Chemical Giants: The World vs. Monsanto: A Short History of the Battle Against the Most Evil Corporation on the Planet - by Jason Louv

Starting in 2013, the Monsanto Company made a major play to not only consolidate its control over the agribusiness industry, but to seize permanent control of the entire world’s food supply. Ultraculture, and the entire world, fought back. Here’s a history of the Great Monsanto War of 2013-15.

From 2013 to 2015, Ultraculture helped lead the charge against the Monsanto Company, and worked to guide and encourage the global effort to get chemicals and genetic tampering out of our food supply.

Monsanto has relentlessly and ruthlessly lobbied for the ability to re-engineer our food for profit, without consumers knowing what it’s doing—particularly in the United States.

Thanks to a network of lobbyists passed through the “revolving door” between public office and private corporate appointments, Monsanto has been able to operate largely without the American public having any awareness of its actions.

But nothing can stay hidden for long. Our reporting on Monsanto rocketed to the top of Reddit, breaking the story of the “Monsanto Protection Act,” helping to initiate the global furor that prompted the two-million-strong “March Against Monsanto” and forcing the company into backpedal mode as its stock took a hit.

All of this reporting (which we followed up with by breaking the story of the TPP at Vice News) resulted in a book, Monsanto vs. the World, which took a critical and investigative look at the company and has since become a lasting success, achieving ongoing sales, becoming a go-to text of the anti-GMO movement and being placed on the syllabus of multiple college courses.

Now it’s time to round up all of our Monsanto reporting into one cornerstone post, which collects the best of our reporting to archive the history of the Great Monsanto War for posterity. The fight against Monsanto—and genetic (specifically transgenic) tampering with food—goes on, and it’s important to have the information summarized for easy access.

To read the complete report click here: The World vs. Monsanto: A Short History of the Battle Against the Most Evil Corporation on the Planet

EU-US Trade Negotiations: The TTIP trade deal is lost at sea "and has no Public support"

The future of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and European Union seems bleak. Beset by doubts and stumbling alongside the UK’s referendum on EU membership, the TTIP is starting to look like an awful lot of effort for unremarkable gains.

US president Barack Obama may have given the negotiation process a shot in the arm in recent weeks, but there is a good possibility that a deal will not be struck during his administration. After that, all bets are off.

So why has such a major piece of international deal-making found it so hard to make headway, and what are the chances of a deal ever being done?

Well, the first reason for the impasse is that no one can agree on what it should cover. It is deeply complex, but there are essentially two choices: should TTIP only apply to the tariffs that countries place on imports, or should it also address other barriers to business, mostly technical regulations on things like car safety, or the procedures for testing new chemicals?

Estimates for the economic benefit to the EU from a tariffs-only deal come out at just 0.3% of GDP for the EU as a whole. If we abolish all non-tariff barriers, then we get a 4% boost.

That makes it seems like an easy decision from an economic point of view, but it’s highly contested.

The reason for the logjam is clear. Going far enough to make it economically valuable drags into play all sorts of political and social issues. Our reading of the draft texts is that it won’t, in fact, lead to significant harmonisation or even mutual recognition of existing rules.

There are procedures to make sure future regulations are as compatible as possible, but there is nothing explicit to say that regulatory decision making powers will be transferred. Indeed, it is hard to see the US Congress accepting anything else.

That might seem like an effective compromise, but of course, any weakening of the approach to non-tariff barriers may in turn dampen the economic advantages.

The less complicated route – a TTIP which only removes tariffs – would bring very limited gains. Both EU and US tariffs are generally very low, except for cars, chemicals and agriculture. Their removal would have only a small effect.

At its heart, the far more valuable non-tariff route drags up fears, founded or unfounded, of a regulatory race to the bottom on things like food safety, and objections from NGOs about the loss of domestic policy power on things like health or government procurement. Crucially, TTIP has also raised the (contested) possibility of major corporations suing states.

There is another obstacle. In short, governments love handing out contracts for public works to domestic companies; it keeps local industries happy, and maybe a few political donors too. No huge surprise then that after 13 rounds of negotiations the TTIP impasse on public procurement remains.

Both the EU and US are parties to the World Trade Organisation’s plurilateral agreement on government procurement but the EU’s big picture was for TTIP to trade access to European state agriculture spending for inroads into highly protected US procurement markets, particularly at the state level. But the US steadfastly refuses to concede to market access demands, due to its traditional and entrenched domestic lobby groups – the steel industry, small and medium-sized firms, and disadvantaged communities.

