Change the World Wednesday – 22nd Jan

One of the last photos taken the previous weekend.

Not an auspicious start to CTWW, unfortunately, I have toothache and have had it since Saturday, off to the dentist this morning being his first day open since the public holiday on Monday. And, even worse, Cloro has done a bunk. I haven’t seen him since Sunday when we had a play in the yard late in the evening. So today is the third day. I am hoping that he is just being a randy Tom cat, and will come home when he has satisfied his cravings and demand breakfast.

It’s wonderful to be able to welcome Small back after her hiatus and she has presented us with the first CTWW of 2014. Happy New Year Small.

This post I am going to translate into Portuguese as I go, because it affects us here in Brazil too; and hopefully this post will bring some awareness.

Click on the banner for the full post

The challenge.

FIRST …Please visit Organic Consumers Association and read “Tell the FDA: No Watered-Down, Voluntary Federal GMO Labeling Rules!”. For additional information on this topic, scroll to the bottom of the page for links. You can also visit this PAGE for recent articles. Read through the information to lean about the GMO issue.

Por favor, visitar os enlaces em cima, e ler as informações (são em inglês)

THEN … If you live in the US and agree, sign the petition.

OR … If you don’t live in the US, please find out what your country’s policies are concerning GMO food and labeling. Are they accepted? If so, must they be labeled? If they aren’t accepted in your country, are there any other food health concerns which you are facing?

OU …

Sé você não mora na USA, por favor busca infromações sobre as politicos sobre OGM (Organismos geneticamente modificados) comidas a clasificação dos OGMs As etiquetas. São aceitaveis? É o lei? Sé não são aceitaveis, tem mais coisa sobre a saúde da comida que está enfrentando?

Here in Brazil the labeling issue is almost unknown, despite the fact that Brazil has encompassed the GMO philosophy totally.

Aqui no Brasil o problema com etiquetas está quasi não conhecido, apesar de fato que Brasil rodeado a filósofia dos OGMs totalmente.

“About 91 percent of Brazil’s soybean crop, which is likely to be the largest in the world when it is harvested early next year, has been planted with GMO seeds.”

“Nearly 71 percent of the first of two annual corn crops planted in Brazil has been planted with genetically modified seeds”

Aproxidamente 91% da soja que provavalmente vai ser o maior no mundo quando está coletado o proximo ano, está creado com OGM sementes.

Quasi 71% dos primeiro dois coletas do milho estão com OGM sementes. – Reuters

Brazil is also growing GMO  cotton.

Brasil etsá tambem criando OGM algodão.

“Brazil is the second largest producer of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the world, behind only the United States.” – Epoch Times

Brasil está a segundo maior produtor de organismos geneticamente modificado no mundo, só atras os USA.

Labeling:

“The sale of GMOs was banned in 1998 due to a lawsuit by the Brazilian Institute for Consumer Defense. But in 2003, the government again permitted the marketing of GM products with regulations. In the same year, the Brazilian government issued the Labeling Decree (4680/2003), which requires producers and sellers to identify on food packaging products that contain more than 1 percent GM raw materials.” – Epoch Times

A venda de OGMs era banido in 1998 por caso de um processo pelo o Instituto para Defesa do Consumidor. Mas em 2003, o governo de novo permitiu a venda de OGM produtos com regulamento. No mesmo ano, o governo brasileiro decreto a requeramento para vendadores e produtores identifica produtos que contem 1% de materias OGM.

I have never seen labeling that says the contents contain GMOs.

Eu nunca viu etiquetas com essa tipo de aviso.

Studies:

Surprisingly, there are only eight studies in Brazil relating to the safety of GMOs; none of these studies approve GMOs as safe.

“Coelho asked, “What studies provided the basis for the permission of CTNBio for commercial release of GMOs if in the sample [studies] analyzed by us all claim that such foods are not safe?”” – Epoch Times

Coelho perguntou, “O que pesquesas provicenciou o base para a permissão do CTNBio para o lancamento comercial quando todos as pesquesas falam que essas comidas não são seguro.”

All official reports are labeled as confidential.

Todos os relatorios são confidenciais.

So there is an issue in Brazil, but the public are not aware of the pitfalls, they are not informed; and worse generally the education of the people is not sufficient for them to make them aware of the dangers.

Então temos um problema em Brasil, mas o povo não estão ciente dos perigos. eles não estão informados; e pior generalmente a educação do povo não é suficiente para fazem eles ciente dos perigos.

Esse é um assunto para tudo mundo.

NB: Sé você é brasileiro, estamos muito interessado ne sua opinão, deixar uma comment, e não criticar meu português, por favor, eu sei está ruim.

UPDATE:

Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to get these labeling requirements passed?

