|
Despite all the political rhetoric about America being the "Land of the Free" it is not the case with our foods. Contrary to what policy provides, you do have a right to know what you are paying for and what you are swallowing.
For years my own efforts have been challenging the policies that allow corporate secrets to outweigh consumers' rights to information about the foods they buy and feed to their families.
As increasing numbers of stories about the state of our food supply leak out of mainstream media, consumers are beginning to get a better sense of the global network of suppliers and factory conditions affecting what we eat.
Beyond wheat gluten from China and possible contaminants from other imports it raises the questions about what we are swallowing.
Here in America, consumers have risks associated with genetically altered foods that are not shared with the public. Contrary to popular belief these foods have never been tested for safety.
Many, including me, believe that consumers have a right to know what they are eating and are free to choose foods that are not altered. Because Congress works for corporate interests, these altered foods are not identified in the food supply in America. What that does is leave consumers in the dark.
Shopping without basic information about your foods may work well for the petrochemical companies who create these products, but it creates serious challenges for consumers trying to avoid them.
The good news is that the gmo or genetically modified organisms are they are often called are limited to a few of the most heavily subsidized crops including corn, soy, cotton, canola, potatoes, Hawaiian papaya and white rice.
The bad news is that nearly all the processed food in America contains some corn or soy. Because these are such big money makers, they have found their way into nearly all our foods in some form. Did you know that Vitamin C can be made from corn?
There are 176 items that I know of that can be made from corn and appear as something else on a label. That makes it very hard for consumers to buy foods without any guides. That's exactly why consumers who are tired of shopping in the dark will appreciate the new book by Andrew Kimbrell.
Andrew is Director of The Center for Food Safety in Washington. He has been among the earliest champions of consumer rights, especially with respect to GMOs. The book is a beautiful collection, of thoughtfully created sections offering consumers a real primer on the facts in a very understandable fashion.
It also includes resources for shopping, once you know what you need to know, about what's been done to the food. What good is knowing what's wrong with it, if you don't have power to affect a change? They wisely added a small pocket guide to take along when you shop.
The guide gives quick tip reminders about the big points, brands and products that are safe to eat in categories like the aisles. Look up baby foods, meats and fish, eggs and dairy, the whole nine yards in a 4x6 pocket guide. Truthfully, the guide alone is so up to date on the brands and foods to trust, that I'd pay the price of a paperback copy just for that. It will spare you the full Sherlock Holmes experience when all you want to do is grab stuff to make a few meals and stock the cabinets with basics.
The whole spirit of the book is meant to empower consumers, so that informed choices govern spending. If we have a free economy, product demand must be created by free choice, made by informed buyers. We have a rigged game right now; the petrochemical gang can sneak and tuck the ingredients anywhere and pretend they're the same while consumers play hide and seek with ingredients.
It does not need to be this way; many are leading by example and showing fair business is good business. The foreword written by Nell Newman captures the spirit and the facts of sustainable alternatives. Nell is the daughter of Paul Newman, founder of Newman's Own foods.
Nell took her love of Nature and environmentalism and married them when she co-founded the Organic brand of Newmans products in 1993. In the interest of full disclosure I should note a strong bias for the Newman family. Paul Newman was one of my earliest crushes on film and he never looked bad to me in the race car either.
Nell holds a soft spot in my heart for her participation in my film. We were given the opportunity to show the organic coffee growers, in rural Guatemala, who benefit from getting fair trade wages and employing sustainable practices. In terms of wholesale coffee prices the spread between fair trade and conventional is about 35 cents.
That money is much better spent to protect human health and the environment in the first place. Most American consumers would probably agree that 35 cents a pound should go to protection. After all coffee runs upward of $10.00 a pound for most of it so that really is pennies.
It makes you pretty angry to go into a Starbucks and pay for a pound for coffee, or a few bucks for a cup of barista brewed something, and know Starbucks refuses to pay an extra 35 cents a pound to buy fair trade. That's the kind of pork that's usually closer to Washington but it leads us to the same point.
You don't know what you're paying for in the food categories, without doing a lot of legwork on your own. Andrew Kimbrell's book is a wonderful way to change that. Vote your dollars, eat well and be healthy!
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