It’s a missed opportunity. We could have increased transparency with a standardised e-procurement system and tender forms. Much more could be gained through harmonising definitions of integrity and conflict of interest concepts, along with strengthening corruption control measures. It’s a win-win for improving the governance of public procurement markets – but negotiations have been dominated by intractable trade issues and the fears of ISDS.

In such a confrontational atmosphere, it is doubtful that a meaningful TTIP can be concluded. Sceptics’ doubts may be exaggerated, but they still reflect genuine public alarm.

The general confusion is highlighted by supporters of a UK exit from the EU, who argue both that the UK could sign a TTIP deal very quickly after Brexit, and that that leaving the EU is the only way to stop it. In any case, unless a deal is rushed through before the end of 2016, prospects for a deal are bleak.

Of the likely presidential candidates, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump are likely to make TTIP a top priority in a future US administration.

Meanwhile, public opinion – and crucially the German government – move closer to outright opposition.

Read more: The TTIP trade deal is lost at sea

Artificial Food Coloring: Caramel Coloring in Soda could be cancer causing

soft drinks - Sodas

Caramel color, added to many soft drinks and some foods to turn them brown, may sound harmless, even appetizing. But in no way does it resemble real caramel. Some types of this artificial coloring contain a potentially carcinogenic chemical called 4-methylimidazole (4-MeI). Under California’s Proposition 65 law, any food or beverage sold in the state that exposes consumers to more than 29 micrograms of 4-MeI per day is supposed to carry a health-warning label.

In recent Consumer Reports’ tests, each of the 12-ounce samples of Pepsi One and Malta Goya had more than 29 micrograms per can or bottle. While we cannot say that this violates California's Prop 65, we believe that these levels are too high, and we have asked the California Attorney General to investigate.

Caramel color is the single most used food coloring in the world, according to a 2013 report from market research firms Mintel and Leatherhead Food Research. “There’s no reason why consumers should be exposed to an avoidable and unnecessary risk that can stem from coloring food brown,” says Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., toxicologist and executive director of Consumer Reports’ Food Safety & Sustainability Center. “Manufacturers have lower 4-MeI alternatives available to them. Ideally there would be no 4-MeI in food.”

In 2007, a US federal government study concluded that 4-MeI caused cancer in mice and the International Agency for Research on Cancer determined the chemical to be “possibly carcinogenic to humans” in 2011.

There’s no US federal limit for levels of 4-MeI in foods and beverages, but as of January 7, 2012 California requires manufacturers to label a product sold in the state with a cancer warning if it exposes consumers to more than 29 micrograms of 4-MeI per day. In this case, the exposure comes from consumption.

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment used 29 micrograms as the cut off point because that’s the level they determined poses a one in 100,000 risk of cancer—that is, no more than one excess cancer case per 100,000 people who are exposed to that amount daily for a lifetime.

Read more: Caramel Coloring in Soda | Artificial Food Coloring | 4-MeI - Consumer Reports

Food additives: European NGOs dismiss EFSA defence of its scientific independence

European NGOs have dismissed the strident defence of the EU food safety agency regarding the independence of its panel looking at food additives such as aspartame. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)'s arguments supporting its scientific rigour are littered with inconsistencies, claim the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and Réseau Environnement Santé (RES), in communication sent to the head of that agency today.

The CEO and the RES claim the scientists - Riccardo Crebelli and Ursula Gundert-Remy - failed to declare consulting services for the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), a food industry-funded think tank and lobby group.

Questions about EFSA scientific independence draw industry-wide interest, particularly in light of the Commission's recent request to the food safety agency to conduct a full re-evaluation of the safety of aspartame by July 2012, due to MEPs’ concerns.

For more: Food additives: NGOs dismiss EFSA defence of its scientific independence

The Manipulating Food Industry and your health - EU-Digest Special

The Food Industry: genetic manipulation - nebulous labelling of food products - food additives - false advertising - fast foods 

The food you believe is safe to eat could be killing you....

Read all about it in today's (Friday August 6, 2010)   EU-Digest special issue - a compilation of articles about and related to the food industry and you.

