Saturday, March 2, 2013

Some Prop 37 Talk

Here is a real conundrum for us.. we like to eat organic, we like to eat healthy.. we like to eat companies that are NON-GMO certified and that obviously care about the environment and the people on it, some of these companies we've recently found out are owned by "parent companies" who spent millions of dollars to down Prop 37.

What is prop 37? Quickly, it's the bill on the last California ballot basically called the California Right to Know GMO labelling initiative. Those pesky citizens in California think it's their right to know what is being put in their food that they put into their bodies! The nerve! Naturally (means nothing on a food label), these large companies don't want people to know about their GMOs because it might cut their profit and they claim 0 studies show that GMOs are harmful to humans. Correlation not causality they sing daily.

Anyway..

According to the Organic Consumers Association some of our ex-favorite brands like: Alexia, Bear Naked, Cascadian Farm, Hunt's Organic, Kashi, Larabar, Muir Glen, Naked Juice, Odwalla, RW Knudsen and Silk are all owned by companies that spent over 250k alone to defeat prop 37.

That list is particularly heartbreaking to me because Cascadian Farm, Larabar, Muir Glen and even Odwalla had been solid purchases for us. RW Knudsen made a spritzer that we enjoyed and Silk made Kayla's favorite type of almond milk. Instead, we're going to have to look elsewhere.

We took the time to write to some of the companies on their facebook walls, and I think they must have expected some sort of backlash because they were very prepared and professional in their responses. Some of the companies are still going through NON-GMO certification even with their parent company spending hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars fighting Prop 37.

It's disheartening to have to stop purchasing from a company because of a choice their parent company makes. We don't have to stop and I get that.. but if we continue to support the smaller company in the end it helps their parent company. It gives them more $, it gives them benefits, it gives them power. That's the last thing I want.. for several food companies to dominate the market for profit only and not consider the environment or their consumers. That's the biggest shame we can make to ourselves and our future.

If you'd like to learn more about prop 37 please click here.

P.S. Monsanto spent the most vs. prop 37 (shocking) at over $8 million. So much for those commercials they pump out about caring about people.

This 11-year old serves Monsanto. You have 5 minutes and care about something? Check it out.


Nice try Monsanto. I'll believe the kid.