Certified organic, certified humane, Non-GMO Project verified, BPA-free… It seems that these days, when you pick up a natural food item, it’s covered in a veritable plethora of labels. And one more has just joined the party: Glyphosate Residue Free, a certification launched by the Detox Project in March.

Of course, it’s no surprise that of all of the synthetic chemicals used in agriculture, glyphosate would be targeted. In 2015, the World Health Organization wrote that glyphosate was a “probable” human carcinogen, and the herbicide is so omnipresent that glyphosate residue has been detected in everything from breakfast cereal to fresh fruits and vegetables. In April, nearly a third of over 3,000 food products tested by Canada’s food regulator contained glyphosate residue; the FDA, meanwhile, quietly resumed glyphosate testing in June after the “special assignment” to this end, launched last year, was halted in November.

“We go down to the lowest possible limits of lab detection,” explains project director Henry Rowlands of the new certification, which also requires that any new brands be certified three times in the first year of certification and at least twice a year for every subsequent year. “If we find any trace of glyphosate above the limit of detection, then we don’t certify.”

Almost 200 brands have already reached out to be certified, approximately 80 percent of which, according to project director Henry Rowlands, are certified USDA organic. Most of the remaining 20 percent are Non-GMO Project Verified. And here’s where the problem lies.

Glyphosate is an herbicide, which means that it kills plants – unless, of course, that plant was grown from a genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant seed, such as the corn, soy, canola, alfalfa, or sugar beet seeds developed by Monsanto to resist the company’s proprietary glyphosate-based Roundup. Since Non-GMO Project Verified items, by their very definition, cannot use these GMO seeds (and USDA organic items can use neither these seeds nor any synthetic pesticides at all), any USDA organic or Non-GMO Project Verified item should be in the clear.

And yet Rowlands alleges that the problem of glyphosate residue contamination is widespread – even in USDA certified organic food. Of the items that have undergone testing by the project so far, only five brands have been certified as being completely free of glyphosate residue.

How is Glyphosate Residue Getting on Organic Food?

Glyphosate contamination in organic food is certainly puzzling, explains Mark Kastel, co-founder of organic watchdog group the Cornucopia Institute. After all, if glyphosate were applied as an herbicide to a plant not designed to resist it, that plant “would be dead.”

And while testing for glyphosate isn’t common in organic commerce, testing for GMO traits is.

“People aren’t going to say, ‘Here’s some genetically engineered glyphosate-sprayed corn or soybeans, and I’m gonna sneak it through as organic – mwa ha ha,” says Kastel. “They’re going to get caught, not because people are testing for glyphosate, but people are testing for the GMO resistance.”

Unfortunately, applying glyphosate as an herbicide is not the only way that the chemical can get into our food supply. Not only are these chemicals persistent in our environment, down to soil and rainwater, but there are three clear ways in which a food not treated with glyphosate could still test positive for glyphosate residue.

1. Spray Drift

Organic farmers do not treat their crops with glyphosate, but they can’t control what their neighbors do. The law requires buffer zones to separate organic crops from treated crops – something that Kastel notes is “sadly the responsibility of organic farmers” but that rule “does a pretty good job” of protecting these crops from contamination.

However, “spray drift” can and does occur, contaminating organic crops with trace amounts of glyphosate. Contamination in this case would have to be minimal.

“If you get spray drift, you have evidence of damage, because if it lands on any plant that’s not glyphosate resistant, it’s gonna kill it all,” says Kastel. “No farmer is going to market an organic crop that accidentally got sprayed, because their crop’s gonna be dead.”

2. Pollination

It’s no coincidence that two of the five companies that the Detox Project has certified so far are honey-based, and 20 percent of the companies currently applying for the certification make honey.

“Those pesky little critters just will not respect our fence lines and property lines,” jokes Kastel.

Jokes aside, glyphosate contamination of honey is a huge problem in the United States. Last year, an FDA chemist and a colleague from the University of Iowa not only found that some honey samples contained glyphosate residues to the tune of 653 parts per billion (10 times the European limit), but another FDA researcher shared in an internal email revealed through a Freedom of Information Act request that, “It is difficult to find blank honey that does not contain residue.”

Bees regularly forage two and up to nine miles from the hive, and the widespread use of glyphosate throughout the United States makes it difficult – nearly impossible – to create a large enough perimeter for bees to forage without encountering the chemical. As a result, nearly all American honey samples have been tainted to some degree with glyphosate residue, and companies like Heavenly Organics, which sources its honey from the remote forests of India, have good incentive to hold the Glyphosate Residue Free certification.

