Frito-Lay sued for labeling its GMO-filled snacks as “All Natural”
By Rady Ananda
Less than a year after Frito-Lay announced plans to make half their products without “any artificial or synthetic ingredients,” the $13 billion company was sued last week in federal court for fraudulently marketing the snacks that contain genetically modified ingredients.
Somehow, “artificial” and “synthetic” doesn’t include “genetically modified” in Frito’s mind.
In its April 2011 “Seed-to-Shelf” disclosure campaign, Frito-Lay promised to inform consumers about each individual snack’s ingredients, even setting up an app for smartphone users to swipe the product’s barcode and read about it. Ann Mukherjee, Frito-Lay’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, gushed:
PermalinkGlobal milk war ramps up as citizens face off with regulators
By Rady Ananda
The battle for food freedom intensifies across the planet as citizens assert their right to raw dairy products unadulterated by drugs and genetically modified ingredients – in the face of authorities seeking to restrict our food choices and to criminalize entrepreneurs who operate outside the monopolized factory food system.
The State of Maine recently sued farmer Dan Brown for selling food and milk without State licenses, despite a local law that permits it. “Blue Hill is one of five Maine towns to have passed the Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance,” explains Family Farm Defenders.
Behind the Foodborne Illness Numbers: Politics vs Science
By Rady Ananda
With all the milk raids over the past few years, you wouldn’t think that dairy is the safest type of food in the U.S., or that factory foods cause 70% of all foodborne illnesses – but that’s just what a new study by the University of Florida reveals. [1]
Using data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) [2] and other peer-reviewed sources covering the years 1999 thru 2008, UF sought to determine which pathogens on which foods pose the highest risk.
UF produced a Top 10 chart revealing that “complex” factory foods (defined as non-meat factory foods with a host of additives) account for a whopping 70% of 3.9 million annual foodborne illnesses (resulting in 765 deaths).
FDA Goons and the Second Amendment
By Rady Ananda
On July 16, the US Food and Drug Administration posted a libelous release linking a foodborne pathogen to a South Carolina raw dairy before confirming whether or not such a link existed. Two weeks later, the FDA determined that Tucker Adkins Dairy products were free of all contaminants but has still not issued a retraction at its webpage.
“How do we get our reputation back?”
That’s what Tommy and Carolyn Adkins asked the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF). Without a retraction at the web page, they can’t.
Rawesome Raided Again! Farmers and private food club owner arrested for selling fresh milk
By Rady Ananda
About 20 armed agents from various local, state and federal agencies, coordinated by the US Food and Drug Administration, staged another raid on fresh foods sold in California at a Ventura County farm and at Rawesome Foods, a private buying club providing members with unadulterated, unpasteurized milk and dairy products, among other items.
Healthy Family Farms owner Sharon Palmer and one of her employees, Eugenie Bloch, were arrested, along with James Stewart, the operator of Rawesome Foods located in Venice, California.
A protest is planned for tomorrow’s arraignment hearings (Thursday, August 4) at Los Angeles Superior Court, Criminal Justice Center, 210 W. Temple Street. Organizers are asking protesters to arrive at 7:45 am.
Controversial ag spending bill defunds local food systems, promotes meat monopoly
By Rady Ananda
Plutocrats aimed another weapon at the nation’s poor and at small and midsized farmers, this time thru the 2012 agriculture appropriations bill, H.R. 2112, which the House passed on June 16. The 82-page bill returns some federal spending to 2006 levels and others to 2008 levels.
Now being reviewed by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, the final version of HR 2112 will lay the terrain on which the 2012 Farm Bill will be crafted. The House Agriculture Committee began preparatory hearings on the 2012 Farm Bill this week, reports NSAC.
Key sections provide deep cuts to domestic food programs, threatening food banks, low-income seniors, women and children, and farmers markets supported by WIC vouchers issued thru the Women, Infants and Children program.
HR 2112 also made deep cuts to rural development, conservation and eco-remediation programs, and to local and regional food system development programs. This can be seen as nothing other than a punitive response to the growing local food sovereignty movement.
FDA claims power to seize food without evidence of contamination
By Rady Ananda
A few hours ago, the Food and Drug Administration declared it no longer needs credible evidence to seize food that may be contaminated. Ignoring the Fourth Amendment entirely, the FDA claims that based on mere suspicion that a food product has been contaminated or mislabeled, and that serious illness or death will result, it can hold the food for 30 days while it then looks for evidence. It claims this power under the Food Safety Modernization Act, which President Obama signed in January.
On May 4th, the FDA stated:
“Previously, the FDA’s ability to detain food products applied only when the agency had credible evidence that a food product presented was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.
So how’s the Food Patriot Act working out so far?
By Rady Ananda
Another armed food raid – this time on a company that provides nutritional supplements primarily for autism spectrum disorders and Alzheimer's disease – another day under the Food Safety Modernization Act. As predicted, the FSMA is turning out to be a deliberate plan to wipe out small (under a million dollars a year in sales) and medium-sized (under $10 million a year) producers of natural, wholesome food and supplements. This is what happens when corporations run governments. [Image]
The concept of “food safety” in corpogov-speak is really just food fascism, according to Vandana Shiva:
“Risk Assessment in the hands of centralized corruptible agencies is no protection for consumers as the disease and health epidemic in the U.S. linked to over processed, industrial foods show. Even while the U.S. is at the epicenter of the food related public health crises, the U.S. government is trying to export its Food laws which deregulate the industry and over regulate ordinary citizens and small enterprise. This deregulation of the big and toxic and over regulation of the small and ecological is at the core of Food Fascism.” [emphasis added]
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