{"id":2753,"date":"2012-08-23T10:52:21","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T14:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/?p=2753"},"modified":"2012-08-23T10:52:21","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T14:52:21","slug":"whats-in-your-food-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/comment\/whats-in-your-food-label\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s on your food label? Big Food Biz keeps you in the dark!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Just

Just say No to GMO’s in your shopping cart<\/p><\/div>\n

GMO labeling is a hot issue these days, especially in California, and did you know that the food industry giants like Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer Crop Science, Dow Agrosciences, BASF, Pepsico, Coca Cola, Kellogg’s, and General Mills are just a few of the corporations that contributed over $25 million dollars to fund ads against the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act (also known as Prop 37) on the November ballot in California.<\/p>\n

This data is taken from an article\u00a0Why the Food Industry Is Spending $25 Million To Keep You in the Dark<\/a><\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the biggest donors represent packaged-food manufacturers and the companies that manufacture GM seeds:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Monsanto: $4,208,000\u00a0<\/strong>
\nMonsanto is the world’s largest seed company, responsible for hazardous pesticides such as DDT and Agent Orange. The company is now lobbying for approval for a new variety of corn that resists 2,4-D, one of two defoliants that comprised Agent Orange.<\/p>\n

\u2022 DuPont: $4,025,200\u00a0<\/strong>
\nDuPont rakes in about $19 million every year from sales related to its genetically modified seeds, pesticides, and food-processing chemicals.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Bayer CropScience: $1,618,400<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Dow Agrosciences: $1,184,800<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 BASF: $1,642,300<\/strong>
\nThe world’s largest chemical company, BASF recently abandoned its attempts at marketing GMO crops in Europe, where consumer rejection of GMOs has kept them largely out of the food system, and relocated its plant-science division from Germany to Raleigh, North Carolina. There, the company is working with Monsanto to develop a drought-resistant corn and a strain of genetically modified wheat.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Syngenta: $821,300<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Council for Biotechnology Information: $375,000; Biotechnology Industry Organization: $250,000<\/strong>
\nBoth of these are trade groups that represent DuPont, Monsanto, Dow, and other companies that manufacture pesticides and the genetically modified seeds designed to withstand them.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Grocery Manufacturers Association: $375,000<\/strong>
\nThis is a trade group representing packaged-food manufacturers. In a recent speech to the American Soybean Association, the group’s president stated that defeating this ballot initiative was “the single highest priority for GMA this year.” This same group actively lobbied to defeat an amendment in the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2011 that would have banned the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol A from canned foods.<\/p>\n

Now for the food companies (ironically, many of these same companies have purchased organic brands in the past few decades, so in essence they’re supporting organic food\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0keeping customers in the dark about their conventional products):<\/p>\n

\u2022 Pepsico: $1,716,300<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Nestl\u00e9: $1,169,400<\/strong>
\nOwns Tribe Mediterranean Foods, which has a line of certified-organic hummus<\/p>\n

\u2022 Coca Cola: $1,164,400<\/strong>
\nOwns Odwalla, which manufacturers a line of certified-organic smoothies and juices<\/p>\n

\u2022 ConAgra Foods: $1,076,700<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Kellogg’s: $632,500<\/strong>
\nOwns Morningstar Farms veggie burgers and Kashi, its cereal and granola brand that\u00a0recently caught flack from customers<\/a>\u00a0for using GMO ingredients in products advertised as “natural”; Kashi does make some certified-organic cereals and Kellogg’s is even working to certify all Kashi products under the Non-GMO Project Verified label\u2014even as it tries to defeat GM labeling.<\/p>\n

\u2022 General Mills: $519,401.17
\n<\/strong>Owns the Cascadian Farms and Muir Glen organic brands<\/p>\n

\u2022 Hershey<\/strong>: $395,100<\/p>\n

\u2022 J.M. Smucker: $388,000<\/strong>
\nSells two types of certified-organic peanut butter<\/p>\n

\u2022 Hormel Foods: $374,300<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Ocean Spray: $301,553.21<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Dean Foods: $253,950<\/strong>
\nEven though it didn’t spend as much as other companies to defeat the bill, Dean Foods owns the nation’s two largest certified-organic dairy operations, Horizon Organic and Alta Dena.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Cargill: $202,229.36<\/strong>
\nA number of other big food companies have made smaller donations, including Del Monte, Sara Lee, Sunny Delight, Land O’ Lakes, and McCormick spices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GMO labeling is a hot issue these days, especially in California, and did you know that the food industry giants like Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer Crop Science, Dow Agrosciences, BASF, Pepsico, Coca Cola, Kellogg’s, and General Mills are just a few of the corporations that contributed over $25 million dollars to fund ads against the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act (also known as Prop 37) on the November ballot in California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1906,1905,1732,1919,1912,1913,1918,1908,1904,465,1901,1909,1915,1916,1914,1902,1903,1911,1917,1910,1920,1921,1907],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2755,"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions\/2755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cajunchefryan.rymocs.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}