3. Problems in the Supply Chain

On the domestic level, contamination most frequently occurs when conventional crops and organic crops come into contact with one another, especially in the case of cereal grains like wheat and oats which, even when they are not genetically modified to withstand glyphosate, are frequently sprayed with the chemical to dry them out in preparation for harvest.

“Maybe somebody didn’t clean the combine or the semi-truck out, and there was a little bit of the previous load in there,” says Kastel, who notes that the amount of glyphosate residue in this case would be quite minimal.

When organic companies turn to international imports, there is even more room for error. In May, a load of 36 million pounds of soybeans and maize arrived in the United States from Turkey with an organic label, even though the cereals were later proven to be conventional; and Rowlands notes that a California energy bar got a rude awakening when the Detox Project discovered that the USDA cinnamon that they were importing was actually very high in glyphosate.

Is Another Label Really Necessary?

In all three of these scenarios, the amount of glyphosate residue present on a product would tend to be minimal: while not ideal, this doesn’t point to a widespread glyphosate contamination issue.

But Rowlands alleges that the problem is bigger than this. He claims that there are “consistent levels of specific pesticides in USDA organic products” due to a lack of regular, correct testing.

“I really don’t want to attack organic by bringing out results that show how much or how little glyphosate is in USDA organic; I’m sure other people will do that,” he says. “All I can say is that it’s definitely an issue, and I’m not just talking about spray drift.”

But Lunder says that she hasn’t “seen data suggesting that there’s a widespread problem.”

“There is certainly drift, and there are certainly issues where synthetic pesticides are detected on organic food due to bins or processing facilities, but the tricky thing there is that it kind of comes and goes,” she says. “Those things are episodic.”

To devote a new label just to glyphosate residue is to contribute to the widespread “label fatigue” that Kastel notes has become common in industry lexicon and may even add to consumer confusion. For example, many shoppers don’t realize that certified organic products are, by definition, non-GMO, leading some brands to certify their products both USDA organic and Non-GMO Project Verified and prompting California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), the nation’s first organic certification agency, to launch the campaign, “Organic is non-GMO and more.”

“It creates this kind of haze that consumers have to cut through,” says Kastel.

EWG scientist Sonya Lunder also notes that while specific labels such as this one offer “a very clear and verifiable claim,” they don’t address other aspects of the food. Certification of a food devoid of glyphosate residue is all well and good, but what of the other synthetic chemicals that the food could be tainted with or the fact that organic food has been proven in peer-reviewed studies to be more nutritious than conventional?

“This would be an example of a single-purpose label that somebody would then have to be savvy enough to read in context of another,” she adds, asking, “Is it better to have an organic product or a glyphosate-residue free product?”

This is the important question, especially given the fact that these two designations should be synonymous. While evidence so far does not point to glyphosate contamination being a widespread issue, it is still an issue, and glyphosate is a risky chemical to play games with.

“Generally with carcinogens it’s the fact that you get exposure long-term over the lifetime, and that’s what causes the risk,” explains Lunder, who also says that the EWG wrote a response letter to the California Prop 65 program in June noting that the established safe exposure level for glyphosate should be lowered.

But a new label is a Band-Aid on the problem. Our real goal should be to force USDA organic to fulfill its promises with regards to synthetic chemicals, something we all can agree on.

“I have really supported organic all along,” Rowlands says. “I come from organic farming in Wales. I would prefer, obviously, if USDA organic would be the gold standard, and would push organic standards in the right direction, but I think it’s doing the opposite.”

“This is a symptom of the organic label not living up to its value proposition,” says Kastel. “Some of that has to do with industry participants, and a lot of it has to do with the USDA’s execution of what Congress has charged them to do.”

Kastel notes that the USDA organic certification still “comes the closest” to being the healthiest choice for consumers, but there is work to do.

Until organic comes through for us, glyphosate is yet another thing we as consumers may have to monitor for ourselves. And, says Kastel, “We all have to be engaged in banning dangerous chemicals from our environment.”

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The post Do We Really Need Another Food Label? A Closer Look at ‘Glyphosate Residue Free’ appeared first on EcoSalon.

So, a lot of stuff happened over this busy holiday weekend. One thing that we particularly love? The March Against Monsanto.

This March Against Monsanto footage comes from Tucson, Arizona. The march occurred on May 23, 2015. Was there a march in your area? If so, share the footage with us or link in a comment below.

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The post 2015’s March Against Monsanto Was a Success [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

Genetically modified food is a hot button issue. But state labeling bills keep failing to pass. Could it be that we’re not as informed about the issue as we think? 

While Oregon is still counting ballots from the vote earlier this month that was favored to win, Colorado’s GMO labeling ballot initiative lost by a landslide. Much of that has to do with the millions of dollars spent by Big Food and Ag to defeat the measure. But we can’t blame them entirely, can we?

