U.S. Consumers Organize Massive Boycott Against Food Companies Refusing To Label GMOs

GMO labeling

Source: NaturalNews.com
Ethan A. Huff
August 4, 2016

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is organizing a nationwide boycott of all the companies that have been fighting against legitimate labeling laws for genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), and specifically those that favored the recently-passed S.764 legislation, a faux “labeling” scheme backed by Monsanto that further turns the lights out on labeling transparency.

The bill, which many are now referring to as the Monsanto “DARK” (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act 2.0, was signed into law by Barack Obama on July 29. It nullifies existing state-level labeling laws like those of Vermont that would have mandated printed labels for all food items containing GMOs, and replaces these laws with a nationwide QR barcode system that’s both confusing and discriminatory, not to mention completely ineffective.

Members of the powerful Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), which represents some 300 junk food and pesticide companies, helped ensure a victory for S.764, despite tens of thousands of calls and comments of opposition from members of the public. In response, OCA is now calling on all Americans to stand up and say no more, by promising not to buy products from the companies working overtime to keep people in the dark about what they’re eating.

What OCA is asking people to do specifically is to look for the new “Smart Label” QR codes – or what it has dubbed the “Mark of Monsanto” – on food products and, if present, to avoid purchasing those products, as well as any other products sold by that particular brand. Instead, consumers should look for products that bear a Certified Organic and/or Non-GMO Project Verified seal. Of course, the surest way to ensure that your food is truly GMO-free is to grow it yourself.

The only exception to this are healthy and organic “cheater” brands owned by parent companies that have contributed financially or politically to stopping mandatory GMO labeling. The traitor brands that consumers should avoid supporting, followed by their parent company names and financial contributions to fight GMO labeling, include:

• IZZE, Naked Juice, Simply Frito-Lay, Starbucks Frappuccino (PepsiCo: $8.8 million)
• Honest Tea, Odwalla, Keurig / Green Mountain Coffee (Coca-Cola: $5.5 million)
• Gerber Organic, Sweet Leaf Tea (Nestle: $3 million)
• Boca Burgers, Green and Black’s (Kraft / Mondelez: $3.9 million)
• Annie’s, Cascadian Farm, Larabar, Muir Glen (General Mills: $3.6 million)
• Alexia, Pam organic cooking sprays (ConAgra Foods: $2.6 million)
• Bear Naked, Gardenburger, Kashi, Morningstar Farms (Kellogg’s: $1.9 million)
• R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organics, Smuckers Organics (Smuckers: $1.5 million)
• Dagoba (Hershey’s: $1.6 million)
• Earthgrains bread (Bimbo Bakeries: $1 million)
• Simply Asia, Thai Kitchen (McCormick: $500,000)
• Applegate Farms (Hormel: $500,000)

OCA calls Obama out for betraying Americans by signing S.764 into law

Ronnie Cummins, international director of OCA, has also called Obama out for failing to deliver on his promise on the campaign trail to label GMOs. He wrote in a scathing indictment:

“Despite hundreds of thousands of signatures, phone calls and emails to the White House, President Obama on Friday, July 29, signed into law S.764, a bill that preempts Vermont’s GMO labeling law. The bill allows corporations to hide information about GMOs behind confusing QR electronic barcodes that more than a third of Americans can’t even read because they don’t have smart phones or reliable internet service.”

“It’s incomprehensible that Obama, who on the campaign trail promised to label GMOs, and who issued an executive order directing Congress not to preempt state laws, succumbed to industry pressure to betrayed [sic] the 90 percent of Americans who want GMOs labeled.”

OCA has also released a smartphone app that will help you identify which brands and products to avoid. It’s called “Buycott,” and it’s available both for the Apple iPhone and Google Android platforms.

Read More At: NaturalNews.com

Sources for this article include:

CommonDreams.org

Salsa3.SalsaLabs.com

OrganicConsumers.org

Truth-in-labeling Proponents Bombard White House With 250k Petition Signatures Demanding Obama Veto Bill That Strips Away Americans’ Right To Know About Which Foods Are Unnatural & Have Been Genetically Modified

GMO labeling
Source: NaturalNews.com
Ethan A.Huff
July 17, 2016

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the final stop for a controversial bill recently passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, that would scrap state laws like those of Vermont that mandate package labeling for foods that contain genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). And more than 250,000 advocates for truth-in-labeling are now petitioning Barack Obama to veto the legislation immediately, and honor the will of the people rather than corporations in this important matter.

S.764, also known as the “DARK” (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, is one of the latest efforts by the chemical food industry to keep Americans literally in the dark about what they’re purchasing and feeding to their families every time they go to the grocery store. It was also offered up as a federal solution to the problem of patchwork GMO labeling laws already enacted at the state level, but what it actually threatens to do is un-label GMOs, and make it more difficult for the average consumer to identify them.

On Friday, July 15, at 1 p.m., signatures collected at WhiteHouse.gov, ThePetitionSite.org, MoveOn.org and many other websites were hand-delivered to the White House demanding redress. Helping to spearhead the effort were the advocacy groups Organic Consumers Association, Center for Food Safety, Citizens for GMO Labeling, Consumers Union, Cornucopia Institute, Food Babe, Food Democracy Now, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, GMO Free USA, GMO Inside, Label GMOs, March Against Monsanto, Moms Across America, Occupy Monsanto, National Organic Coalition, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and Vermont Right to Know GMOs.

This coalition of 286 advocacy groups wrote a letter to Obama asking him to veto S.764 on the grounds that it won’t advance the cause of GMO labeling. S.764 is also overtly unconstitutional, as it overrides existing state laws that mandate GMO labeling on food packaging. Another major point of contention are the GMO exemptions in S.764, which account for as many as 99 percent of all GMOs currently used in food.

“The FDA argues that the bill may not lead to a single label, because of the inadequate definition adopted by the Senate,” the letter explains. “Even if the rules and regulations can be developed, S. 764 allows companies to conceal genetically engineered ingredient information behind QR Codes, websites or 800 numbers which would require consumers to have internet access and a smartphone to determine what’s in their food. This is confusing and discriminatory.”

Will Obama finally step up to the plate and support Americans’ right to know?

For a president who’s constantly nagging the country over issues of equality, it only seems reasonable that Obama would want to nullify S.764 and urge Congress to come up with a real GMO labeling bill that, I don’t know, involves actually labeling GMOs on food product packaging. S.764 is a Trojan Horse bill devised by the chemical lobby to further conceal GMOs in the American food supply, and it’s particularly offensive to poor people and minorities who lack the technological infrastructure necessary to identify GMOs under the mandates of S.764.

Remember, Obama promised on the campaign trail that his administration would “let folks know if their food has been genetically modified because Americans should know what they are buying.” All it would take for this to happen is a simple piece of legislation outlining what constitutes a bio-engineered ingredient, and how that ingredient is to be labeled. As is already the case in most other developed countries throughout the world, a simple package label stating “produced with genetic engineering” would suffice.

To learn more about how to grow your own GMO-free food at home, be sure to check out the amazing Vertical Garden Tower.

Read More At: NaturalNews.com

Dr. Mercola Interviews Ronnie Cummins On Genetically Modified Organisms [GMOs]

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/cur… Natural health expert and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola interviews Ronnie Cummins, founder of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), about the battle for GMO Transparency.