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Alan Lewis
VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Don’t Swallow the Lies

In his TEDx talk, Alan Lewis, director of government affairs and food and agriculture policy for Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, discusses the “fibberati,” “elitism” and the great “food occupation.”

Lewis defines the “fibberati” as a secret society of experts trained in deceptive food marketing. Elitism? In the food world, it’s represented by the corporation that seeks to benefit from a food system based on the economic exploitation of the heartland—it’s not, as Big Food would have you believe, the consumer whose food choices ensure that a farmer can feed his family and send her kids to college.

As for the food war, we’ve lost, says Lewis. Big Food has won. It’s now up to us to resist.

“We are not combatants in a food war. We are resisters in a food occupation. Join the resistance.”

Watch the video


Boycott Monsanto
MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTO

Save the Date!

Only eight more days. Until OCA, Moms Across America and other groups descend on St. Louis, Mo., for what we hope will be a meaningful—and memorable—protest at Monsanto’s annual shareholder meeting.

Plans are shaping up. We now have two physicians who will speak out about the health hazards of GMO foods and Monsanto’s Roundup. Dr. Norm Shealy and Dr. Jeff Ritterman will each address the rally outside the January 30 shareholder meeting.

Inside the shareholder meeting, we'll present scientific evidence and personal testimonials linking Roundup to a long list of health problems.

If you have a story about how Roundup and/or GMO foods have caused you or a family member health problems, please send us your testimonial, so we can deliver it to Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant. Also, please email us your photo, so we can create a powerful visual display outside Monsanto headquarters.

If you can attend the rally, it starts at noon on January 30, at Monsanto World Headquarters, 800 N. Lindbergh Blvd, Creve Coeur, Missouri 63167. For more information, or to send us your picture, email alexis AT organicconsumers.org.

TAKE ACTION: Send us your testimonial about the impact of glyphosate and/or GMO foods on your health, or the health of a famiy member

Email your photo to alexis AT organicconsumers.org

Learn more

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Bee close up
ACTION ALERT

Deadline Tomorrow: Stop Poisoning the Bees

Monsanto sells soybean seeds coated in neonicotinoids (a class of pesticides directly linked to the mass die-off of honeybees) under pretense of helping farmers increase their yields. 

But according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pre-treating soybean seeds with neonics doesn’t deliver on that promise. And now, new evidence suggests that not only do pretreated soybean seeds not provide any benefit to farmers, they may actually cause a decrease in crop yields.

So why perpetuate the madness? When we know neonics are poisoning pollinators, our soil, our drinking water, and even our food?

Profits, of course. Neonic sales are a $1.6 billion business, according to a report by Friends of the Earth. And the big profiteers are the usual suspects: Monsanto (who sells the seeds), and Bayer and Syngenta, who make the poisons.

TAKE ACTION: DEADLINE JANUARY 23: Tell EPA No More Neonic-Coated Soybean Seeds


Sun Over Mountains
SUPPORT THE OCA & OCF

State of the OCA

President Obama gave his State of the Union address this week. It’s only fair we give our State of the OCA address.

We’ll be brief.

Thanks to you, OCA is stronger than ever. And because we’re stronger than ever, we’ve set a bigger and better-than-ever agenda for 2015. Because, well, there’s no shortage of issues to take on—issues we know will affect you and your family, in so many ways.

Monsanto and Big Food are doubling down on their efforts to deflect and deceive, poison and pilfer. That’s a good sign in a way. It means we’ve got them rattled.

It also means we’ll need to step up our game. And we’ll need your help more than ever.

Look for us to come roaring back this year—soon—on the issue of states’ rights to label GMOs. And on consumers’ right to know everything about the ingredients in their food, not just whether or not some ingredients have been genetically engineered.

You’ve been essential to building this truth-and-transparency in labeling movement. So we hope you’ll remain fiercely passionate when we take on factory farms, including the dairy industry, for their polluting, health-harming, animal-torturing ways.

Thank you for building this movement. Let’s double our outreach, and impact, in 2015!

Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education)

Donate to the Organic Consumers Fund (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our GMO labeling legislative efforts)

 


General Mills Cinnamon Chex
ACTION ALERT

Nefarious and Simply Not True

General Mills’ Vanilla, Chocolate and Cinnamon Chex boxes all proudly display a label that should make many health-conscious consumers happy: “No high fructose corn syrup.”

But as the folks at CREDO have discovered, that claim is simply not true.

The truth? These General Mills products all contain a super-concentrated sweetener made from high fructose corn syrup. Within the Big Ag industry, this sweetener is literally called “HFCS-90” or high fructose corn syrup-90.

So what’s the deal? According to CREDO, it seems that the Corn Refiners Association (who knew?) changed “HFCS-90” to “fructose.” And now General Mills is not only disingenuously hiding its corn syrup behind this innocuous alias—the company is bragging that its products don’t contain corn syrup at all!

The “fructose” label is especially nefarious, since fructose is a naturally occurring fruit sugar, while HFCS-90 is a highly concentrated, highly processed product that is molecularly different from the fructose you would eat in your apple.

We deserve to know that these products contain high fructose corn syrup. At the very least, General Mills should be prohibited from falsely labeling the products as "not containing high fructose corn syrup"—don’t you think?

TAKE ACTION: Tell General Mills: Stop Hiding High Fructose Corn Syrup


tractor_spraying
ACTION ALERT

Drifting toward Toxic Oblivion

Monsanto just bulldozed its way once again through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), gaining approval of its new genetically engineered dicamba-resistant soybean and cotton varieties. 

Before Monsanto’s new dicamba-resistant crops can be cleared for planting, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has to raise the limits for the use of dicamba by approving a new product called “Xtend.” It’s estimated that the use of dicamba will increase 14-fold for cotton and 500 times for soybeans if the EPA approves Monsanto’s new “Xtend” herbicide.

Dicamba is listed in the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory, a list that includes only those chemicals known to cause at least one or more of the following: cancer or other chronic human health effects, significant adverse acute human health effects, significant adverse environmental effects. 

It’s also water-soluble. And prone to drifting.

Tell the EPA: Tell the EPA: Don’t Approve Monsanto’s ‘Xtend’ and an Increase in the Use of Dicamba!


Obama
FROM OUR BLOG

Missed the Boat. Again.

When will the federal government start connecting the dots? Between a toxic, industrial agriculture system and the decline not only of public health, but of our planet’s health?

Not yet, apparently.

In his SOTU address Tuesday (January 20) night, on the topic of climate change, President Obama said:

“And no challenge—no challenge—poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”

We couldn’t agree more. With that statement, and with many of the others he made, including the need to reduce carbon emissions, invest in solar power, and abandon the Keystone XL pipeline.

But in talking about past and future solutions, the President once again missed the boat.

Not once did President Obama discuss the science outlined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the Rodale Institute, the Soil Association and others—science showing that not only is industrial, chemical-intensive agriculture the largest source of carbon emissions, but by converting to organic regenerative agriculture on a global scale, we can actually reverse climate change, not just mitigate it.

Read the blog post

 


Seedy Business
TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK

Seedy Business

What is Big Food hiding from you, with its slick public relations campaign?

Plenty, according to a new tell-all report by the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know.

The report, titled “Seedy Business: What Big Food Is Hiding with its Slick PR Campaign on GMOs,” details how since 2012, the agrichemical and food industries have mounted a complex, multifaceted public relations, advertising, lobbying and political campaign in the U.S., costing more than $100 million, to defend genetically engineered food and crops and the pesticides that accompany them.

Inside the pages of this thoroughly researched report, you’ll find examples of how companies like Monsanto use sleazy tactics to manipulate the media and public opinion. You’ll also learn how “the science” that the biotech industry claims is “on their side,” is actually bought and paid for.

“Seedy Business” also exposes a few of the crimes, scandals and other wrongdoings companies like Monsanto and Syngenta, Dow, DuPont and Bayer, would rather you not know.

Read the press release

Read the report