A few weeks ago while shopping at my local farmers market, I overheard a conversation that stopped me in my tracks:

Woman: Are these avocados genetically modified?

Vendor: No, ma’am, they’re certified organic. See the sign?

Woman: Yes, but how do I know they’re not GMO? There’s so much genetically modified food out there.

At this point, I politely butted in and told the confused woman that for one, there are no genetically modified avocados commercially available, and second, the organic certification ensure customers that whatever food they’re buying is not genetically modified. The seller looked relieved but the woman became even more confused and challenged my response: “Why should I believe that there are no GMO avocados? Basically everything we eat is GMO.”

I knew it was a losing battle, so I took my organic avocados and suggested she spend some time researching it. But I couldn’t get the conversation out of my head. It reminded me of another chat I had with an acquaintance several years ago. She has celiac disease, the condition that makes digesting gluten somewhat of a nightmare. She casually told me the reason she developed the disease was likely due to all the genetically modified wheat. Which, I gently told her, doesn’t actually exist. She also refused to believe me, so I changed the subject, not wanting to press the issue.

In Jeremy Seifert’s award winning film, “GMO OMG”, he polls random people about what GMOs are. Jimmy Kimmel recently conducted a similar stunt, and the results are funny but also really sad because they illustrate that not only do Americans have no idea what they’re eating, they don’t really seem to care very much. They may say they want to avoid eating GMOs with firm resolve, but when it comes down to explaining in the simplest terms what a GMO is, most people are stumped, confused and misinformed.

But if we really want “the right to know” what’s in our food, we have to be better informed. We should know the most common culprits for GMOs (soy, corn, canola, sugar beets, cottonseed oil, meat, eggs, dairy). We should also know which foods are generally safe, like whole, unprocessed foods, like avocados, organic or not.

It’s also probably in our best interest to not lambast Monsanto ad nauseum, even though the company is hegemonic and largely responsible for genetically modified food and the herbicide (Roundup) most often used on the crops. But it’s not the only company producing GMO seeds. Others, like Syngenta, Dow, Dupont and Bayer CropScience are creating numerous genetically modified seeds and companion pesticides and herbicides that threaten our food, health and environment. To localize our frustration on one company can prevent us from seeing the damage these other companies are causing until it’s too late.

We can’t assume that illuminati-affiliated evil overlords are producing all of our food. Victimization can be crippling. We do still have choices – lots of them. And if we want to see GMO labeling ballot initiatives pass, we have to peer past the fear-mongering of sites like Natural News and Foodbabe just as much as we have to look past the Big Food and Ag companies telling us their products are perfectly safe, sustainable and environmentally sound.

Fifty years ago we really could be misinformed. A lot of that cluelessness has led us to this point in the first place. We’ve given corporations too much wiggle room, and now they’re intent on taking even more. But we’re too connected now to be misinformed. There’s too much at stake. Do we want to be actively engaged in deciding what type of future our children will inherit or do we want to play Words with Friends?

A revolution doesn’t have to be an uprising. It can be a slow shift over time, successful mostly as a result of our spending power. But we tend to look at revolution like other things that are healthy for us – like that juicer sitting in the cabinet. It’s right there. We know it has the power to change our lives, but all we can think about is the hassle of taking it all apart, cleaning it out and then putting it back together. But now more than ever, we need to do what we can to get informed on the issue of genetically modified food. Then, we need to vote for labeling every time we can and be able to talk with our friends and family about this issue. It’s everyone’s right to know and everyone’s responsibility.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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The post Do You Really Know Enough About Genetically Modified Food? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Jim Carrey can’t be contained. He’s the container, of course. Actor, comedian, author and honorary founder of GATE (the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment) pretty much blew everyone away with his recent commencement address for the Maharishi University of Management’s 2014 graduating class.

Showing his not-so-subtle spiritual side, Carrey demonstrated that critics be damned (“Dumb and Dumber To”), he is exactly where he wants to be, which is as his friend and teacher Eckhart Tolle would say: here now. It’s a whole trip we don’t have time to get into right now, but let’s just say the video is particularly moving no matter what your religious or spiritual preferences may be. He certainly plants a seed. “Will that seed have a chance to take root? Or will I be sued by Monsanto, and forced to use their seed,” he quipped. I suppose if we’re where Carrey suggests, that doesn’t really matter anymore anyway.

Take a look, and if you are at all invested in any form of media or entertainment, do also swing on over to the GATE website for some inspiration.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Forget picketing. If you really want to make companies change their ways, you’ll turn to stock divestment.

