Food Chain Radio Show #1041

Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist

To Label, Or Not to Label, GMOs

This Poll is closed!!

Will you honor Campbell’s transparency and buy its GMO-labeled soups, or will you thank Campbell’s for the transparency and avoid its GMO-labeled soups?

I’ll thank Campbell’s but avoid the GMO soup.

I’ll thank Campbell’s and buy the GMO soup.

Total voters: 12

*

66%

33%

Guests: Kelly Damewood, Policy Director, California Certified Organic Farmers & Hank Campbell, President, American Council on Science and Health

Soup this good just has to be labeled: “Contains GMOs!”

Michael Olson Food Chain Radio: Campbell’s Supports GMO Labeling. Guests: Kelly Damewood, Policy Director, California Certified Organic Farmers and Hank Campbell, President, American Council on Science and Health

Food manufacturers, working through industry trade groups like the Grocery Manufacturing Association, have spent upwards of $100 million dollars to defeat GMO labeling initiatives throughout the United States.

Imagine the surprise, then, when one of the industry’s stalwart manufacturers, the Campbell’s Soup Company, makers also of 17 other brands like Pepperidge Farm cookies, Prego sauces and Spaghetti-Os, broke ranks to advocate for a mandatory national labeling standard for products containing genetically modified ingredients.

Furthermore, if a federal labeling standard isn’t established in a “reasonable amount of time,” Campbell’s says it will work independently to label the GMOs in its products.

Since about three-quarters of Campbell’s 17 food brands and hundreds of products contain GMOs, its GMO labels are likely to make a huge statement on the shelves of the nation’s grocers.

And yet there is no certainty the federal government will require the labeling of GMO foods. In fact, legislation is working its way through Congress, called “the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act,” that would supercede all state laws and make the labeling voluntary throughout the nation. (Critics call the legislation, “The Dark Act.”)

The ongoing fight to label, or not to label, foods containing GMOs leads us to ask…

Why has science failed to sell the efficacy of GMOs to the public?

Why did Campbell’s Soup Company break ranks with an industry opposed to GMO labeling?

Why establish a GMO label when foods labeled “organic” are GMO free?

Leave a comment below: Will you honor Campbell’s transparency and buy its GMO-labeled soups, or will you thank Campbell’s for the transparency and avoid its GMO-labeled soups?

Tune in here, for the syndicated Food Chain Radio Show #1041 January 16, 2016 Saturday 9AM Pacific