Background

from the Indy Media Organization

Food is big business. It’s more than a trillion euro a year industry and second only to pharmaceuticals in profitability. In the next paragraph some of the major players, their vast holdings, brands and other significant information are listed. An expanded report, covering more than 30 of the most important food companies, is available as a center column feature on the Indy Media website at www.nyc.indymedia.org (please note that when you click on this link there might be an indication by your browser that this site is unsafe. This is not true, but for obvious reasons might be programmed to give this indication.)

Bayer CropScience ($6.28 billion, 2001) Industries: pesticides and genetically modified (GM) seeds. Food for thought: Bayer CropScience is the world’s number two supplier of farm chemicals and seeds. The company made Multinational Monitor’s Ten Worst Corporations of 2000 when corn from its GM StarLink seed illegally found its way into Taco Bell brand taco shells, causing allergic reactions in 44 consumers. Cargill ($49.4 billion, 2001) Industries: grain, cotton, sugar, salt, animal feed, fertilizer, food processing, petroleum trading, financial trading, steel. Food for thought: As the U.S.’s largest privately-owned corporation, Cargill controls 45 percent of the global grain market, and is one of the world’s largest producers of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers’ groups around the world claim they are being put out of business because such agribusiness conglomerates now control the markets for both farming essentials and products. Coca-Cola ($20.1 billion, 2001) Brands: Barq’s, Coke, Dasani water, Dr. Pepper, Fruitopia, Minute Maid, Powerade, Sprite. Food for thought: Coca-Cola commands about 50 percent of the global soft-drink market. The company made Multinational Monitor’s Ten Worst Corporations list twice in the past five years –- once in 1998 for its rabid marketing of sugary drinks to children, and again in 2001 for a 30-year record of human rights abuses in its overseas operations. 

Most recently, Coke managers in Columbia hired right-wing paramilitaries to intimidate, torture and murder union leaders organizing for better wages and working conditions. ConAgra Foods ($27.19 billion, 2001) Industries: processed food, dairy, oils, feed ingredients, packaging, meat and poultry, agricultural products Brands: Butterball, Chef Boyardee, HealthyChoice, Hebrew National, Hunt’s Snack Pack, La Choy, Lightlife, Parkay, Reddi-wip, Slim Jims, SmartDogs.

Food for thought: ConAgra is the largest food supplier in North America, leading the way in meat packing, french fry production and distribution of agricultural chemicals. More than 30 of its brands top $100 million in sales. Twenty million pounds of beef were sold to American schools by a ConAgra subsidiary, which from 1997-98 was cited for 171 “critical” food safety violations. In 1995 ConAgra paid $13.6 million to settle a lawsuit involving price fixing in the catfish industry, and in 1989 was caught under-weighing over 45,000 truckloads of chicken. Dean Foods ($6.23 billion, 2001) Industries: Dairy, syrup, soy beverages, pickles, peppers Brands: Borden, Creamland, Land O’Lakes, Sun Soy, and Tucsan. Food for thought: Not only is Dean Foods the leading U.S. producer of fluid milk and dairy products, it has also recently become the largest soymilk manufacturer. 

Dole Food ($4.49 billion, 2001) Industries: fresh fruit, vegetables, cut flowers, packaged foods. 

Food for thought: The world’s largest producer of fresh fruit and vegetables with active interests in 90 countries. Dole agreed in mid-July to pay up to $24 million to 3,000 Honduran banana workers exposed to sterility- and cancer-causing pesticides used on company plantations over a 30-year period. Dow Chemical ($27.8 billion, 2001) Industries: pesticides, fertizlizers. Food for thought: The largest chemical company in America. A major spill of 47,000 gallons of concentrated Dursban insecticide in 1997 led to a major fish-kill and contamination of water supplies in four Alabama counties, causing nausea, diarrhea and dizziness among citizens. Dursban is the top selling pesticide in the world. Dow recently purchased Union Carbide, but is refusing to honor the company’s liabilities from the 1984 Bhopal disaster in which 8,000 Indians were killed after poison gas leaked from a pesticide factory. International Flavors & Fragrances ($1.84 billion, 2001) Industries: Chemical compounds used to flavor food and produce scents in bathroom, household and pharmaceutical products.

Food for thought: The world’s largest flavor company, IFF flavors many brands and is not required to list ingredients. The line between artificial and natural flavor has grown increasingly thin as companies replicate the chemical structure of natural ingredients, calling chemical concoctions “natural flavoring.” Kraft Foods ($33.8 billion, 2001) Brands: Altoids, Jell-O, Kraft, Maxwell House, Minute Rice, Miracle Whip, Nabisco, Oreo, Oscar Meyer, Philadelphia cream cheese, Post, Ritz, Stove Top stuffing, Velveeta.

