies By Scanning Your Shopping Cart!

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activists, Android, barcodes, boycott, Buycott, consumers, corporations, Demand GMO Labeling, food, Forbes, GM food, GMOs, Google, grocery stores, internet, iPhones, iTunes, Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, Maceo Martinez, Monsanto, products, shoppers, technology

Buycott shows you a product’s corporate family tree while you shop!

In her keynote speech at last year’s annual Netroots Nation gathering, Darcy Burner pitched a seemingly simple idea to the thousands of bloggers and web developers in the audience. The former Microsoft programmer and congressional candidate proposed a smartphone app allowing shoppers to swipe barcodes to check whether conservative billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch were behind a product on the shelves.

Burner figured the average supermarket shopper had no idea that buying Brawny paper towels, Angel Soft toilet paper or Dixie cups meant contributing cash to Koch Industries through its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific. Similarly, purchasing a pair of yoga pants containing Lycra or a Stainmaster carpet meant indirectly handing the Kochs your money (Koch Industries bought Invista, one of the world’s largest fiber and textiles companies, in 2004 from DuPont).

At the time, Burner created a mock interface for her app, but that’s as far as she got. She was waiting to find the right team to build out the back end, which could be complicated given often murky corporate ownership structures.

She wasn’t aware that as she delivered her Netroots speech, a group of developers was hard at work on Buycott, an even more sophisticated version of the app she proposed.

“I remember reading Forbes’ story on the proposed app to help boycott Koch Industries and wishing that we were ready to launch our product,” said Buycott’s marketing director Maceo Martinez.

The app itself is the work of one Los Angeles-based 26-year-old freelance programmer, Ivan Pardo, who has devoted the last 16 months to Buycott. “It’s been completely bootstrapped up to this point,” he said. Martinez and another friend have pitched in to promote the app.

Pardo’s handiwork is available for download on iPhone or Android, making its debut in iTunes and Google Play in early May. You can scan the barcode on any product and the free app will trace its ownership all the way to its top corporate parent company, including conglomerates like Koch Industries.

Once you’ve scanned an item, Buycott will show you its corporate family tree on your phone screen. Scan a box of Splenda sweetener, for instance, and you’ll see its parent, McNeil Nutritionals, is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

Even more impressively, you can join user-created campaigns to boycott business practices that violate your principles rather than single companies. One of these campaigns, Demand GMO Labeling, will scan your box of cereal and tell you if it was made by one of the 36 corporations that donated more than $150,000 to oppose the mandatory labeling of genetically modified food.

Deciding to add that campaign to your Buycott app might make buying your breakfast nearly impossible, as that list includes not just headline grabbers like agricultural giant Monsanto but just about every big consumer company with a presence in the supermarket aisle: Coca-Cola, Nestle, Kraft, Heinz, Kellogg’s, Unilever and more.

Buycott is still working on adding new data to its back end and fine-tuning its information on corporate ownership structures. Most companies in the current database actually own more brands than Buycott has on record. The developers are asking shoppers to help improve their technology by inputting names of products they scan that the app doesn’t already recognize.

And if this all sounds worthy but depressing, be assured that your next trip to the supermarket needn’t be all doom and gloom. There are Buycott campaigns encouraging shoppers to support brands that have, say, openly backed LGBT rights. You can scan a bottle of Absolut vodka or a bag of Starbucks coffee beans and learn that both companies have come out for equal marriage.

“I don’t want to push any single point of view with the app,” said Pardo. “For me, it was critical to allow users to create campaigns because I don’t think it’s Buycott’s role to tell people what to buy. We simply want to provide a platform that empowers consumers to make well-informed purchasing decisions.”

Forbes reached out to Koch Industries and Monsanto for comment and will update this story with any responses.

Update: Tuesday’s traffic surge is causing some problems for Buycott. Pardo says he’s working to fix issues with the Android app in particular. “The workload is a bit overwhelming now,” he said. “For example, our Android app was just recently released and the surge of new users today has highlighted a serious bug on certain devices that needs to be fixed immediately. So all other development tasks I was working on get put on hold until I can get this bug fixed.”