It’s because the issue is no longer statewide, it’s federal, and there are some big guns out there lying in ambush, read on…

Industry’s Secret Plan to Get the Feds to Kill GMO Labeling in Every State

By Michele Simon,

Internal documents from the Grocery Manufacturers Association reveal height of corporate chutzpah. Industry’s solution to GMO labeling is to: “Pursue statutory federal preemption which does not include a labeling requirement.”

With the disappointing results now in from I-522, the initiative in Washington State that would have required labeling of genetically-engineered food (aka GMOs), the looming question is, what’s next? At least for the junk food lobby, that answer in painfully clear: Stop this state-level movement at any cost. In today’s New York Times, Stephanie Strom reports on the dirty details contained in industry documents that I obtained from the Washington State attorney general’s office in the wake of a lawsuit brought against the Grocery Manufacturers Association for illegally concealing donors to the No on 522 campaign.

As I explained back in February, the food industry’s ultimate game plan to stop the bleeding in the state-by-state onslaught of GMO labeling efforts is to lobby for a weak federal law that simultaneously preempts or trumps any state-level policy. While we have known that industry would want to put an end to the public relations nightmare happening state by state, this document for the first time reveals the lobbyists’ specific strategy.

The details are even worse than I thought and give new meaning to the word chutzpah. I had predicted a federal compromise, where industry would agree to a weak form of labeling in exchange for stripping state authority. But what industry wants instead is to stop state laws to require labeling, while not giving up anything in return. In their own words, the game plan is to “pursue statutory federal preemption which does not include a labeling requirement.”

Let me repeat that: The junk food lobby’s “federal solution” is to make it illegal for states to pass laws requiring GMO labeling. Period. End of story.

Source: Food Democracy Now read more, because that’s not the end of this story.

Monday Moaning

“I-522 would have required that non-exempt foods and agricultural products offered for retail sale state “clearly and conspicuously” on the front of the package if they were genetically-engineered, contain or might have contained genetically-engineered ingredients.” – Wikipedia

Pepsi, Coke, Nestle top multi-million-dollar campaign against I-522

Pepsico, Coca-Cola and NestleUSA have each put up more than $1 million to defeat Washington’s Initiative 522, money  the food industry giants channeled through a “Defense of Brands Strategic Account,” set up by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) so companies would leave no footprints.

The initiative, which has drawn the ire of the food industry and agribusiness, would require the labeling of genetically modified food products, seeds and seed stocks sold on the shelves of Washington stores.

In yielding to a lawsuit brought by Attorney General Bob Ferguson, GMA agreed to list donors to what has become a $17.1 million campaign to defeat I-522.

The list is a who’s-who of America’s powerful food and agribusiness firms.  It was posted late Friday on the balky website of the state Public Disclosure Commission.

Coca-Cola and Pepsico have been here before.  The American Beverage Association, in 2010, spent $16.9 million on a TV blitz that rolled back a small soda pop-junk food tax enacted by the Washington Legislature in an effort to ease cuts in money to the state’s schools and colleges.

The “No on 522″ donations include: (read the full article for a comprehensive list of donors)

Source: SeattlePI read more.

Opinion:

These companies are fighting for their survival; in other words for their ability to make huge profits.

They know that if GMOs are a required part of labeling, they’ll lose a substantial part of their market because the public are daily becoming more discerning and more concerned with GMOs and their effect on our health.

We are at war, company profits vs the right to choose.

Personally, I have stopped knowingly buying any product that I even suspect contains GMOs, That includes Coca Cola or any soda, but not limited to.

The whole food industry is a minefield of horrors at our expense.

We deserve the right to know the path through this minefield, we deserve the right to protect ourselves from corporate greed.

The amount of money these corporations and companies have spent to defeat this labeling proposal is obscene, and shows how frightened they are of losing their precious profits. It also shows how blatantly ignorant they are of our health.

They don’t care!

Monday Moaning

Whoops… It’s Tuesday already.

Where’d Monday go?

What happened to Monday?

I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those weeks.

Still, we can have a Tuesday Moaning over coffee.

Food

We need it, the world is short of it. Companies and corporations are trying to get rich from it, and they don’t care if it’s healthy or not, just as long as the money rolls in.

They experiment with it; GMOs and the like, they try and control or dominate the market and nobody bleats or raises an eyebrow.

Nearly all the grain in the world is already compromised. I read yesterday of a farmer whose crop was banned because it was contaminated with GMOs, he was exporting to a country that, wisely, doesn’t accept them.

We read about the rush for biofuels creating shortages of the same plants that were once a food crop.

They want to GMOise or farm salmon, then shit happens…

This goes against nature. Nature has it’s protections in place and along comes man and tries to change it.

It won’t be too far in the future when all we can get is GMOised products. The thing that concerns me is that we don’t yet know what GMOs do to us and government organisations are being bought and sold on the idea that this is necessary in order to overcome the global shortages.

