Loss on passing Prop37 LabelGMOs...may be a 'gift in disguise'

[Mudwoman]

I've been thinking about our narrow loss on passing Prop37 LabelGMOs...

The 'loss' may be a gift in disguise. If Prop37 had passed, Monsanto would have tied it up in court immediately. The State of CA is in no financial position to carry on a long protracted court battle with Monsanto and their ilk.

But with the loss, we consumers / grassroots activists are totally FREE to BOYCOTT the No on Prop37 companies and their health food brand subsidiaries. Here's the list on No on Prop 37 contributors: https://bit.ly/YKuCVE Print it out, because it may not stay on-line at the LA Times.

Here's a link to all the HEALTH FOOD BRANDS owned by those same No on Prop37 contributors: https://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/why-would-a-company-with-an-organic-food-brand-oppose-proposition-37

If we REFUSE to PURCHASE their GE/ GMO products plus avoid their "clean" products, we will force those companies to pay attention to us and 'change their ways.' GE / GMO food labeling WILL happen. Better yet, let's force those products totally off our lands and out of the food production stream!

Love this graphic from LabelGMOs Hollywood: "Grassroots Naturally Resistant to RoundUp"

[Peacetown Jonathan]

Well said!

I feel there are important lessons to learn from this camapign, and will be posting by thoughts on that tomorrow.

But I agree that there has been "an unmasking of the corporate villains."

For those of us interested in withholding our money from the companies who spent their tax-deductive dollars opposing our right to know, some of the brands that surprised me, which I will endeavor to not buy in the future, include:

Naked Juice (Pepsi)
Oswalla Juice
Kashi and Corn Flakes
actually the list is frighteningly long.

One thing we each can do is next time you go to Trader joe's ask for the manager and request that they label their own branded products no GMO. They say they have no GMNO in Trader Joe brands (which I buy a ton of), but let's get them to label it!

[The A Team]

Thank You
And may I add from PANNA:
As the dust settles on California’s historic Proposition 37 fight to require labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food, we want to say thank you — and keep on.

These last months we have been inspired at key moments by the tens of thousands of you across the country who donated time or money to passing the nation’s first GE labeling law. The pesticide and processed food industries outspent us 5-to-1 in California and still barely won. More to the point, in losing this battle, we made major progress along several fronts:

Over 4.2 million Californians stood strong against the barrage of misleading paid advertisements from industry.
We succeeded in raising the profile of the issue, who's behind it and what's at stake in our food system. We all deserve congratulations for that!
Across the nation bigger races were run and happily won. But for us — and for many of you — the prospect of finally labeling GE foods in the U.S. commanded our full attention. It was a battle worth fighting.

Tomorrow we turn to keeping new pesticide-promoting GE seeds out of the ground; we lend our new strength to allies in other states like Washington, Connecticut and Minnesota who are taking on GE labeling efforts; we rachet up pressure on FDA for a national label. But today we give thanks.

Onward!:dcngbrocli:
Illegitimi non carborundum


I've been thinking about our narrow loss on passing Prop37 LabelGMOs...

The 'loss' may be a gift in disguise. If Prop37 had passed, Monsanto would have tied it up in court immediately. The State of CA is in no financial position to carry on a long protracted court battle with Monsanto and their ilk.

But with the loss, we consumers / grassroots activists are totally FREE to BOYCOTT the No on Prop37 companies and their health food brand subsidiaries. Here's the list on No on Prop 37 contributors: https://bit.ly/YKuCVE Print it out, because it may not stay on-line at the LA Times.

Here's a link to all the HEALTH FOOD BRANDS owned by those same No on Prop37 contributors: https://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/why-would-a-company-with-an-organic-food-brand-oppose-proposition-37

If we REFUSE to PURCHASE their GE/ GMO products plus avoid their "clean" products, we will force those companies to pay attention to us and 'change their ways.' GE / GMO food labeling WILL happen. Better yet, let's force those products totally off our lands and out of the food production stream!