Update 2: Pardo has had to temporarily remove the Android app from the store to fix glitches. He told Forbes on Wednesday: “Things are *slightly* more stable, but the app is now #10 in the App Store overall, which is pretty unbelievable. I simply didn’t set up the servers to be prepared to handle 10+ new users every second.  I was expecting a more manageable rise. I had to pull the Android app from the store because I haven’t had a second to address the issues with it and I’ll take any relief I can get right now. Will continue to try and get it in decent shape but I’ll eventually need some sleep!”

Source:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2013/05/14/new-app-lets-you-boycott-koch-brothers-monsanto-and-more-by-scanning-your-shopping-cart/

 

Monsanto’s Deadly GMOs!

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agriculture, consumers, corruption, crops, Deadly, deception, evil, food supply, Genetic engineering, Genetically modified food, Genetically Modified Organisms, Global Dominance, GMOs, greed, Monsanto, poison, poisonous, power-hungry, Science, scientific evidence, Toxic

Information on the image is slightly lower, because it does not get updated to reflect the past year.

 

Monsanto’s Monstrous History!

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1900's, 1930's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, 2, 2000, 4-D, Agent Orange, agriculture, brain disorders, caffeine, Cancerous, Carcinogenic, chemicals, control, corruption, crooks, crops, Deadly, dioxin, DNA, EPA, evil, FDA, Federal Government, flavoring, food, Food & Water Watch, food supply, Genetically Modified Organisms, Genocide, GM food, GMO seeds, GMOs, greed, harmful, hazardous, Health Problems, herbicides, History, horror, Indian farmers, insecticide, Lethal, List of Superfund sites in the United States, manipulation, monopoly, Monsanto, PCBs, pesticides, plastics, poison, poisonous, Political corruption, Polychlorinated biphenyl, power, power abuse, power-hungry, Roundup, rubber, saccharin, Satan, Sauget Illinois, seeds, sterilization, suicide, synthetic, technology, Toxic, U.S, United States, unsafe., vanilla, vanillin, Vietnam War

How Monsanto Went From Selling Aspirin to Controlling Our Food Supply

Monsanto controls our food, poisons our land, and influences all three branches of government.

Forty percent of the crops grown in the United States contain their genes. They produce the world’s top selling herbicide. Several of their factories are now toxic Superfund sites. They spend millions lobbying the government each year. It’s time we take a closer look at who’s controlling our food, poisoning our land, and influencing all three branches of government. To do that, the watchdog group Food and Water Watch recently published a corporate profile of Monsanto.

Patty Lovera, Food and Water Watch assistant director, says they decided to focus on Monsanto because they felt a need to “put together a piece where people can see all of the aspects of this company.”

“It really strikes us when we talk about how clear it is that this is a chemical company that wanted to expand its reach,” she says. “A chemical company that started buying up seed companies.” She feels it’s important “for food activists to understand all of the ties between the seeds and the chemicals.”

Monsanto the Chemical Company

Monsanto was founded as a chemical company in 1901, named for the maiden name of its founder’s wife. Its first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin. The company’s own telling of its history emphasizes its agricultural products, skipping forward from its founding to 1945, when it began manufacturing agrochemicals like the herbicide 2,4-D.

Prior to its entry into the agricultural market, Monsanto produced some harmless – even beneficial! – products like aspirin. It also made plastics, synthetic rubber, caffeine, and vanillin, an artificial vanilla flavoring. On the not-so-harmless side, it began producing toxic PCBs in the 1930s.

According to the new report, a whopping 99 percent of all PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, used in the U.S. were produced at a single Monsanto plant in Sauget, IL. The plant churned out toxic PCBs from the 1930s until they were banned in 1976. Used as coolants and lubricants in electronics, PCBs are carcinogenic and harmful to the liver, endocrine system, immune system, reproductive system, developmental system, skin, eye, and brain.

