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You’ve always supported our joint struggle for an organic and equitable food system. For a chemical-free environment. For corporate accountability. For peace, justice and sustainability.
That mission requires us to strike at the heart of the absolute worst manifestation of our degenerative, exploitative, extractive industrial food and farming system—the $1-trillion factory farm industry.
Late yesterday, a New England donor, inspired by our campaign to force Ben & Jerry’s to go organic, made a generous offer.
We’re grateful because this generous offer validates our strategy: To erode Ben & Jerry’s brand so much that the company begins the long-overdue transition from Dirty Dairy to an organic regenerative system that respects and rewards farmers and farmworkers, doesn't abuse animals, no longer pollutes waterways or degrades soil, and produces a safer, organic consumer product.
The donor, who asked to remain anonymous, will match up to $25,000 in donations raised between now and midnight, Monday, August 21. That means your donation today will be worth twice as much.
Can you pitch in today to help us take advantage of this matching gift offer? Details here.
Sometimes the stars align. This is one of those times.
Not long after the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) announced that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream tested positive for glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, another story broke—one that validates the importance of finding glyphosate, even at low doses, in any food.
According to internal Monsanto documents, Monsanto forced the retraction of a critical long-term study, first published in 2012, showing that very low doses of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide—lower than those detected in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream—caused serious liver and kidney damage in rats. Shortly before the study was retracted, the editor of the journal began working for Monsanto, under a consulting contract. (The study, led by G.E. Séralini, was republished in 2014, by the Environmental Sciences Europe).
Monsanto company officials weren’t too pleased when their internal emails went public. The New York Times reported that one Monsanto scientists wrote this in an internal email in 2001:
“If somebody came to me and said they wanted to test Roundup I know how I would react — with serious concern.”
It’s official. Ten of 11 samples of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream tested positive for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.
It’s the latest in a long line of complaints against the ice cream brand that claims its social mission “seeks to meet human needs and eliminate the injustices in our local, national and international communities,” and that its focus is “on children and families, the environment and sustainable agriculture on family farms.”
Ben & Jerry’s shameless greenwashing, including its use of the word “natural” on its website, makes the company guilty of belonging to the $90-billion “natural” fraud industry that charges a premium for greenwashed products that are routinely produced with toxic chemicals, bad for human health and bad for the environment. The company knows full well that consumers see the word “natural” and think “healthy” and “sustainable.” Ben & Jerry’s knows it’s a scam—a very profitable one.
After years of single-issue campaigning against America’s degenerate food and farming system, with real but limited success, it’s time for a change of strategy and tactics.
By connecting the dots between a range of heretofore separate issues and campaigns, by focusing on some of the major weaknesses or vulnerabilities of the system, we can speed up our transition to an organic and regenerative food and farming system before our health, environmental and climate crises turn into full-blown catastrophe.
Surveys indicate that Americans are increasingly alarmed about deteriorating public health, and the pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and GMOs lurking in conventional food brands, restaurant fare and school cafeterias. We obviously can’t count on a corrupt Congress or a Trump/Pence administration to protect our food and our environment. So it’s time to step up our marketplace pressure, with boycotts, lawsuits, brand de-legitimization and direct action.
Our job is to escalate our food fights into what can only be described as a food revolution. Our health, environment and climate stability require that we turn away from our degenerate food, farming and land use system to one which is regenerative.
Recently I was in a roomful of people brought to their feet by an inspiring call-to-action from activist and former Ohio Senator Nina Turner.
At one point, Turner imparted a piece of wisdom she learned from her grandmother.
To get along in life, she said, all you need is a wishbone (so you can dream), a jawbone (so you can speak truth to power), and a backbone (because the road to fulfilling your dreams is paved with setbacks).
It’s not enough to dream. It’s not enough to speak truth to power. We also need the backbone to stay in this for the long haul.
Please make a donation today, so your gift can be matched by both Mercola.com and Dr. Bronner’s (that’s a triple match)! Your donation will fund our ongoing work to expose the health and environmental hazards, including toxic chemicals. Donate online, by mail or by phone—details here.
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
As if you aren’t concerned enough about the rampant use of pesticides, hormones and antibiotics in your food—wait ‘til you hear the latest news.
We’re on the verge of announcing alarming facts about what’s in one of the most common foods consumed in the U.S.
It’s news that will serve as a wake-up call to consumers—and we hope, a warning to the food industry: Consumers will not tolerate lies and deception when it comes to what’s in our food.
Today we launch our summer online fundraising campaign. Your donation, which will be matched by both Mercola.com and Dr. Bronner’s, will help fund our ongoing work to expose the health and environmental hazards of industrial food. Please help us reach our quarterly goal of $250,000 by midnight June 30. Donate online, by mail or by phone—details here.
When the colours turn grey and the lights all fade To black again We’re in over our heads But somehow we make it back again – lyrics from “Beautiful Mess”
Monsanto is facing down scores of lawsuits by people, or their families, who were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after being exposed to Roundup. Those lawsuits have led to revelations about possible collusion between Monsanto employees and former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials to bury evidence of Roundup’s carcinogenicity.
Meanwhile the EPA, perhaps fearing consumer backlash, has yet to rule on whether to renew the license for glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup), even though we’re now nearly two years past the deadline.
Food companies are being sued, too, when product testing reveals that brands labeled “100% Natural” contain glyphosate residues. And the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced it will resume testing of consumer foods for glyphosate.
Farmers are growing fewer GMO crops. Other countries are banning GMOs and glyphosate.
It’s no wonder Monsanto can’t wait to hand over the keys to Bayer. Things are getting messy. But for consumers and environmentalists, it’s a beautiful mess.
In 2016, when polls predicted he would lose the Iowa primary, Trump insulted Iowa voters when he tweeted: “Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain?” But don’t be confused by Trump’s tweets.
The Trump Administration has just announced a new GMO deregulation scheme, and it’s the most audacious effort to force dangerous, experimental “foods” onto the market since genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were first introduced in the 1990s.
Under Trump’s new GMO deregulation plan, there would still be no safety testing or meaningful labeling of GMOs. There would still be nothing to protect organic and non-GMO crops from contamination—which isn’t all that different than what we got from Obama and every president going back to George H.W. Bush.
Fact is, every single GMO that’s ever been submitted to U.S. regulators has been approved! From the first GMO, Monsanto’s genetically engineered growth hormone rBGH that makes cows over-produce milk, to the latest gene-edited apples, potatoes and mushrooms, Americans eat a lot of GMOs that are banned in many other countries.
TAKE ACTION BY MIDNIGHT JUNE 19: Don’t let Trump deregulate GMOs!
Like you, many people are fed up with how big corporations are interfering in local politics, in ways that strip cities and states of their right to local control—including the right to pass local pesticide bans, to ban fracking, to reject the construction of factory farms, and to protect local water supplies from pollution, and local organic farmland from contamination caused by drifting GMO seeds and pesticides.
You may already be working in your city or your state. On a critical environmental or food and farming issue. Or maybe you're working to elect new candidates who will serve you and your community, not some corporation.
But if you’re still looking for a way to get involved—and have fun doing it—I invite you to plug into our #Resist & #Regenerate Movement.
To learn how you can become a #Resist & #Regenerate organizer, watch this webinar that we hosted last week. Then, click on the map to find a #Resist & #Regenerate chapter near you, and sign up here if you’re willing to join a volunteer team.
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