Love this graphic from LabelGMOs Hollywood: "Grassroots Naturally Resistant to RoundUp"

[fafner]

My correspondent says this was found on Facebook, so I need verification.




Well said!

I feel there are important lessons to learn from this camapign, and will be posting by thoughts on that tomorrow.

But I agree that there has been "an unmasking of the corporate villains."

For those of us interested in withholding our money from the companies who spent their tax-deductive dollars opposing our right to know, some of the brands that surprised me, which I will endeavor to not buy in the future, include:

Naked Juice (Pepsi)
Oswalla Juice
Kashi and Corn Flakes
actually the list is frighteningly long.

One thing we each can do is next time you go to Trader joe's ask for the manager and request that they label their own branded products no GMO. They say they have no GMNO in Trader Joe brands (which I buy a ton of), but let's get them to label it!

[Mudwoman]

Jonathan,

I'm not nearly as confident about the quality of Trader Joe's offerings as you are, though I am a weekly TJ's shopper. I read their labels with great care.

Suspect many of their products contain GE/GMO foods, so your idea of asking the managers of our local stores to have their TJ products labeled is EXCELLENT. (Even better write a letter and file a copy in your records or repost it here. Post TJ's replies, too. We can create an on-line record of these exchanges.)

Many, many, many items Trader Joe's sells contain 'Canola' oil (because it's subsidized and super cheap), which even if grown organically, is still an GE product and questionable for our health.

My hubby and I have done extensive research on this topic when Canola was first introduced into our food system. Would have to track down some authoritative articles if you want me to quote sources, though anyone concerned about canola can do on-line research yourself.

I wrote a letter to Trader Joe's management on this issue, asking if they would seriously consider changing the oils used to healthier ones like olive oil and seed oils. The written response I got was dismissive and rude. I'll see if I can find the letters.

Anyway, that old adage "Buyer Beware" holds true for food, too.


Well said!

I feel there are important lessons to learn from this campaign, and will be posting by thoughts on that tomorrow.

One thing we each can do is next time you go to Trader joe's ask for the manager and request that they label their own branded products no GMO. They say they have no GMNO in Trader Joe brands (which I buy a ton of), but let's get them to label it!

[The A Team]

If you follow the money to defeat prop 37 (from Organic Consumers Assn) here it goes:
& please pardon my rant:stoptheinsane:


:

<tbody>
COMPANY

DONATION
ORGANIC/NATURAL BRANDS


Pepsi-Co
$1,716,300


Tostito's Organic
Tropicana Organic
Naked Juice




Coca-Cola
$1,164,400


Odwalla
Honest Tea




ConAgra
$1,076,700


Orville Redenbacher's Organic
Hunt's Organic
Alexia Foods
Lightlife




Kellogg's
$632,500


Keebler Organic
Kellogg's Organic
Bear Naked
Kashi
Morningstar Farms
Wholesome & Hearty




J.M Smucker
$388,000


Santa Cruz Organics
Smucker's Organic Peanut Butter
R.W. Knudsen
Natural Brew
Tenderleaf Tea




Hormel Foods
$374,300


Natural Choice




General Mills
$519,401


Small Planet Foods

Cascadian Farm
Muir Glen
Gold Medal Organic
Larabar





Bimbo Bakeries*

$338,300


Earth Grains




DelMonte
$189,975


DelMonte brand organic pickles
DelMonte brand organic canned tomato products
Fruit Naturals




Hershey
$395,100


Dagoba




Dean Foods



$253,950


White Wave/Silk
Horizon
Organic Cow of Vermont




Campbell Soup Co.
$70,455


V8 Organic
Prego Organic
Swanson's Organic
Pace Organic
Campbell's Organic
Bolthouse Farms





McCormick
$248,200


McCormick Organic Spices



</tbody>

*Bimbo Bakeries also donated an additional $96,833 through its Sara Lee subsidiary.

