Make you Fink on Friday

Coca Cola, Heinz And Other Major Food Companies Warn Climate Change Threatens Business

But as ThinkProgress noted at the time, the real story was not a guacamole shortage, but the emerging reality of doing business in a warming world. While politicians continue to bicker over whether or not climate change exists, companies now have no choice in the matter — they must acknowledge the science and the risk and disclose the reality of that risk to their investors’ pocketbooks. Whether that risk actually manifests itself is another matter, but the fact that companies are increasingly putting climate change on their threat lists speaks volumes to the severity of the problem.

Here are seven other big food companies that disclose to investors that climate change poses a threat to their products and bottom lines.

Read more on ClimateProgress

My source: Garry Rodgers Nature

Opinion:

Isn’t it nice, these big multinational companies are worried about their profits… the risk to their investor’s pocketbooks.

Bugger you and your health, this isn’t an issue for them.

I don’t care one iota about their investor’s pocketbooks, they can all go broke as far as I am concerned. These companies are pure greed at our expense.

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!

Deception, once again

This is not so much an eco question, but it is another example of how profits are put before people, how shops, businesses and companies deceive their customers.

Mislabelled fish slip into Europe’s menus

Fish often take a circuitous route before reaching our plate

We are all eating much more fish than we used to – but are we eating the fish we think we are?

Official figures show that global consumption of fish and seafood per person is rising steeply – but research also reveals that much of what gets sold turns out to be not as described on the packet.

Earlier this year Europe’s horsemeat scandal revealed how processed meat can get mislabelled in a complicated supply chain. That appears to be an issue with fish, too.

On a large scale, cheap fish is being substituted for expensive fish without the consumer knowing. Moreover, new varieties, never before consumed, are being detected in fish dishes.

Take a British national dish, for example: fish and chips. It is often thought to be the epitome of Britishness – “as British as fish and chips”, the saying goes.

But scientific testing reveals that the traditional cod or haddock and chips is often something else entirely. Research reveals that 7% of cod and haddock – the deep-fried staples of British fish and chips – actually turn out to be cheaper fish substituted to cut costs.

In the Republic of Ireland, a similar study of samples bought in Dublin restaurants, shops and supermarkets revealed that a quarter of products labelled as cod or haddock were in fact completely different species.

In the United States, a study showed that 25% of the fish served in restaurants in New York were not what they were said to be on the menu.

And in Europe, about a quarter to a third of fish products tested turned out to be not what was described on the packet or menu.

New species

Fish and chips: much-loved, but do you know where the fish came from?

The global industry transports large amounts of frozen fish around the world in containers, with China producing much of it. This means, for example, that one of the biggest points of entry for fish into the European Union is not a port at all – no wharves or boats or even water. It is Frankfurt airport.

Samples here and elsewhere across Europe are tested at the big Eurofins laboratory in Hamburg. Its Director of Scientific Development, Dr Bert Popping, said that tests were turning up types of fish which had never been in the food chain before.

“The authorities at the airport in Frankfurt have found some new species – species which have not been caught previously; fish species which have not previously entered the food chain; which have not previously been commercialised,” he said.

So researchers believe that there is large-scale deception going on when it comes to fish – cheap is being substituted for expensive, so deceiving the consumer and bumping up the profits of the deceiver.

Read more

Opinion:

One of the fish mentioned is the Vietnamese Pangasius

Big fish, lots of flesh

Nice pinky flesh, looks good enough to eat

It’s raised in the Mekong River Delta

The Mekong River is arguably Asia’s biggest cesspool!

The Mekong River comes from China, passes Burma, Laos, Cambodia with the delta in Vietnam collecting sewerage and industrial waste along its entire length.

Has your fish ‘n chips, or your fancy New York restaurant food been raised on Asian faeces?

This fish called, among other things, Panga has taken the world by storm. It’s cheap, it looks good, but is it healthy?

One report labels it ‘the latest abberation of globalisation’, another ‘Government pressured into removing Vietnamese panga from school canteens‘, and another ‘Don’t Eat this fish: Pangas (Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, White Catfish, Gray Sole)‘, yet another ‘I don’t know how someone came up with this one out but they’ve discovered that if they inject female Pangas with hormones made from the dehydrated urine of pregnant women, the female Pangas grow much quicker and produce eggs faster (one Panga can lay approximately 500,000 eggs at one time).’

The bottom line is making profits!

Update

Through a comment by ECOCRED, I found she had a very pertinent post on the same subject; Seafood: Fraud, Mis-labelling and Laundering

Monday Moaning

With the world’s population growing at an exponential rate, so too are the uses of nature’s resources and we are running out.

