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On Wednesday last week (February 25, 2015), the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, once again floated the idea of consumers using barcodes to identify foods that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as an alternative to requiring food manufacturers to put a label on products that contain GMOs.

Referring to the ongoing debate over GMO labeling laws, Vilsack (according to the Associated Press) told the House during a hearing on agriculture spending: “We could solve that issue in a heartbeat.”

Solve the issue for whom? Tot-Toting Moms with busy schedules who would need to take the added step of scanning every item in the grocery store, instead of just glancing at the label? Older people who struggle as it is to keep up with rapidly evolving technologies? Or how about for those people who can’t afford—or don’t want to own—expensive smartphones? 

Consumers want the mandatory labeling of GMOs—not barcodes.

The company (Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc.) that makes the apple wants you to believe that consumer demand was behind the invention.

But the real target customers for GMO apples are fast-food restaurants and food service businesses—companies that want mothers of young children to think they’re selling healthy fresh fruit, even if that fruit is a genetically engineered apple that has undergone no meaningful safety testing for human consumption.

It’s up to consumers to make sure the main customers for Okanagan’s frankenapple—fast-food restaurants who want to serve the apple in kids’ meals and salad bars—know that consumers don’t want ‘em, and won’t buy ‘em.

TAKE ACTION: Tell McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts and Subway to Publicly Commit to not Sell GMO Apples

There’s ample science—including a new study by Center for Food Safety—linking Monsanto’s Roundup to the collapse of the world’s monarch butterfly population. Why? Because Roundup kills the milkweed plant, which is essential to the monarch’s survival.
 
In order to protect the monarch’s habitat, and save the monarch, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) is considering a petition, submitted by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety, seeking protection for the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act the Monarch on the Endangered Species List.
 
Until we successfully ban Roundup for good, placing the Monarch on the Endangered Species List is our best hope for saving America’s favorite butterfly from extinction.
 
DEADLINE MARCH 2: TAKE ACTION: Ask the Fish & Wildlife Service to Put the Monarch Butterfly on the Endangered Species List. Save the Monarch from Monsanto!

On Friday, February 13, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the first genetically engineered apple, despite hundreds of thousands of petitions asking the USDA to reject it.

According an article in Politico, the USDA said the GMO apple “doesn’t pose any harm to other plants or pests.”

Great. But what about potential harm to the humans who consume them?

The Arctic Apple (Golden Delicious and Granny varieties), developed by Canada-based Okanagan Specialty Fruit, shockingly doesn’t require approval by the U.S. Food & Drug Association (FDA). The FDA will merely conduct a “voluntary review” before, presumably, rubber-stamping the apple for use in restaurants, institutions (including schools and hospitals) and grocery stores—with no long- (or even short-) term safety testing for its potential impact on human health.

Here’s why that should concern every consumer out there, especially parents of young children.

The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) is one of the corporate front groups suing Vermont in an attempt to block the state’s GMO labeling law. The trade group is also lobbying for H.R. 4432, an anti-consumer, anti-states’ rights bill intended to preempt all state GMO labeling laws. 
 
Why would the IDFA spend millions to defeat GMO labeling laws, including launching a lawsuit against Vermont? 
 
Isn’t the dairy industry the “Got Milk?” people, the ones who wear milk mustaches to get kids to drink what the industry promotes as healthy whole food? Doesn’t the IDFA represent the family farmers whose black-and-white cows graze happily on green grass outside picturesque red barns?
 
Truth be told, those idyllic images have nothing to do with reality. They’re part of a carefully orchestrated, and very expensive public relations campaign aimed at keeping consumers in the dark about what’s really in the “dairy products” products (can you say GMOs?) on grocery shelves.