How big of an impact are fossil fuels having on climate change? Big enough for Stanford University to divest close to $19 billion worth of stock in coal-mining companies. The announcement came just after the White House released an 840-page report on climate change earlier this week. It makes Stanford the first major university to divest its fossil fuel funds. But not the only one.

According to the New York Times, the university said that the stock divestment move was in accordance with its guidelines that allow the school’s trustees to consider “whether ‘corporate policies or practices create substantial social injury’ when choosing investments.” The university has removed companies “whose principal business is coal” from their investment portfolio.

The move involves close to 100 companies around the world that depend on coal extraction as their core source of revenue. “Not all of those companies are in the university’s investment portfolio, whose structure is private,” Stanford’s associate vice president for communications, Lisa Lapin, told the Times. And over all, the university’s coal holdings represent “a small fraction of its endowment.”

“But a small percentage is still a substantial amount of money,” Ms. Lapin added.

Stanford’s decision now leads the way in a stock divestment movement actively happening on approximately 300 university campuses, reports the Times. “At least 11 small universities have elected to remove fossil-fuel stocks from their endowments, but none approaches Stanford’s prestige or national influence.  Tuesday’s decision seems likely to increase the pressure on other major universities to follow suit.”

Stanford “knows the havoc that climate change creates around our planet,” Bill McKibben, the president and co-founder of the environmental group 350.org, said in a statement. “Other forward-looking and internationally minded institutions will follow, I’m sure.”

The anti-GMO movement is utilizing stock divestment as well. A recent video released by the faceless organization, Organic Spies, calls for consumers to petition mutual funds managers to drop Monsanto from their portfolios. “Who owns Monsanto stock?” The video asks. “You do. The time is now for Fidelity, Vanguard and State Street, who each own billions of dollars in Monsanto stock, to dump it.”

Friday May 9^th is being dubbed the “National Day of Action” to divest Monsanto stocks. Groups including the Cornucopia Institute, Food Democracy Now! and the Institute for Responsible Technology are all supporting the campaign. Protests will be held at Fidelity locations across the country.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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The post Is Stock Divestment the New Activism? Fossil Fuels and GMO Stocks Losing Value appeared first on EcoSalon.

Ad agencies often work both sides of the spectrum, creating campaigns for the greenest companies as well as the biggest polluters.

While there are some advertising agencies that carefully select their clients based on a certain vision, like social good or environmental friendliness, most simply follow the money. What else but financial motivation could lead to a single agency crafting advertising campaigns for both Monsanto and one of its biggest detractors – Greenpeace?

Let’s take a look at five of the biggest advertising agencies handling some of the world’s top clients, noting the good – campaigns that work to protect the environment or promote social welfare, and the bad – ads for companies that tend to be irresponsible.

Leo Burnett

Leo Burnett’s mission statement focuses on the effects that its advertisements can have on the world at large. “Creativity has the power to transform human behavior. This is the core belief of what we call HumanKind. It’s not about advertising or brand propositions or selling products. It’s about people and purpose. It’s an approach to marketing that serves true human needs, not the other way around. That’s why everything we do for brands is designed with a human purpose in mind… A brand with a true HumanKind purpose can change the world.”

    The Good

• WWF’s Earth Hour Campaign – Leo Burnett won Best International PR Campaign at the Cannes Lions in 2009 for its work with WWF for Earth Hour. The agency set a goal of reaching over 1 billion people across 50+ nations, and managed to turn Earth Hour into the largest social movement in history.
• Amnesty International’s Tyrannybook – Leo Burnett’s Lisbon, Portugal office created a campaign based on a social network dedicated to naming and shaming the world leaders who violate human rights.

    The Questionable

• McDonalds  – Leo Burnett is one of three agencies currently working on international campaigns for the fast-food giant.  While McDonald’s isn’t an egregious polluter or human rights violator, they’re not exactly promoting health and environmental responsibility either.
• Proctor & Gamble – The world’s largest producer of consumer packaged goods, Proctor & Gamble is aggressively greening its operations. However, its product range is full of junk food, toxic artificial fragrances and other products that aren’t exactly eco-friendly, so whether this account belongs under “Good” or “Questionable” is anybody’s guess.

R&R Partners

The CEO of R&R Partners, a Las Vegas, Nevada-based advertising agency, was also an adviser to President Obama’s 2008 campaign. But Billy Vassiliadis’ partner at that same agency, Pete Ernaut, is a staunch Republican. The combination has created a political monster of sorts – a message machine that pits one side against the other in a fight wherein, for R&R’s bottom line at least, there is no loser. Maybe that explains how they can simultaneously promote both human rights and “clean coal.” Tellingly, their “philosophy” reads simply, “We just love to win. Almost as much as we hate to lose.” Their most successful campaign is the now-infamous “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.”