Food for thought: Kraft Foods owner Philip Morris didn’t need witchcraft to create a monster food company. It just needed to know which companies to gobble up and house under the Kraft umbrella. Kraft is the number one food company in North America, holding the top market share in 17 of its 20 top product categories. In March 2002 Kraft Foods was part of a $9 million settlement of a federal lawsuit regarding the use of Bayer’s genetically modified StarLink corn in its taco shells. Kroger ($50.1 billion, 2001) Brands: Fred Meyer supercenters, Kroger’s supermarkets, Kwik Stop and Quik Stop convenience stores, Ralph’s Grocery, Smith’s Food and Drug Centers, Winn-Dixie supermarkets. Food for thought: The leading U.S. grocer with 3,600 stores coast-to-coast, less than 15 percent of Kroger sales come from stores bearing the company name. Thanks to acquisitions, Kroger sells groceries under the banner of some two dozen different store names. Kroger also manufactures a wide variety of its own store brand foods. In a move designed to take advantage of the $7.8 billion market for organic foods, Kroger will add “natural foods” sections to its stores in 2003. Monsanto ($5.46 billion, 2001) Industries: herbicides, genetically modified seeds and food substitutes.

Food for thought: The world’s third largest agri-chemical company, Monsanto is developing a hammer-lock on farmers by leveraging its top-selling Roundup herbicide and Roundup Ready GM seeds. Farmers that purchase Monsanto’s seeds find they must also purchase the herbicide to protect them. Such practices have prompted farmers’ groups in India to burn Monsanto test fields in protest, and earned Monsanto’s chief executive officer a vegan tofu cream pie in the face. One Monsanto officer said, “Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech foods. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the Federal Drug Administration’s job.” Monsanto also produces the sugar substitute marketed as NutraSweet and Equal. Nestle ($50.2 billion, 2001) Brands: Alpo, Coffee Mate, Dairy Farm ice cream, Friskies, Haagen-Dazs, L’Oreal, Lean Cuisine, Mighty Dog, Nescáfe, Nestle's Quik, Perrier, Poland Spring, Purina, Skillet Sensations, Stouffer’s. Food for thought: The Swiss-headquartered Nestle is the world’s largest food production company with 495 factories and 230,000 employees around the world. It has a mind-boggling array of over 8,000 brands in its global larder. One of its best-selling brands is Nescáfe instant coffee, 3,000 cups of which are consumed worldwide every second. Sara Lee ($17.7 billion, 2001) Brands: Ball Park Franks, Best Kosher, Bryan, Chock Full o’Nuts, Endust furniture polish, Hanes, Hillshire Farms, Jimmy Dean, Kiwi shoe polish, L’eggs, Pickwick teas, Playtex, Sunbeam, Wonderbra. Food for thought: Mention Sara Lee and everyone thinks cheesecake, but the corporation is all about packaged meat and underwear, serving up a full plate of sausage, hot dogs and lunch meats, bras, panties and pantyhose. In 2001, Sara Lee cut a deal with federal prosecutors as sweet as one of its famous cheesecakes: plea bargaining to two misdemeanors and a $200,000 fine in exchange for dropping all other charges to 21 deaths and 100 injuries caused by bacteria-contaminated Ball Park Franks hotdogs. Syngenta ($6.32 billion, 2001) Industries: agri-chemicals and genetically modified seeds. 

Food for thought: Drug giants Novartis and AstraZeneca merged in 2001 to form the world’s largest agri-chemical and seed company. Syngenta now controls more than 40 percent of the world’s patents on genetically modified technologies, including what the company calls “Terminator Technology,” or the ability to render seeds sterile and force farmers to buy new stock each year. Worldwide, 1.4 billion people rely on saved seed to plant the next year’s crop. Tyson Foods ($10.79 billion, 2001) Industries: chicken, beef, pork processing, animal feeds, prepared foods. Companies owned: Iowa Beef Processors, Hudson Foods. Food for thought: Tyson’s recent acquisition of IBP makes it the largest meat processing company in the world, with more than a fifth of the U.S. market. Tyson’s recall of 35 million pounds of beef in 1997, the largest food recall in history, was hidden from the public for three weeks, allowing 25 million pounds to be consumed. Meat packing is now the most dangerous job in the nation, with an injury rate three times higher than a typical American factory. Tyson successfully lobbied the state of Missouri into halting welfare benefits for people who refused their jobs.