Even after the initial 1982 cleanup of this plant, Sauget is still home to two Superfund sites. (A Superfund site is defined by the EPA as “an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people.”) This is just one of several Monsanto facilities that became Superfund sites.

Monsanto’s Shift to Agriculture

Despite its modern-day emphasis on agriculture, Monsanto did not even create an agricultural division within the company until 1960. It soon began churning out new pesticides, each colorfully named under a rugged Western theme: Lasso, Roundup, Warrant, Lariat, Bullet, Harness, etc.

Left out of Monsanto’s version of its historical highlights is an herbicide called Agent Orange. The defoliant, a mix of herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, was used extensively during the war in Vietnam. The nearly 19 million gallons sprayed in that country between 1962 and 1971 were contaminated with dioxin, a carcinogen so potent that it is measured and regulated at concentrations of parts per trillion. Dioxin was created as a byproduct of Agent Orange’s manufacturing process, and both American veterans and Vietnamese people suffered health problems from the herbicide’s use.

Monsanto’s fortunes changed forever in 1982, when it genetically engineered a plant cell. The team responsible, led by Ernest Jaworski, consisted of Robb Fraley, Stephen Rogers, and Robert Horsch. Today, Fraley is Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer. Horsch also rose to the level of vice president at Monsanto, but he left after 25 years to join the Gates Foundation. There, he works on increasing crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa. Together, the team received the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton in 1998.

The company did not shift its focus from chemicals to genetically engineered seeds overnight. In fact, it was another 12 years before it commercialized the first genetically engineered product, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH), a controversial hormone used to make dairy cows produce more milk. And it was not until 1996 that it first brought genetically engineered seeds, Roundup Ready soybeans, onto the market.

By 2000, the company had undergone such a sea change from its founding a century before that it claims it is almost a different company. In Monsanto’s telling of its own history, it emphasizes a split between the “original” Monsanto Company and the Monsanto Company of today. In 2000, the Monsanto Company entered a merger and changed its name to Pharmacia. The newly formed Pharmacia then spun off its agricultural division as an independent company named Monsanto Company.

Do the mergers and spinoffs excuse Monsanto for the sins of the past committed by the company bearing the same name? Lovera does not think so. “I’m sure there’s some liability issues they have to deal with – their various production plants that are now superfund sites,” she responds. “So I’m sure there was legal thinking about which balance sheet you put those liabilities on” when the company split. She adds that the notion that today’s Monsanto is not the same as the historical Monsanto that made PCBs is “a nice PR bullet for them.”

But, she adds, “even taking that at face value, that they are an agriculture company now, they are still producing seeds that are made to be used with chemicals they produce.” For example, Roundup herbicide alone made up more than a quarter of their sales in 2011. The proportion of their business devoted to chemicals is by no means insignificant.

Monsanto’s pesticide product line includes a number of chemicals named as Bad Actors by Pesticide Action Network. They include Alachlor (a carcinogen, water contaminant, developmental/reproductive toxin, and a suspected endocrine disruptor), Acetochlor (a carcinogen and suspected endocrine disruptor), Atrazine (a carcinogen and suspected endocrine disruptor), Clopyralid (high acute toxicity), Dicamba (developmental/reproductive toxin), and Thiodicarb (a carcinogen and cholinesterase inhibitor).

Roundup: The Benign Herbicide?

Defenders of Monsanto might reply to the charge that Roundup is no Agent Orange. In fact, the herbicide is viewed as so benign and yet effective that its inventor, John E. Franz, won the National Medal of Technology. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, kills everything green and growing, but according to Monsanto, it only affects a metabolic pathway in plants, so it does not harm animals. It’s also said to break down quickly in the soil, leaving few traces on the environment after its done its job.

Asked about the harmlessness of Roundup, Lovera replies, “That’s the PR behind Roundup – how benign it was and you can drink it and there’s nothing to worry about here. There are people who dispute that.” For example there is an accusation that Roundup causes birth defects. “We don’t buy the benign theory,” continues Lovera, “But what’s really interesting is that we aren’t going to be having this conversation pretty soon because Roundup isn’t working anymore.”