The Good

• Human Rights Campaign – Working to establish civil rights protection for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community in Nevada, the HRC’s advertisements are managed by R&R Partners.
• Flip the Script Anti-Bullying Campaign – This campaign encourages teens to “flip the script” on bullying by pledging to speak out and address the problem in their own schools and communities. The campaign was inspired by the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, a victim of cyber-bullying.

    The Questionable

• The Clean Coal Campaign – R&R is the agency responsible for the entire ‘Clean Coal’ spin on the polluting, health-draining coal mining industry. Funded by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), which includes big mining and utility companies like Peabody Energy, the multi-million-dollar campaign spreads disinformation about the effects of coal.
•  Utility and mining companies galore – R&R handles advertising campaigns for BP America, Couer D’Alene Mining, Johnson Utilities, the Nevada Mining Association, Newmont Mining and Ridgeway Oil.

BBDO

The “Most Awarded Agency Network in the World” for 5 consecutive years, BBDO is one of the biggest players in the industry with an extensive list of clients including PepsiCo, FedEx, Chevrolet and Nike. They’re the creative folks behind those super-weird Skittles “Taste the Rainbow” ads. BBDO is an international conglomerate with individual agencies located on nearly every continent.

    The Good

• General Electric’s Ecomagination Campaign – BBDO New York spearheaded the interactive ads for GE’s Ecomagination, a portfolio of eco-friendly innovations that meet environmental challenges while also driving economic growth.
• Doppelganger Human to Canine Pairing Software – BBDO is responsible for a fun campaign for Pedigree, Doppelganger. The Doppelganger website connects homeless dogs to their human “doubles” using face-matching software.
• PETA – Say what you will about this controversy-loving animal rights organization, but at least we know that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is looking out for the non-human creatures of the world. BBDO actually aligned with PETA to create an internal awareness program that advocates for the humane treatment of animals in the advertising industry, winning a PETA award for its efforts.
• Greenpeace – BBDO Moscow produced a series of ads for Greenpeace called “Do You Know What You Eat?” The ads are a direct challenge to Monsanto, advocating the labeling of genetically modified ingredients.

    The Questionable

• ExxonMobil – Are the conscious, world-improving campaigns that BBDO produces canceled out by its involvement with one of the world’s most notorious polluters? In November 2011, BBDO won the bulk of ExxonMobil’s global creative business including the management of its corporate image. It’s a highly profitable account that will inevitably require some creative spin and damage control.
• Monsanto – Interestingly, in addition to the Greenpeace ads, BBDO has produced a number of ads for Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Roundup has been found to kill human cells and seriously damage the health of all of those animals that PETA cares so much about.

Ogilvy & Mather

With an agency this big, perhaps there’s always bound to be some overlap between smart, conscious advertisements and promotions for some of the world’s most frighteningly unscrupulous corporations. Ogilvy & Mather has 450 offices in 120 countries with more than 18,000 employees and helps craft public personas for companies like American Express, Ford, IBM and Unilever.

    The Good

•  Greenpeace – Ogilvy & Mather has spearheaded a number of campaigns for this renowned environmental organization including “Save Our Seas,” “Disposable Forests,” and a heartstring-tugging ad depicting sinking polar bears in place of glaciers in the Arctic.
• Hopenhagen.org – This global initiative to support climate change action at Copenhagen in 2009 was created for the United Nations, in the hopes of creating a movement. While we all know how little was actually achieved at that summit, the campaign was quite striking.

    The Questionable

• Monsanto – In the past, Ogilvy & Mather has created ads for the Monsanto-owned Equal and NutraSweet artificial sweeteners. Granted, the ads were produced by a small Ogilvy & Mather office in the Philippines, and sweetener ads are not quite the same as promoting the agricultural monopoly’s ads for genetically modified foods and toxic Roundup herbicide. But it’s still Monsanto.
• Nestle – Ogilvy & Mather handles international marketing for Nestle, a brand mostly known for its slave-labor chocolate. Nestle also produces bottled water by exploiting and monopolizing pristine springs in rural communities. The company’s pumping has significantly added aquifers in a number of cities including Mecosta, Michigan.

Draftfcb

Another one of the world’s largest advertising networks, Draftfcb is perhaps best known for its many fast food and junk food advertisements for brands like Oreo, KFC and Taco Bell. It also handles the promotions for a number of massive pharmaceutical companies like Merck, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.

    The Good

• The Shelter Pet Project – Created for the Ad Council in partnership with the Humane Society of the United States and Maddie’s Fund, this campaign aims to encourage the adoption of pets in shelters.

