Our friends at Food and Water Watch have sponsored an entertaining and powerful new Yes on 37 video, featuring Danny DeVito, Bill Maher, Dave Matthews, Jillian Michaels, Kristen Bauer van Straten, Emily Deschanel, Kaitlin Olson, Glenn Howerton, John Cho, Michelle Michaela and KaDee Strickland poking fun at the ludicrous arguments against our right to know what’s in our food.
We’re excited to have them join millions of Californians in demanding the right to know what’s in our food, even if our “puny little heads would explode.”
Please enjoy, share and DONATE to help us get the truth out to California voters. Remember, as goes California, so goes the nation!
Paid for by Yes on 37 For Your Right to Know if Your Food Has Been Genetically Engineered – Supported by Consumer Advocates Makers of Organic Products and California Farmers, Major funding by Mercola Health Resources LLC and Organic Consumers Fund. 5940 College Ave, Suite F , Oakland, CA 94618, United States
IT’S not an exaggeration to say that almost everyone wants to see the labeling of genetically engineered materials contained in their food products. And on Nov. 6, in what’s unquestionably among the most important non-national votes this year, Californians will have the opportunity to make that happen — at least in theory — by weighing in on Proposition 37.
Prop 37’s language is clear on two points: it would require “labeling on raw or processed food offered for sale to consumers if made from plants or animals with genetic material changed in specified ways.” And it would prohibit marketing “such food, or other processed food, as ‘natural.’ ” (For now, let’s ignore the vast implications of the phrase “or other processed food,” lest we become overexcited, except to say that the literal interpretation of that sentence has the processed food manufacturers’ collective hair on fire.)
Polls show Prop 37 to be overwhelmingly popular: roughly 65 percent for to 20 percent against, with 15 percent undecided. Nationally, on the broader issue of labeling, in answer to the question of whether the Food and Drug Administration should require that “foods which have been genetically engineered or containing genetically engineered ingredients be labeled to indicate that,” a whopping 91 percent of voters say yes and 5 percent say no. This is as nonpartisan as an issue gets, and the polls haven’t changed much in the last couple of years.
Unsurprisingly, Big Food in general — and particularly companies like Monsanto that produce genetically engineered seeds and the ultraprofitable herbicides, pesticides and other materials that in theory make those seeds especially productive — have already thrown tens of millions of dollars into defeating Prop 37. On the other side is a relatively underfunded coalition led by California Right to Know, which collected the necessary million-plus (yes!) signatures to get the proposition on the ballot. Although television advertising has just begun and its advocates would never say so, at the moment the bill seems assured of passage. Excellent.
Sen. Boxer and Rep. De Fazio wrote a “Dear Colleague” letter which went public February 8th, urging U.S. legislators to support the labeling of GE foods. This is the first initiative of its kind in Congress and is a great opportunity to urge your Congressional representatives to sign on to the letter and support mandatory labeling!
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Please call or email your legislators over the next 2 weeks (close date is Wednesday February 29th) and ask them to support the labeling of GE salmon and foods. Please especially target the key individuals listed below if you are in their State or District..
“Cutting the Curd” gets political with Heather Squire, the coordinator for Occupy Wall Street‘s (#OWS ) food preparation and delivery. From washing dishes to feeding over 3,000 people in a single weekend, Heather explains how she and the food team in Zucotti Park have devised a large-scale food distribution system: The Peoples Kitchen.
Delving into another facet of the food justice movement in tandem with Occupy Wall Street is dairy farmer and activist Lorraine Lewandrowsky and fromager Tia Keenan. The group discusses cheese economics and the plight for more transparency (sic) which comes from more small dairies and less industrial farming and processing. Learn how you can help this movement, from volunteering to sending food supplies or attending the Occupy Big Food movement.