Lovera is referring to “Roundup-resistant weeds,” weeds that have evolved in the past decade and a half to survive being sprayed by Roundup. Nearly all soybeans grown in the United States is Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready variety, as are 80 percent of cotton and 73 percent of corn. Farmers spray entire fields with Roundup, killing only the weeds while the Roundup Ready crops survive. With such heavy use of Roundup on America’s farmfields, any weed – maybe one in a million – with an ability to survive in that environment would survive and pass on its genes in its seeds.

By 1998, just two years after the introduction of Roundup Ready soybeans, scientists documented the first Roundup-resistant weed. A second was found in 2000, and three more popped up in 2004. To date, there are 24 different weedsthat have evolved resistance to Roundup worldwide. And once they invade a farmer’s field, it doesn’t matter if his crops are Roundup-resistant, because Roundup won’t work anymore. Either the weeds get to stay, or the farmer needs to find a new chemical, pull the weeds by hand, or find some other way to deal with the problem.

“We’ve wasted Roundup by overusing it,” says Lovera. She and other food activists worry about the harsher chemicals that farmers are switching to, and the genetically engineered crops companies like Monsanto are developing to use with them.

Currently, there are genetically engineered crops waiting for government approval that are made to tolerate the herbicides 2,4-D, Dicamba and Isoxaflutole. (These are not all from Monsanto – some are from their competitors.) None of these chemicals are as “benign” as Roundup. Isoxaflutole is, in fact, a carcinogen. Let’s spray that on our food!

Corporate Control of Seeds

No discussion of Monsanto is complete without a mention of the immense amount of control it exerts on the seed industry.

“What it boils down to is between them buying seed companies outright, their incredible aggressive legal maneuvering, their patenting of everything, and their enforcement of those patents, they really have locked up a huge part of the seed supply,” notes Lovera. “So they just exercise an unprecedented control over the entire seed sector. Monsanto products constitute 40 percent of all crop acres in the country.”

Monsanto began buying seed companies as far back as 1982. (One can see an infographic of seed industry consolidation here.) Some of Monsanto’s most significant purchases were Asgrow (soybeans), Delta and Pine Land (cotton), DeKalb (corn), and Seminis (vegetables). One that deserves special mention is their purchase of Holden’s Foundation Seeds in 1997.

George Naylor, an Iowa farmer who grows corn and soybeans, calls Holden’s “The independent source of germplasm for corn.” Small seed companies could buy inbred lines from Holden’s to cross them and produce their own hybrids. Large seed companies like Pioneer did their own breeding, but small operations relied on Holden’s or Iowa State University. But Iowa State got out of the game and Monsanto bought Holden’s.

Monsanto’s tactics for squashing its competition are perhaps unrivaled. They use their power to get seed dealers to not to stock many of their competitors products, for example. When licensing their patented genetically engineered traits to seed companies, they restrict the seed companies’ ability to combine Monsanto’s traits with those of their competitors. And, famously, farmers who plant Monsanto’s patented seeds sign contracts prohibiting them from saving and replanting their seeds. Yet, to date, U.S. antitrust laws have not clamped down on these practices.

With the concentrated control of the seed industry, farmers already complain of lack of options. For example, Naylor says he’s had a hard time finding non-genetically engineered soybean seeds. Most corn seeds are now pre-treated with pesticides, so farmers wishing to find untreated seeds will have a tough time finding any. Once a company or a handful of companies control an entire market, then they can choose what to sell and at what price to sell it.

Furthermore, if our crops are too genetically homogenous, then they are vulnerable to a single disease or pest that can wipe them out. When farmers grow genetically diverse crops, then there is a greater chance that one variety or another will have resistance to new diseases. In that way, growing genetically diverse crops is like having insurance, or like diversifying your risk within your stock portfolio.

