As California Goes, So Goes the Nation. Say ByeBye to unlabeled GMO Foods

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Or at least that’s the hopes of millions of Californians who have issued a referendum on GMO that may change what America eats.

Calling it “The Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act”, the sponsors of the bill have gathered sufficient signatures to put this bill on the ballot in California, come November. Similar measures will appear in Vermont and Connecticut.

What will this mean for Americans should one or more of these ballot issues pass?

For one thing, as opposed to almost every other political issue for 2012, this one has broad bipartisan support.  89% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats agree that genetically altered foods should be labeled.

Please.  40 nations in Europe, + Brazil and even China already have approved such measures.  Only the US stands, as the big Agribusiness beast in the barn yard who favors profits over health.

Even though Obama promised in 2007 to get behind this issue, he has yet to make it a plank in his platform. Come on Barack.  This is a no-brainer.  Say NO to GMO.

Let’s just think about other countries.  In Europe, less than 5% of food sold contains GMO’s and that figure is shrinking.  In the US, the figure is 70% and growing.

What’s the difference?  You can trace it back to the shopping habits of Americans vs. the rest of the world.  While we live in a land of huge supermarkets, with wide aisles of processed foods, most of the rest of the world subsists using small neighborhood markets that sell meat, fish, produce and dairy that produced close to home.

grocery store carts

While they don’t call this other way “locavore”, it is.  Americans have to rely on Farmer’s Markets, CSA’s, and co-ops to get the freshness and simple whole foods that most of the rest of the world considers the normal way.

Where are the GMO’s?  Mostly in corn and soy products.  This means HFCS, or high fructose corn syrup which is hidden in 80% of processed foods, lots of so-called “healthy” soy products, canola oil, and animal feed for cattle, hogs, chickens, and farm-raised fish in CAFO’s (confined animal feeding operations).

So how hard is it for the everyday shopper to avoid GMO’s?  It depends on your shopping habits.  If you buy your food in boxes and packages with long lists of ingredients, you are getting GMO’s.  This means breakfast cereals, boxed dinners, sodas, fruit drinks, and anything that requires you to look closely at the label.

It also means conventionally raised meat and farm raised fish products.  These are all laced with GMO’s.

Why should you care? GMO’s are suspected in serious ailments including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, autism, food allergies.  This is a laundry list of health problems that could be helped by informing consumers about what’s in their foods so they could make more informed choices.

What we here at EENews say, and continue to say is – choose real food.  Buy food that doesn’t come in a box.  Choose grass fed meats, and organic dairy products, and pasture raised eggs.  Buy fresh produce, in season, as much organic as you can. Avoid grains because 90% of the grains offered in the market are GMO.

Because until rigorous human trials are done, we really don’t know the effects of GMO’s and I don’t know about you,  but I’m not wasting my precious life until the lab work is done.  I say NO to GMO.

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