vegansaurus!
12/06/2012
After Prop. 37: What does its defeat mean for the food movement? »
Apparently I’m on the post-Prop. 37 beat. I don’t even know how I feel about food labeling, you guys! And yet. If it weren’t for food labels, how would we vegans eat? How would anyone with a food allergy get by? It’d be all produce, all the time, and we’d be full of vegetables and miserable (I don’t want to live in a world without Field Roast Italian sausages). Plus, food justice (or whatever) is a vegan issue. Everyone should have access to enough nutritious, delicious food that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
The Friedman Sprout, “the student newspaper of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, has a neat article by M.E. Malone on the repercussions of its defeat, and the future of the “food movement” (so uncomfortable with that label).
“I am not sure the strict line between the definitions of GMO technology and non-GMO technology is really the right way to distinguish bad technologies from good technologies,” [Parke Wilde, associate professor at the Friedman School] said. Wilde added that there are legitimate concerns about GMO technologies, including “the control of seed varieties by a single corporation and the flawed [Food and Drug Administration] review of proposed GMO salmon,” that are unrelated to the gene manipulation process.
(Ha ha fuck off, GMO salmon. As if farmed salmon weren’t trouble enough.)
TL;DR: Of course we have a right to know what’s in our food. On the other hand, if we don’t sufficiently understand the technologies used in producing both GMO and non-GMO foods, how can we regulate them? At least we can agree on our hatred of monocultures, right?
[Photo by Nuclear Winter via Flickr]
∞ posted at 11:30 by seriousmeaveness 
11/29/2012
Proposition 37 failed, but we can still figure out what’s going on with our produce. Mike Kahn made this three-minute video about Price Lookup Codes (PLUs)—the digits on the stickers on your grocery-store produce—to teach us how to read them and use them to learn how a food was grown.
Bay Area Bites also has some more information on how to identify genetically modified and engineered foods.
My favorite organic food? Pepple’s Donuts, duh.
[Photo via donut king Josh Levine’s Instagram, which you should follow because DONUTS]
∞ posted at 09:00 by seriousmeaveness
10/17/2012
2012 election: What’s up with California’s Proposition 37? »
Vegansaurus loves voting. It is our right to have it, and our privilege to exercise it. Voting is tops!
That said, actually voting can be terribly confusing, especially here in California, land of the endless ballot propositions! There are always so many, and they are not all as straightforward as 2008’s beloved Prop. 2. This year we’ve got 11, some directly contradicting others ON THE SAME BALLOT, WHY.
KQED’s Calfornia Report recently reported on Prop. 37, “Genetically Engineered Foods Labeling Initiative Statute,” as part of its series on all 11 of California’s 2012 ballot initiatives. Here’s the latest report, by science reporter Amy Standen:
Prop. 37 is endorsed by our pals at Pepple’s Donuts (check out the signs in the shop!), and the wonderful human beings at Dr. Bronner’s.
On the other hand, Adam of the wonderful Say What, Michael Pollan? blog has a well researched, reasonable, and scathing critique of Prop. 37. He concludes that
… Proposition 37 is bad politics. Dragging ill-informed and uninterested consumers into a dirty political fight and expecting them to make “conscientious” consumer decisions is not the way to spur social progress. And spreading misinformation isn’t going to help that. If Proposition 37 is how the food movement will prove itself, count me out.
For more information on Prop. 37, check out the California Secretary of State’s official guide, and KQED’s ongoing coverage. How do you think you’ll vote? I still have no idea.
[Photo by Nuclear Winter via Flickr]
∞ posted at 08:30 by seriousmeaveness
04/20/2010
» Monsanto to acquire the U.S. Supreme Court
Speaking of the Supreme Court, here’s a case we’ve already lost. Justice Clarence Thomas is refusing to recuse himself in Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, which will hit the Court next month. Thomas, one of the reliable right-wingers on our already conservative-leaning Court, was an employee of Satan Monsanto from 1976 to 1979. It’s an obvious conflict of interest.
The worst part of it? Justice Steven Breyer, a reliable liberal vote on the Court, is recusing himself from ruling on the case, because his brother, Charles Breyer, ruled in the original 2007 case. At issue is (what else?) genetically modified crops:
The court will hear Monsanto’s third appeal in the Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms case, which called for the halt of planting GM alfalfa seeds until an Environmental Impact Statement was completed.
The lawsuit was filed by organizations like the Center for Food Safety, the National Family Farm Coalition, Sierra Club, Dakota Resources Council and other farming groups and environmental associations.
One of the plaintiffs, alfalfa farmer Pat Trask said Monsanto’s biotech alfalfa would ruin his alfalfa seed business because his 9,000 acres would be contaminated by the genetically modified crops.
Remember, this is the same Monsanto that sues farmers when the company’s patented seeds (a concept that, on its own, should make anyone want to throw things) blow from their customers’ land onto those other farmers’ land and take root. This lawsuit would turn the tables, and treat Monsanto’s “intellectual property” like the contaminant it is. Too bad it’s already lost.
∞ posted at 13:10 by stevesimitzis 
