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THE CAMPAIGN FOR HEALTHIER EATING IN AMERICA 

Healthy Eating Starts With No Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) 

You may have heard the FDA and food industry claims that genetically modified (GM) foods are safe, properly tested, and necessary to feed a hungry world. UNTRUE! Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are one of the most dangerous and radical changes to our food supply. These largely unregulated ingredients found in 60-70% of the foods in the US, are well worth the effort to avoid them. Fortunately, health-conscious consumers, retailers, distributors, manufacturers and growers are participating in The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, which will help eliminate GMOs from thousands of food products. Their efforts will make it easier for you to avoid the serious health risks of eating GMOs and to feed your family a healthier “non-GMO” diet.  The campaign’s goal is to stop the genetic engineering of the entire US food supply. 

Join the Campaign!

If a sufficient number of shoppers in the US avoid GMO foods, consumer pushback will force our major food companies to stop using them. The Europe Union reached a consumer driven tipping point in April 1999 on this issue and within a single week, virtually all major manufacturers publicly committed to stop using GM ingredients in their European brands. Sadly, the same companies that carefully avoid adding GMO ingredients to products marketed to concerned consumers in the European Union are eager to sell GMO foods to uneducated consumers in the US.

In the US, the natural foods industry has led the way in the widespread consumer rejection of genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH or rbST) in dairy products, by educating their customers about the health dangers associated with rbGH and making rbGH-free brands readily available. This wave that started in natural food aisles is being felt throughout the entire food industry. Within the last two years, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Kroger, and about 40 of the 100 top dairies removed rbGH products as consumer concerns reached a tipping point on this issue. As US consumers pushed back against GM dairy products, the food industry responded.

But time is of the essence, The US sugar beet industry is venturing into the world of genetically modified crops this year by introducing a new gene-spliced variety engineered by Monsanto with plans to make GM sugar available to the food industry in 2009. We must act now to help stop the introduction of unlabeled GM sugar from GM sugar beets into our food supply.

US Consumers Have Been Given a False Sense of Security
About the Safety of Our Food Supply

 Many consumers in the US mistakenly believe that the FDA approves GM foods through rigorous, in-depth, long-term studies. In reality, the agency has absolutely no safety testing requirements. Instead the agency relies on research from companies like Monsanto, research that is meticulously designed to avoid finding problems. It’s easy to understand the FDA’s industry-friendly policy on regulation of GMOs when you see the revolving door between agency regulators and the companies they regulate. The White House mandate to the FDA (under the first George Bush) was to promote biotechnology and the person in charge of developing the agency’s policy at that time was a former Monsanto attorney, who later returned to Monsanto as their vice president.

The FDA has claimed it was not aware of any information showing that GM crops were different “in any meaningful or uniform way,” from non-GMO crops and therefore didn’t require testing. But 44,000 internal FDA documents made public by a lawsuit show that this was a complete lie. The overwhelming consensus among the FDA’s own scientists was that GM foods were quite different and could lead to unpredictable and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. It turns out that FDA scientists, who had urged superiors to require long-term studies, were ignored.

Even though evidence of this apparent fraud at the FDA was presented at a Washington, D.C. press conference in 1999 with major media in attendance, the media didn’t alert the public.  In fact, most Americans know so little about this subject, that only about 1 in 4 consumers even know if they’ve ever eaten a GM food in their lives, even though the vast majority of processed foods contain derivatives from the four major GM crops: soy, corn, cottonseed and canola.

The Campaign For Healthier Eating in America
Is Moving the Market to Non-GMO

The fact that GMOs have flourished in the US food supply during the last ten years based on consumer ignorance about the dangers of eating GM foods leaves the biotech industry extremely vulnerable. Why? If we can push this issue onto the national radar screen again by educating shoppers, widespread consumer reaction could force an even more comprehensive Euro-style retreat from GMOs.

How many shoppers would have to reject brands that contain GMOs to reach this tipping point? Even 5% of shoppers, or 15 million Americans, would likely be more than enough. When marketing executives at top companies see the drop in market share and the emergence of a trend, kicking out GMOs will be a natural reaction. After all, food brands don’t gain anything from including GM ingredients in their products. Their foods aren’t fresher, tastier or healthier. The two major traits in GM crops are herbicide tolerance, which allows farmers to spray herbicide on the crops without killing them, and pesticide production, which means the crops produce an insect-killing toxin in every cell.

Leaders in the natural foods industry are speeding up the removal of GMOs from their food products as the industry adopts a third party verified non-GMO standard. As a part of this coalition effort, The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America will be distributing a free, in-store Non-GMO Shopping Guide and making our Non-GMO Education Centers available to retailers, to drive home the message that “Healthy eating starts with no GMOs.” This combined strategy will give consumers an easy way to make clear non-GMO brand choices. Retailers can get on board by ordering free the Non-GMO Shopping Guides and setting up Non-GMO Education Centers inside their stores.  Manufacturers can get on board with a free listing of their GM-free products  in The Campaign’s Non-GMO Shopping Guides.  Everyone can get on board by signing up as a member of the Campaign. We don’t need to wait for government agencies to do their jobs. We can make healthier choices for ourselves, our families, and our customers. Together we can inspire the tipping point for healthier, non-GM eating in America.