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Is Monsanto's New Genetically Engineered Soy a Health Food?

by Jill Richardson — May 16, 2013 - 6:22am
  • Topics: Corporations, Food, Food Rights Network, Health

    • Monsanto just announced a deal with DSM Nutritional Products to sell a new type of genetically engineered (GE) soybean: one with supposed nutritional benefits.

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    GMO Labeling Passes Vermont House as Activists Prepare to March Against Monsanto

    by Rebekah Wilce — May 15, 2013 - 6:58am
  • Topics: Genetic Engineering, Food, Food Rights Network, Politics

    • In an advance that makes history, Vermont's House of Representatives passed a bill on May 10 requiring foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be labeled. This is the furthest any such legislation has made it through the legislative process in the United States.

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    Trade Group Offers Free Sewage Sludge "Compost" to Community Gardens in "Million Tomato Campaign" for Food Banks

    by Rebekah Wilce — May 9, 2013 - 5:52am
  • Topics: Sludge, Food, Food Rights Network, Public Relations

    • Beautiful spring weather has gardeners outside seeding lettuce and transplanting tomatoes. Community gardens are ramping up for a growing season full of hot peppers and trailing squash vines. The sewage sludge "composting" industry wants in on the action. May 6 to May 12 has been declared "International Compost Awareness Week" by the sewage sludge industry trade group the U.S. Composting Council (USCC).

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    Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"

    by Rebekah Wilce — May 6, 2013 - 10:55am
  • Topics: Food, Food Rights Network, Politics

    • Wisconsin ranks 44th in the nation for new job creation. Rather than rolling up their sleeves and finding new and innovative ways to help create jobs, the Wisconsin legislature is spending its time telling people needing food assistance what they should be eating. AB 110, which will be up for a vote in the Assembly on Tuesday, May 7, is geared toward limiting "the amount of food stamp benefits that could be spent on junk food." But some of the fine print of the bill, bizarrely, would ban people from choosing more healthy and less expensive options for their families. The bill is one of many being considered that are unduly punitive of the poor.

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    Over a Million Comments Filed on GE Salmon as New Evidence Emerges of Deeply Flawed Review

    by Rebekah Wilce — April 26, 2013 - 8:15am
  • Topics: Food Safety, Genetic Engineering, Environment, Food Rights Network

    • The extended comment period on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review and approval of AquAdvantage genetically engineered (GE) salmon ends April 26. As more comments flood in, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) reports that documents disclosed through a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) "raise serious questions about the adequacy of the FDA's review of the AquAdvantage Salmon application."

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    Bayer and Syngenta Lobby Furiously Against EU Efforts to Limit Pesticides and Save Bees

    by Rebekah Wilce — April 22, 2013 - 5:53am
  • Topics: Corporations, Environment, Food, Food Rights Network

    • Bee populations have been declining rapidly worldwide in recent years -- in the U.S., they have declined by almost 50 percent just since October 2012, according to The Ecologist. The problem is complex, with possible culprits including certain parasites (like Varroa mites), viruses, pesticides, and industrial agriculture. But two studies published in early 2012 in the journal Science suggested a particularly strong connection between the use of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids and the decline of both bumble bee and honeybee populations.

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    NC Legislators Sneak in "Ag Gag" Bill as Butterball Employee Pleads Guilty to Animal Cruelty

    by Rebekah Wilce — April 10, 2013 - 6:17am
  • Topics: Agriculture, ALEC Exposed, Animal Rights, Food Rights Network, Politics

    • A three-week investigation at a Butterball turkey farm in North Carolina by an animal welfare activist with a hidden camera documented workers beating birds with metal bars, stomping and kicking them, and throwing them violently into metal cages by their necks (video below). Mercy for Animals, the non-profit organization responsible for the investigation, turned the footage over to prosecutors in December 2011, and the police raided the facility. Five workers were charged with criminal animal cruelty, and a top-level Department of Agriculture official was convicted for obstruction of justice in February 2012.

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    Consumers Allege Perdue's "Humane" Poultry Labels Are "False and Deceptive"

    by Rebekah Wilce — April 2, 2013 - 6:55am
  • Topics: Animal Rights, Food, Food Rights Network, Marketing

    • Have you ever wondered what labels like "humanely raised" and "cage free" mean when you're looking at a package of meat or eggs at the supermarket? Do corporations actually live up to the claims on the labels?

    News

    Chemical Industry Clout Delays EPA Regulation of Hexavalent Chromium

    by Rebekah Wilce — March 27, 2013 - 7:05am
  • Topics: Environment, Food Rights Network, Health, Science

    • The hit 2000 film Erin Brockovich, which tells the story of how a novice legal clerk holds a huge corporation liable for contaminating a town's drinking water with the carcinogenic chemical hexavalent chromium, or chromium (VI), ends in justice for those harmed. But as it turns out, Hinkley, California, the real-life town featured in the movie, is still contaminated.

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    FDA Ready to Approve Frankenfish Despite Fishy Science

    by Jill Richardson — March 19, 2013 - 6:37am
  • Topics: Food, Food Rights Network

    • Some day soon, you might tuck into a plate of salmon without knowing that the fish you are eating was genetically engineered. The so-called AquAdvantage salmon, a salmon genetically engineered to grow faster than normal salmon, just moved one step closer to legalization. If so, it will be the first genetically engineered (GE) animal allowed for consumption in the United States. Thus, every part of the regulatory process related to the GE salmon sets a precedent for all future GE animals in the United States -- and so far, according to experts, that precedent is a sloppy, inadequate one.

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