    The Questionable

• Dow – How can anyone make a notorious polluter look good? Draftfcb is charged with that daunting task, and has produced a number of advertisements that attempt to brand Dow as a scientific innovator. Dow Chemical is responsible for toxic environmental pollution in a number of communities such as Midland, Michigan, where rivers downstream of its plant are contaminated with chlorinated furans and dioxins. Plus, Dow has refused to take any responsibility for the health and environmental effects of the deadly Bhopal gas disaster after acquiring the Union Carbide company.
• Merck – This pharmaceutical company may just balance itself out in the long run. Though it recently had to pay a $1.5 million penalty for violations of federal environmental laws like the Clean Air Act, and paid a $20 million penalty for polluting drinking water in Philadelphia, it’s also gaining a lot of positive attention for its efforts to green itself internally and make its operations more sustainable.
• Pfizer – This pharmaceutical giant has come under fire for keeping its HIV/AIDS-related drugs out of reach of the world’s poor, violating the Clean Air Act and allegedly testing its drugs on poor, critically ill Nigerian children.
• Nestle – Draftfcb is another ad agency handling ads for this food and bottled water producer.

The post Ad Agency Awareness: Who’s Conscious About Their Clients? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Who are the big corporations really looking out for?

In an increasingly consumer-aware world, it’s a necessity for the big labels and corporations to be participating in sustainable as well as ethical initiatives. But when you look behind the scenes (as we did with The Body Shop this week), how clean is their act? Here are 7 posts from our archives that peek behind the curtain to ask what the big names are really up to.

Eating your politics isn’t for everyone and it’s easy to go overboard with the food thing (see the Portlandia episode featuring Colin, the chicken), but there are some companies with politics so against everything I believe in that I simply can’t give them my money. Remember back in the day when Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan started donating to Operation Rescue and a bunch of doctors who provided abortions were killed? Chick-fil-A is one of these companies for me.

Jesus, Enough With The Chicken

Mega packaged food companies and investor groups buy successful organic brands that were started by visionaries who began the companies with a commitment to the organic ideal of family farms, a clean environment, and simple food without additives. But often, when the big companies buy in, this ideal flies out the window.

I’ve chosen ten of the more prominent organic and natural brands to survey. I’m comparing the stories they tell their customers to the likely (and often proven) reality, based on who owns them. Most of the company websites don’t clearly state that a huge global conglomerate runs them, but that’s when the chart above comes in handy.

The Stories (And Money) Behind 10 Of Your Favorite Organic Brands

Brazil had a ban on planting of GM seeds in effect since 1998, but it was one of the only holdouts in South America. Brazil’s neighbor, Argentina, was a large producer of GM soy. Monsanto encouraged farmers in Brazil to plant its “roundup ready” GM soybeans that were illegally imported from Argentina in defiance of the ban. Monsanto knew that once its seeds were in the ground they would be able to make a case for intellectual property rights. Armed with their patents, the company’s lawyers went to the courts to solidify its new Brazilian market.

By arguing that Brazil was impeding its legal right to collect royalties on its intellectual property (the seeds), Monsanto made its case and GM soy was legalized in Brazil in 2003. Still, the essential companion to Monsanto’s Roundup-ready GM soy, the herbicide Roundup, was not legal yet. In 2004, a congressman from southern Brazil pushed through a series of federal amendments legalizing the herbicide. This same congressman purchased a large farm from Monsanto for one-third of the market price. The Brazilian government is investigating the congressman for corruption.

Soy Powerful: How Monsanto Pushes Genetically Modified Soybeans On Unwilling Consumers

KFC vs. PETA: Flaming Silly to Monumentally Daft

As we’ve noted before, there’s nothing that PETA enjoys more than the smell of roasting Kentucky Fried Chicken – the company, that is. Their latest attempts to haul this fast food corporation over the coals? Firstly, PETA wants Indianapolis fire trucks to sign an advertising deal, the same way the fire department has with the finger-lickin’ folk – and secondly, a 5.5 foot tall statue of a gory chicken on crutches, artfully monikered “KFC Cripples Chickens.”

In both cases, local officials denied the requests, citing inappropriate context and legislation and, in the former case, the fact that “advertising on a fire truck could even lead motorists to believe a truck heading for an emergency was just performing a stunt.” Quite.

Oh For PETA’s Sake: 7 (More) Crazy Stunts

After putting its less well-capitalized and often more quirkily authentic brethren out of business, sucking the soul out of the neighborhood coffee house, and commoditizing coffee to the point where consumers couldn’t see the difference between a $4.00 latte at Starbucks and a $2.00 latte from McDonalds, Starbucks was hurting. The company’s latest strategy involves “Unbranding” a few select stores by taking away the Starbuck’s look and logo and instead naming the stores after the neighborhoods that surround them. They are also sending spotters into independently owned shops and copying the look and feel, as well as sourcing the décor items locally. If it works, they’ll roll it out all over the country. Oh Goody. This one makes me want to choke on my home-brewed, fair trade, organic blend.