That said here are some places to find which foods and many other products are actually true & healthy:


https://www.goodguide.com/
https://www.cornucopia.org/

https://www.organicconsumers.org/

I put zero faith in trader joe's they have rated worse than safeway on many products usually 1 star out of 5 for food sourcing and ingredients.


I have asked Community Market and Oliver's to have food maps that show which companies own the food and the source of ingredients, I encourage others to do so. The thing is SRCM already has all this info, they just don't share it clearly.
The best I've found I can do is grow as much of my own food as possible, supplement from local farmer's markets and buy at the stores from local companies I know like Straus, Redwood Hill Farm, etc.





My correspondent says this was found on Facebook, so I need verification.

[Mudwoman]

Fafner,

I spoke to an Oliver's market employee about these labels a couple of years ago. The ORGANIC and CONVENTIONAL produce stickers are used. The GMO stickers were not being used at that time. Perhaps because only a few GE/GMO produce items are on the market.

The produce to beware of is:
~ sweet Corn (sold at Walmarts)
~ Hawaiian Papaya (most is GE/GMO) // Mexican papaya is not
~ some Zucchini (buy local organic)
~ Watch out for Apples, the powers that be are attempting to get GE/GMO apples on the market (buy local organic)

In our food stream, other highly likely GE/GMO food products are anything made with:
~ Corn (tamales, tortillas, corn chips, cornstarch, corn oil and many additives including lecithin and citric acid)
~ Soy (edamame beans, seitan, soy milk, soy cheeses, soy oil, tofu, veggie burgers, etc.)
~ any foods with Cottonseed oil, since cotton's a major GMO crop
~ and the really BIG one: SUGAR, most of sugar is from GE sugar beets (think candy, cookies, soft drinks, ice cream, desserts, cornsyrup, imitation maple syrups, fruit syrups, etc.)

The list goes on and on....(see attachment of invisible GMO ingredients)



My correspondent says this was found on Facebook, so I need verification.

[spam1]

Does anyone remember prop 65? After it passed, instead of reducing hazardous materials, virtually every store and business simply posted the standard prop 65 warning. And why not? There's severe financial liability to not post --and have some product found that might be hazardous; and since every store posts the warning, there's no consequence to posting.

So the real gift of prop 37 losing is the gift of not seeing "Prop 37 warning: this product may contain some GMO content" on every single product in the store. After all, if all products have the warning, there's no consequence. Since the stores as well as the distributors and the producers were all liable under the prop, what store would want to take a chance with an unlabeled product. Even if the producer said it was GMO free, how is the store to know that some aspect of the ingredients didn't have GMO? So, the freakeonomics version of prop 37 dictates all products will have warnings.


Thank You
And may I add from PANNA:
As the dust settles on California’s historic Proposition 37 fight to require labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food, we want to say thank you — and keep on.

These last months we have been inspired at key moments by the tens of thousands of you across the country who donated time or money to passing the nation’s first GE labeling law. The pesticide and processed food industries outspent us 5-to-1 in California and still barely won. More to the point, in losing this battle, we made major progress along several fronts:

Over 4.2 million Californians stood strong against the barrage of misleading paid advertisements from industry.
We succeeded in raising the profile of the issue, who's behind it and what's at stake in our food system. We all deserve congratulations for that!
Across the nation bigger races were run and happily won. But for us — and for many of you — the prospect of finally labeling GE foods in the U.S. commanded our full attention. It was a battle worth fighting.

Tomorrow we turn to keeping new pesticide-promoting GE seeds out of the ground; we lend our new strength to allies in other states like Washington, Connecticut and Minnesota who are taking on GE labeling efforts; we rachet up pressure on FDA for a national label. But today we give thanks.

Onward!:dcngbrocli:
Illegitimi non carborundum

[spam1]

Just ordered an item for a local store: here's what shows up at the bottom of the email; what a waste of bits.

<tbody>



Attention: Required California Prop 65 Warning
California Prop 65 requires us to inform you that lighting, accessories, furniture and other products sold here may contain lead, lead compounds and other chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects, or other reproductive harm.




</tbody>