Are we looking at another case of the tail wagging the dog?

We are trying to stem the population growth rate by preventing births, when in fact the problem is we have achieved such medical breakthroughs that not enough people are dying. But, that’s a separate issue

To me the obvious problem is consumerism.

We have become such a consumer society that each day our hunger for ‘more’ and ‘new’ has become outrageous. Our hankering for the ‘lastest’, ‘biggest’ and ‘fastest’ has driven our utilisation of resources beyond the levels of sustainable.

As a society our ethos has to change.

The existing paradigm is not working.

We are giving our kids the wrong message, they give their kids an even worse message, the problem is exacerbated with every generation.

Read a great message on: Stiff Kitten’s Blog a definition of what we have become.

Think about the useless products that are created that people don't need. If you can't crack an egg, stay out of the kitchen

With each new product, we have production increases, more materials used, more pollution, more problems with transport, more and more we find ourselves in the predicament of how do we dispose of the extra rubbish generated. The trash is the packaging and the the advertising. The advertising is polluting our media and the internet, sign boards are polluting our vision, light is polluting our skies, so that we can’t even see the stars at night in the cities. Then there is the dilemma of the disposal of outdated products and worn out components.

Society has to change. We have got to control our cravings. Our mentality is totally screwed up.

The scale of consumerism is closely linked to corporate greed. The corporations want to make more money, so they make more products; to sell the products they have to brainwash the consumer into needing them. The cycle is vicious and never-ending.

It is essential that we tackle consumerism before population control. We have to get the dog back in control of its tail.

 

 

Monday Moaning

Greenwashing

Look, no paint!

I have written on this before, but that blog disappeared. But the latest move by Coca-Cola to ‘greenwash’ its product is a farce.

A can without paint.

How lame is that?

Of course the move is hailed as going green. But going green has nothing to do with it. Just think of the money the company will save, just think about the increase in profits, just think will that saving be passed on to the consumer?

Like shit it will!

Until they fix the problems INSIDE the can there is no way Coca-Cola can be considered ‘green,’ it will always be RED!

:: 1 – Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a product that is used to line metal (inc Aluminium) cans to prevent spoilage; that is among many other things like baby bottles, baby food cans, etc.

Coca-Cola has not denied when asked by Environment Working Group (EWG) in 2009, in fact they said nothing. Read the report.

:: 2 – The use of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) in place of sugar. Read the Accidental Hedonist about Why Coke uses High Fructose Corn Syrup. Here’s an extract:

“Some quick numbers, on why Coke would use HFCS over sugar.

Annual US Per capita consumption of Coke in servings: 411

People in the United States: 297,890,000

Servings of Coke in the US, per year: 122,432,790,000

How much a 5 cent cost increase in sweetner, per serving, would affect the bottom line of Coca Cola: $6,121,639,500″

That’s BILLIONS!

Then there’s this from Wikipedia: “The highly processed substance is more harmful to humans than regular sugar, contributing to weight gain by affecting normal appetite functions, and that in some foods HFCS may be a source of mercury, a known neurotoxin.”

Aspartame, a product initially used in chemical warfare

:: 3 – Coca-Cola Diet and Coca-Cola Zero, this is just wonderful, they is sweetened with aspartame, now recognised as a neurotoxin.

Check this quote: “During the Gulf War (not Iraq), ten thousand soldiers were victims of poisoning by Coca-Cola light. A Coca-Cola light é adoçada com aspartame. The Diet Coke is sweetened with aspartame. Durante os combates, os paletes com as latas ficavam expostas ao sol muito quente nessa região. During the fighting, the pallets with the cans were exposed to very hot sun in this region.

A partir de From 33°C 33 ° C , o aspartame se transforma em metanol (álcool metílico), muito tóxico, que, depois, se reduz a formaldeído (formol), ainda mais tóxico. , Aspartame turns into methanol (methyl alcohol), very toxic, which then reduces to formaldehyde (formalin), even more toxic. E o que acontece no estomago a 37° C? And what happens in the stomach at 37 ° C?

Aspartame was invented by Monsanto during chemical warfare.”

Chemical warfare, now isn’t that just ducky?

With global warming many other areas of the world are being exposed to high temperatures, doesn’t this ring alarm bells?

It doesn’t matter if the can has freakin’ polka dots, it’ll NEVER be green until these issues are addressed.

In the meantime, just keep feeding it to the kids so that Coca-Cola can continue to make a profit.

Greenwashing, Bah humbug!