Katherine's Blog
Splashed across the Ben & Jerry’s website are cartoon-like pictures of happy cows romping in green pastures. The cows, according to Ben & Jerry's marketing claims, live on farms that belong to the company's "Caring Dairy" program.
There’s a reason those cows are depicted by drawings, not actual photos—many of the real, live cows whose milk and cream are used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream products live on "Caring Dairy" farms that don't meet the program's standards. Worse yet, not all of milk and cream that goes into Ben & Jerry's even comes from "Caring Dairy" farms, even though the company claims otherwise.
Ben & Jerry’s goes to great lengths to create the perception that the Unilever-owned company “cares” deeply about the farmers who supply milk and cream for the brand, the cows raised on Vermont dairy farms, and the state of Vermont’s environment.
The company’s “Caring Dairy” program sounds like a dream-come-true for Vermont’s dairy farmers and dairy cows.
But it’s more like a nightmare, not only for many of the cows, but also for Vermont’s environment and for consumers who care about animal welfare.
A number of our supporters wrote recently to complain about the cozy deal between MoveOn.org and Ben & Jerry’s. It’s a deal that lets the ice cream maker polish its image (and boost sales) by aligning its brand with progressive causes—even though the Unilever-owned company is responsible for the use of massive amounts of toxic chemicals that have all but ruined Vermont’s water.
These supporters (and others) were referring to emails to MoveOn members from "Ben & Jerry" with subject lines like “We're worried” and “Stop Trump. Eat Ice Cream.”
But let’s be clear. This is free advertising for Ben & Jerry’s, a brand that masquerades as “socially responsible” when it isn’t. And it’s a great example of subliminal advertising, designed to convey this message: “Hey, we’re just like you. We care.”
The marketing gurus at Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s know full well that many consumers are willing to spend more for products sold by “socially responsible” companies. According to a recent report, Unilever's “Sustainable Living” brands are growing 46 percent faster than rest of business.
Thanks to internal emails uncovered by Carey Gillam, writing for The Guardian, the public knows that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found glyphosate residues in a variety of foods. In fact, the agency had trouble finding any foods that didn’t test positive for traces of the chemical, best-known as the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.
It’s the FDA’s job to conduct residue testing on food. It’s the responsibility of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate pesticide residues on food. It stands to reason then that the two taxpayer-funded agencies would communicate closely with each other on any food testing involving glyphosate or any other pesticide.
That’s why U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) has filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with both agencies, and shared the findings in a series of stories by Gillam, a former Reuters reporter who now directs research for the consumer advocacy group.
The FDA has produced at least some of the documents requested by USRTK. But the EPA has dodged group’s effort to learn more about this matter of public policy and public health.
Five years ago, under mounting pressure from consumers, Whole Foods Market (WFM) announced that by the end of 2018, the then-largest retailer of organic foods would require all of its suppliers to clearly label GMO ingredients and foods.
Last week, the company reneged on that commitment, or at least the timeline part of it.
This time, there was no flashy press release, no media fanfare. Instead, the news was circulated quietly in an email to the company’s suppliers.
In the email, WFM Chief Operations Officer A.C. Gallo claimed the company, now owned by Amazon, is merely “pausing” the plan, until the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) finalizes labeling requirements under the federal mandatory labeling law passed in July 2016—a law that (intentionally) has no teeth.
Last summer, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) announced that our testing of Ben & Jerry’s popular ice cream flavors for glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller) turned up positive results in 10 of 11 samples we tested.
Our critics fired back that the glyphosate levels we found were “well below” the levels that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tells us are “safe.”
In other words, relax! A little bit of Monsanto Roundup weedkiller in your ice cream is nothing to fret over.
Now a new pilot study, soon to be published in the prestigious scientific journal Environmental Health, suggests that EPA “safe” levels aren’t safe at all—especially for kids.
Will this new evidence lead to a ban on glyphosate? Hard to tell, given what we know about possible collusion in the past between Monsanto and the EPA to keep consumers in the dark about how toxic Roundup and glyphosate are to human health. Plus we’re now dealing with an EPA that favors hiding the truth about toxic chemicals from the public, over protecting the chemical industry’s image.
“We see the formulations are much more toxic. The formulations were killing the cells. The glyphosate really didn’t do it.” — Mike DeVito, acting chief, National Toxicology Program Laboratory
Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller may be even worse for human health than we thought.
As reported this week in the Guardian, new tests show that when Roundup’s key active ingredient, glyphosate, is combined with other chemicals to create the final product, the herbicide is more toxic to human cells than glyphosate alone.
As if glyphosate alone weren’t toxic enough.
U.S. Right to Know’s Carey Gillam reported on the first-ever testing, conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), of glyphosate-based formulations. Previous testing focused exclusively on glyphosate in isolation.
On August 1, then-President Obama signed a meaningless so-called mandatory GMO labeling law that, for all practical purposes, ended an intense four-year grassroots-led campaign for consumers’ right to know if their food is genetically engineered, or contains genetically engineered ingredients.
Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has unveiled its proposed version of GMO labels. Wait ‘till you see them. All bright and cheery, with sunburst and smiley-faced images—but without “GMO” appearing anywhere on the labels. (You can see all of the proposed images here).
According to Politico, the USDA’s long-awaited106-page proposal for how companies must disclose the presence of genetically modified ingredients in their products includes eliminating the words “genetically modified” or “genetically engineered” and replacing them with “bioengineered.”
That means no more “GMO”—instead consumers will see “BE” on the environmentally friendly looking green and yellow images.
The images are just as insulting to consumers as the law, which the chemical and junk food industry lobbyists spent $400 million to pass—under the specious name of the “Safe and Affordable Food Labeling Act.”
Today, April 10, is Ben & Jerry’s annual Free Cone Day.
There’s only one problem: Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is never free—because we all pay for the health and environmental damage caused by Ben & Jerry’s factory farm dairy practices.
OCA has been running a campaign against Ben & Jerry’s factory farm ice cream ever since we announced that the brand is contaminated with Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.
Glyphosate contamination isn’t the only problem with Ben & Jerry’s. Water pollution caused by non-organic dairy farms that supply Ben & Jerry’s is costing taxpayers millions.
Today, please help get the word out that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is never free.
If your backup plan is to join Elon Musk on Mars, then read no further.
But if you (or your kids or grandkids) plan to stick around on Planet Earth, take note: The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reports that land degradation has reached the “critical” stage—and 3.2 billion people could find themselves affected, either by mass migration or wars.
A big “thank you” this week to the Tucson, Arizona, Organic Consumers Association members who convinced their local co-op, Food Conspiracy, to stop selling Ben & Jerry’s.
Several of our supporters emailed Food Conspiracy’s store manager and its board of directors. Within hours, the co-op posted a message on Facebook that they would be discontinuing the brand in their store.
Food Conspiracy joins other co-ops who are listening to their owner/customers, including Moscow Food Co-Op in Moscow, Idaho; New Pioneer Food Co-Op in Coralville, Iowa; and Ypsilanti Food Co-Op and River Street Bakery in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
What’s Ben & Jerry’s been up to while consumers have been working hard to get Ben & Jerry’s off store shelves?