Marketing Authenticity: 7 Corporations Riding On The Coattails Of A Movement

According to Change.org, opening Walmarts in areas known as “food deserts” is really just a band-aid that masks the underlying causes of poverty and inequality. This is true and there’s no doubt it is a complicated issue. Similarly, many commenters pointed out in this article by Marc Gunther that the entire model of how Walmart builds and spreads across the landscape is flawed. Again, indisputably true.

But Walmart isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Is it possible to look at some of their initiatives in a positive light?

The Mixed Grocery Bag That Is Walmart

It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. -Henry Ford

25 Quotes On Who Really Runs America

Images: stublog, iheartmacaroni, Nicola Romagna, Monochrome, ginnerobot, SqueakyMarmot and Mike138.

The post From The Vault: It’s A Corporate Thing appeared first on EcoSalon.

The last time we wrote about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), three big stories were in play: GM Alfalfa, GM Sugar Beets, and GM Salmon. Now, there’s more.

On January 27^th, the USDA announced its approval of the planting of GM alfalfa without restrictions. This was a reversal from what organic industry leaders thought was going to happen, but it seems that the industry had pretty much given up on getting GM Alfalfa banned outright. They were reluctantly supporting coexistence as the next best alternative. Agriculture experts say President Obama pushed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in the direction of an approval without restrictions in order to appear more business-friendly to the biotech industry. Whatever the rumor mill, coexistence could have imposed some important restrictions, like isolation of GMO crops from non-GMO crops to prevent contamination. Yet, even that met with failure.

You might think the flowering little clover plant is nothing but a poetic prop in a Willa Cather novel, but alfalfa is a crop crucial to the organic industry because it serves as the main feed for organic dairy cows. Contamination at feed level can work its way all through the organic food chain to milk, yogurt, ice cream, cheese, sour cream, and even packaged products that contain milk solids, potentially making the USDA organic label meaningless.

Unfortunately, no matter what, contamination is likely even if precautions are taken because alfalfa is so widely planted in the U.S. and because it’s pollinated by busy bees. And it is a losing battle: Separating the crops doesn’t prevent worker bees from flying up to five miles to pollinate (and possibly contaminate non-GM alfalfa with GM material). For an organic dairy farmer’s take on the matter, read this statement from Albert Straus of Straus Family Creamery. He has been fighting the contamination of his feed sources by GMO’S ever since 2006, when he first discovered contamination in organic corn.

On the heels of the alfalfa decision, on February 4, the USDA announced it would partially deregulate GM Sugar beets.

What partial deregulation means in this case is that the beets are approved until the environmental impact statement can be completed in May 2012. GM sugar beets have already been planted in the US (and ripped out) after Federal Judge Jeffrey White ruled in December that a proper environmental report hadn’t been conducted. According to the New York Times, in this latest action, the USDA essentially overruled the judge by approving the replanting of the crop at the request of Monsanto and KWS, a German seed company.

As if that weren’t enough to be depressed by, there’s more: The FDA is poised to approve the first genetically modified animal for human consumption, GM salmon. Watch this video for a sadly entertaining take on why this is an awful idea. Many Congress people are working to stop this because neither they nor their constituents want to eat GM salmon.

The problem with these “developments” in food and crop science is that we’ll never get a full and accurate picture of the safety or health risks of GMOs as long as the developers of the technology control the information that is available.

As the salmon video points out, the research studies regarding safety are often done by the developers themselves. An op-ed in Sunday’s LA Times by scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Union for Concerned Scientists details how the bio-tech industry restricts independent research into bio-tech crops by withholding seeds and ultimately chooses who does the research through heavy funding of university agriculture departments.

Non GMO activists are often attacked for being “irresponsible”, withholding progress for mankind, and generally living in the dark ages but a healthy skepticism about industry-funded research is not irresponsible. What is irresponsible is our government’s ability to approve unproven technology that could be dangerous. Until we have better assurance through independent research that GMO’s are safe for the environment, us, and will not contaminate non-GMO’S, we should oppose them on principle.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Go to Food Democracy Now and join the campaign against GMO’S. Tell Obama to overrule the USDA.

2. Give money to the Center for Food Safety’s fight to stop GMO alfalfa.

3. Sign the petition to stop GMO Salmon.

4. Learn about and support the non-GMO Project.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Erin Collins

The post The Green Plate: Genetically Modified Outrageous appeared first on EcoSalon.

