Real Food Freedom
Impending laws deny our freedom to know what’s in our food and what you can do to take action
America is very serious about the right to religious freedom. It’s time that we extend religious freedom to include the freedom of our belief systems regarding food.
My belief system is that we have a lot to learn from nature before destroying complex natural systems, including the incredible biodiversity in our soil. I do not believe that the very different digestive systems of pigs, which are similar to humans, chickens and multi-stomached cows, are magically eliminating the pesticides sprayed on their food. Most importantly, I believe that American citizens have the right to exercise their belief systems, particularly when it comes to their choice of food and how it is produced.
The industrial agriculture system believes in developing a technical superiority over nature, taming nature with manipulated genetics, which allows applying poison to food. About 90% of the genetically modified seed used worldwide is modified to allow food plants to be sprayed with poison. The spraying of this poison results in elimination of soil life forms. It also contaminates our air, water and soil with these new man-made poisons.
The vast majority of food grown with these poisons is corn and soybeans, and the majority of those grains are fed to animals whose milk, meat and eggs we eat. The belief system of industrial agriculture assumes that cows, pigs and chickens eating this poison-laced grain magically eliminate those poisons without passing them on to the people drinking the milk, or eating meat and eggs from those animals. They also believe they can mislead consumers by labeling milk produced with growth hormones and GMO feed as non-GMO milk.
I don’t believe it.
Congress is currently writing a new food labeling bill, which is based, we are told, on House Bill 4432, and which allows the milk produced by cows injected with hormones and fed GMOs to be labeled as non-GMO. People expect non-GMO labeling to confirm that the milk has been produced without GMOs.
Our Congress appears ready to actively mislead the American people.
We shouldn’t let them.
In December 2015 Snowville Creamery commissioned a national polling company, which found that 76% of Ohioans expected that a non-GMO milk label would mean that the cows were fed non-GMOs. Wouldn’t you?
Aren’t you shocked that “non-GMO” milk may come from cows injected with genetically engineered hormones?
Our government is taking public deception far beyond denying mandatory GMO labeling to actively mislead consumers. Please consider sending letters or calling the Washington, D.C. offices of both Ohio senators saying you will be disappointed if they pass a labeling law allowing milk from cows injected with hormones and fed GMOs to be labeled as non-GMO.
Senator Sherrod Brown: 202-224-2315; 200 North High St., Room 614, Columbus, Ohio 43215.
Senator Rob Portman: 202-224-3353; 312 Walnut St., Suite 3075 Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
The use of the bovine growth hormone in America’s drinking milk supply was effectively ended six years ago when American grocery stores refused to accept milk from dairy farmers who used the hormone, because their customers did not want to buy that milk. There is virtually no drinking milk in America today that is produced with the use of that hormone. Most milk is labeled to say that it is produced without that hormone.
If we don’t act, that may change.
Perhaps the grocery stores will prove, again, to be more responsive than our U.S. Congress to the mandate of consumers. Please consider sending a letter to your grocery stores telling them you will be disappointed if they sell milk labeled as non-GMO from cows injected with hormones and given GMO feed.
Kroger: 1014 Vine St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Meijer: 2929 Walker Ave. NW, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49544-9424
Giant Eagle: 101 Kappa Dr., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15238
Costco: PO Box 34331, Seattle, Washington 98124
Walmart: 702 SW 8th St., Bentonville, Arkansas 72716
The right to know how your food is produced will not be given to you by industrial agriculture or the Congress. That right must be taken by the active engagement of the American people.
Let’s tell both elected representatives and grocery stores that they are supposed to serve us and our beliefs.
Together we can make them do it.