Food and Water Watch Recommendations

At the end of its report, Food and Water Watch lists several recommendations. “There are a lot of ways that government policy could address the Monsanto hold on the food supply,” explains Lovera. “The most important thing is that it’s time to stop approval of genetically engineered crops to stop this arms race of the next crop and the next chemical.”

She also calls Monsanto “the poster child for the need for antitrust enforcement” – something that the Justice Department has yet to successfully deliver up. In fact, last November the government ended a three-year antitrust investigation of Monsanto.

A third recommendation Lovera hopes becomes a reality is mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. “If we had that label and we put that information in consumers’ hands, they could do more to avoid this company in their day-to-day lives,” she says.

In the meantime, all consumers can do to avoid genetically engineered foods is to buy organic for the handful of crops that are genetically engineered: corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, papaya, sugar beets, and alfalfa.

Source:  http://www.alternet.org/food/how-monsanto-went-selling-aspirin-controlling-our-food-supply?paging=off

 

New Review Links Monsanto’s Roundup to Diabetes, Autism, Infertility and Cancer!

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Alzheimer's, autism, cancer, consumers, Deadly, diabetes, diseases, Genetically modified organism, Glyphosate, GMOs, Health, Health Problems, infertility, Monsanto, Roundup, Toxic, United States

A new peer-reviewed scientific review paper has been released in the US stating that glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup are contributing to gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

The review paper states that “glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of …food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Here, we 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. 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.”

“The paper gives good arguments why it’s vital to oppose the recent capitulation by UK supermarkets to accepting products from animals raised on GM feed,” GM Watch stated.

Glyphosate (N-phosphonomethylglycine), the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup®, is the main herbicide in use today in the United States, and increasingly throughout the World, in agriculture and in lawn maintenance, especially now that the patent has expired. 80% of genetically modified crops, particularly corn, soy, canola, cotton, sugar beets and most recently alfalfa, are specifically targeted towards the introduction of genes resistant to glyphosate, the so-called “Roundup Ready® feature”. In humans, only small amounts (<2%) of ingested glyphosate are metabolized to aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), and the rest enters the blood stream and is eventually eliminated through the urine.

Read more here:  http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/04/18/new-study-links-roundup-to-diabetes-autism-infertility-and-cancer/#.UXHHQKKG18E

A Franken-Apple A Day Keeps Your Doctor A Speed-Dial Away!

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apples, biotech industry, Biotechnology, consumers, corruption, Deadly, deception, DNA, FDA, frankenfood, Genetically modified food, Genetically modified organism, GMO, GMOs, Humans, lies, Monsanto, produce, RNA, scientific evidence, Toxic, USDA

Thanks to the biotech industry’s relentless quest to control our food, McDonald’s, Burger King and even school cafeterias will soon be able to serve up apples that won’t turn brown when they’re sliced or bitten into. A new, almost entirely untested genetic modification technology, called RNA interference, or double strand RNA (dsRNA), is responsible for this new food miracle. Scientists warn that this genetic manipulation poses health risks, as the manipulated RNA gets into our digestive systems and bloodstreams. The biotech industry claims otherwise.

Of course, like any non-organic apple, the new GMO Arctic® Apple will be drenched in toxic pesticide residues, untested by the U.S. Food & Drug Association (FDA) and likely unlabeled. And of course these shiny new high-tech apples will be cheap, priced considerably lower than a pesticide-free, nutrient-dense, old-fashioned organic apple that turns a little brown after you slice it up.

When the Biotech Industry Organization gathers next week in Chicago for the 2013 BIO International Convention, BIOTECanada will present its “Gold Leaf Award for Early Stage Agriculture” to Okanagan Specialty Fruits, Inc. (OSF), purveyor of the Arctic® Apple, slated for approval in the U.S. this year. We hate to upset the biotech apple cart, but a pesticide-intensive GMO apple, produced through a risky manipulation of RNA, doesn’t deserve a place on our grocery shelves, much less in the agriculture hall of fame.

Read more important information here:  http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27376.cfm