The companies and corporations bulldoze ahead, regardless; as long as there is a profit rainbow ahead. The governments don’t say boo, they don’t want to lose their funding from these bastards; they don’t care about you, their bottom line is money.

We, the people, need to stand up to this crap. Hurt these companies where it hurts most, the pocket.

We need to demand GMO labeling, so that we can make informed choices when we buy.

We need to educate the populace, who are kept in the dark through lack of information, or biased advertising.

We, the people have become sheep, we ‘just follow’ the flock, it doesn’t matter if we are pandering to the corporate wolves.

It has to stop!

And only you can stop it.

 

Change the World Wednesday – 20th Feb

Passionfruit juice, although I usually skip the decanter and serve straight from the blender, the advantage of living alone – image: Green Kitchen Stories

The year is marching on. It does so relentlessly.

The house has returned to normal, the dishes done after three attempts to clear the bench. BBQs do seem to make more than their share of dishes.

My passionfruit vines have produced more fruit. Tons of flowers, but so many failed to be pollinated. But there will be enough for a couple of big juices (2x ingredients- juice & sugar; does ice count as an ingredient?).

So, I had a good fridge clean out.

I must thank Small Footprints for the Monday Moaning post that got selected for mention-in-despatches last week, very much appreciated.

Click for the full post

On with this week’s challenge.

This week, buy only foods with 6 or fewer ingredients. Here’s a tip … shop the perimeter of the store rather than the center isles … you’ll find more options. Want to kick this challenge up even further? Be sure that high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils aren’t in the food you choose … they are really “bad for you” substances. And if you have access to the information, choose non-GMO foods.

I rarely buy prepared foods, sometimes a bottle of ketchup or my beloved Lea & Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce, which certainly have more than six ingredients. I have been known to slip the odd frozen lasagne in for the freezer. I like to have one on hand to heat in the oven if I arrive home late from work; who wants to begin cooking at 9pm?

I mainly buy meat, fish, etc and veges and cook them at home in preference to ready made stuff.

I don’t use cooking oil, rather I use banha (lard) and I prefer butter to margarine, although I have both in the house; the latter for convenience is used rarely.

HFCS and GMOs are on mylist of pet hates. It goes without saying that I have no ‘diet’, ‘light’, or ‘low cholesterol’ things in my house, therefore there is no aspartame either. I have in the past bought syrups to make cordial, but I have stopped that, because they have HFCS. The only drink that I buy now is agua com gas (sparkling mineral water). I refuse to buy water without gas, because that is ‘free’ from the tap in the kitchen via the freezer. So drinks like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, etc are also a no-no for me.

I am sure beer has more than six ingredients, but asking to give that up for an entire week would be like purgatory, and I’ve been a good boy, mostly.

Besides the weather here has been so hot and we’ve had no rain for more than a month.

So this challenge is not so much a challenge to me, more like my regular shopping.

Blogging right along, I’ll see you next week.

Monday Moaning

NB: The original post has been removed as the owner of the source website objected via a comment:

“I did not grant permission to reprint my article in full, so please change this to only be a snippet to my original piece. Thank you.”

In nine years of blogging I have never been chastised in this manner for combining with another site in the event of spreading important news this way, even though I credited his site as the source.

To the blogger, I apologise. I have removed the entire content to be safe. Had his comment been a little more pleasant I would have acceded to his request. I will, however, still thank him for the heads up on this issue.

Corporate Charlatans vs Super Heroes

The fight for labeling products is on. Proposition 37 is due for the vote.

See here how the two sides are shaping up. Who is for – Super Heroes, and who is against – Corporate Charlatans.

Image via Cornucopia – Click to enbiggenate

.

It makes me so mad that these corporations are putting $23bn into the campaign to fight product labeling; it just goes to show that they have a lot to hide from the public.

They are frightened that if we know the truth about the ingredients in their products that we will stop buying them.

It is the consumers’ right to know what is in any product.

My suggestion is, don’t wait for the labels, stop buying these brands NOW! Support the brands from Organic Heroes!

You can make a difference!

Head across to the Cornucopia Site and make your opinion known with your vote.

Monday Moaning

Hypocrisy

This post is about hypocrisy.

The governments of the world have taken it on their backs to warn people about the ills of smoking.

My question is, when are those same governments going to demand labeling for products that contain aspartame and HFCS?

 

 

This product contains ASPARTAME which can cause slower learning in children!

or…

This product contains HFCS which is a major cause of childhood obesity!

These and many other variants are possible.

Labeling

Demand product labeling, correct labeling, full labeling, listing all products or ingredients used.

It is time that manufacturers were forced to the the TRUTH!

.

We, the people need this information to make an informed choice!