With the election now behind us, it is a bummer to see that Prop 37, the proposal which would have required Genetically Modified foods to be labeled as such, failed in California.
It’s not surprising that this grass-roots-led effort failed, as corporate interests spent $45-50 million dollars to defeat it. Who had these deep pockets and the desire to keep consumers in the dark about what they are eating because GMO labeling might cut into their profits or require them to re-think how they source their ingredients? Let’s name some names: Monsanto, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, General Mills, DuPont, Bayer and other food and pesticide companies.
The best thing that came out of the Prop 37 fight is the rise in consumer awareness about what are GMOs and why we might want to have the choice to eat them or not. Too many of us now know the dangers and can choose to opt ourselves out of this massive experiment with the public health by trying to avoid GM contamination in conventional corn, soy, canola, sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya, zucchini, and yellow squash. Since these crops have almost 90% or higher saturation of GM seeds, and almost everything you see that contains these products or their derivatives will be Genetically Modified, these items should form the core of you “Always Buy Organic” shopping list.
Watch out for the hidden GM sources in packaged foods like high fructose corn syrup, Aspartame, and animal products from animals fed GM feed.
What can we do now to continue to work for at least labeling of GMOs?
We can encourage President Obama to replace the current head of the FDA, Michael Taylor, formerly of Monsanto, with someone less corporate-friendly without ties to Monsanto and their GMO-interests, and more concerned with the public health.
And we can continue to vote with our dollars by choosing non-GMO foods over GM foods.