The GMO industry is like an out-of-control forest fire. Just when you think one section is tamped down, another spark is fanned into flames.

Just like a forest fire, there are many fronts in this fight, making it difficult to keep track of current developments.

Then there are the weapons at the fighters’ disposal. On one side of the battle, we have the equivalent of 5 gallon water buckets in the form of activist group petitions, email newsletters, and calls to Congressional representatives. On the other side, there are air tankers in the form of money and the influence it can buy (even to the point of influencing foreign governments). Increasingly, there’s something much more insidious than that on the side of GMOs – I’m going to go ahead and call it espionage.

Earlier this month, The Guardian reported that recently released WikiLeaks cables documented how diplomats in the Bush Administration had attempted to influence The Vatican to voice its support for biotech crops. Other leaks showed how embassy officials in France had urged the U.S government to retaliate, through unfavorable trade policies, against countries in the EU that refused to approve GMO crops.

Equally shocking, an article in The Nation last fall about Blackwater (the private security firm that has come under fire for its role in Iraq regarding massacres of innocent civilians, and has since rebranded) detailed how Monsanto hired Total Intelligence Solutions (a firm owned by Blackwater founder and owner Erik Prince) to infiltrate and spy on anti-GMO groups. The article states that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008-09 to act as an intelligence arm of Monsanto to survey the Internet activity of activist groups and protect the Monsanto brand. Internal emails obtained by The Nation talked about how individuals from Total Intelligence could join activist groups (especially animal rights activists) and report back on group activities.

Now that we know what we’re up against weapon-wise, here’s a rundown of current hot spots in GMOs:

GE Alfalfa: The most urgent issue right now is the imminent approval of GE alfalfa by the USDA. Read about how GE alfalfa will jeopardize organic food and farmers here. Take Action here. You have until February 16^th.

GE Salmon: The FDA decision on GE salmon is stalled so the fight has moved to California. With the feds unwilling to listen to consumer groups, these issues are increasingly up to the states. In the event that GE salmon is approved, California has a bill that would require any GE salmon sold in California to be labeled. Take action here.

GE Sugar Beets: In early December, Judge Jeffrey White, a Federal Judge in Northern California ordered genetically modified sugar beets to be pulled from the ground and destroyed after determining that the beets were approved by the Agriculture Department and planted illegally without proper environmental review. Now the USDA and the sugar industry are predicting a shortage of sugar, but it’s a shortage they manufactured. When Judge White originally ruled that the USDA had violated environmental laws by not conducting a full review before approving the crop in 2005 he warned that future beet harvests would likely need to rely on conventional seed. According to the New York Times, the judge expressed irritation that the USDA and Monsanto waited almost a year after his ruling to enact interim measures to ensure farmers would have enough conventional seed. No action to take on this one right now, but definitely an issue to watch.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Olibac

The post The Green Plate: Flare-Ups In Frankenfood appeared first on EcoSalon.

Monsanto has been making headlines again. It seems Monsanto, the agri-biotech mega-corp, is a bad seed indeed.

Where to start? First off, sugar beets.

This super sweet variety beet is used in 44 percent of all U.S. sugar production. After the USDA approved planting Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet seeds genetically altered to withstand Roundup herbicide sprays in 2008, 95 percent of beet seeds planted the following year were Monsanto seeds. Wha?

Then earlier this fall, a federal judge ruled against the USDA’s approval citing lack of adequate studies surrounding the GM seeds. The result? A report estimates that total U.S. sugar production will be reduced by 20 percent in 2011, due to a shortage of conventional seed availability.

Once again, Monsanto’s monopolizing of seed in this country back-fires (surprise!) resulting in a genuine shortage of real and diverse seed supplies. (Aren’t you glad the corporation has been suing farmers for storing seed?)

You would think by now, the USDA and farmers alike might be suspect of any Roundup Ready seed given the latest news: Monsanto is now paying farmers to use its competitors’ herbicides in conjunction with Roundup. Why? Because, as many warned might happen, new “super weeds” have developed a resistance to Roundup due to its repeated use, making Roundup no longer effective. Good thing our farmers have Roundup Ready GM seeds – not!

Kudos to Europeans for attempting to anticipate disaster before it hits. Earlier this month, Europeans gathered over a million signatures in the hopes of putting a stop to genetically modified (GM) crop cultivation in the EU through on online charter organized by Greenpeace and Avaaz. Unfortunately, while it is required by law that the European Commission re-consider approvals with so many signatures, it won’t put a freeze on GM cultivation during deliberation.

Image: kevinpoh

The post Monsanto News Roundup: A Bad Seed appeared first on EcoSalon.