 For more go to EU-Digest

Food Industry: Chicken McNuggets Contain Disturbing Additives

Bloomberg recently reported McNuggets served in the U.S. also contain tertiary butylhydroquinone, a petroleum-based product, and dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent used in cosmetics and other goods.

In response to reports that their ingredients may pose health risks, McDonald's China claims that additives in its chicken McNuggets are "harmless". They said that the use of tertiary butylhydroquinone meets Chinese food safety standards.

Note EU-Digest: well you heard it from McDonald, Chicken McNuggets are safe to eat. Sure, like they would say otherwise....

FOR MORE: foodconsumer.org - Chicken McNuggets Contain Disturbing Additives

Food Industry: Are You Eating Your Feelings? - AhlanLive.com

With a whopping 70 per cent of women on a diet at any one time, it seems that most of us are unhappy with our bodies. And the reason, warn the experts, is the unhealthy associations we make between the food we eat and our emotions. Fatty foods are seen as indulgent treats, while denying ourselves food is seen as a good thing.

You only have to look at celeb yo-yo dieters to know that our relationship with food in inextricably linked to how we feel about ourselves. Take naturally curvy Jess Simpson, who shrank to a tiny size two in the wake of her split from ex-hubby Nick Lachey and who has fluctuated up and down the scales ever since. But, as she drifts from one failed relationship to the next – ballooning after she was unceremoniously dumped by Tony Romo – the same pattern emerges: Jess is locked in a bitter comfort bingeing/punishing starvation cycle. And, despite recent pictures that show a loved-up, curvy Jess happily munching pasta with her new man, Eric Johnson, it won’t be long before the reality TV star is punishing herself for the calorific Italian meals with another gruelling detox.

“Our belief system is then adapted so that we think we’re being good when we starve ourselves, but to reward ourselves we eat,” says psychologist Linda Papadopoulous. And the key, claims Linda, is to end this eternal love/hate relationship with food, and start to learn to see it in its most simplistic form: as a source of energy.

For more: Are You Eating Your Feelings? - AhlanLive.com

The Food Industry: Junk Food Hiding Among Us: Low Fat Snacks Do Not Always Equal Healthy Foods

Couture frozen yogurt, low fat peanut butter on whole wheat bread, and baked chips washed down with a diet soda. These are healthy snacks, right? Wrong.

We have ourselves convinced that tasty snacks are healthy because we've trained our bodies to think healthy snacks aren't tasty. And which do we crave? The tasty ones, of course. Not ones to miss an opportunity to capitalize on our misfortunate choices, the food industry and restauranteurs alike seem to have joined forces in a crusade to convince us that eating fat free, low fat, antioxidant rich, no trans fat, 100% whole wheat, and myriad of other catch-phrased food is actually good for our bodies. We allow them to continually develop dishes and packaged products in marked-up snack pack sizes or backed by recognizable "diet" companies because we like to trick ourselves; it's easy to believe.


For more: Junk Food Hiding Among Us: Low Fat Snacks Do Not Always Equal Healthy Foods - Driven

What Makes a Food Junk? - by Linda Larrowe Bergersen:

The processing of foods isn't something new, but it has become more and more invasive and pervasive into our diet sources, and half the time it's not realized how much of these processed foods we are eating. Desserts, packaged snacks and fast foods are readily seen as the culprits, but there are tons of foods included in our daily diet that contribute to major diseases, and it all starts with the refined ingredients. Everyday choices in supermarkets are full of junk made by processing; foods with negative nutritional effect are included daily in our diets either with or without us knowing it, and they are making us just as ill as are the so-called junk or fast foods. Here's a small list to begin pondering of commonly used and trusted foods that are mostly highly processed or may contain processed sugars or hydrogenated oils, depending on types and brands: Cooking oils, Breakfast cereals, flours, Soy milk, Artificial sweeteners, Agave syrup, Canned fruits and vegetables, Fruit juices, Bagels, breads, rolls, pasta, muffins, Deli/lunch meats, Milk, yogurt, dairy products, White rice, Cocoa, chocolate, Pancake mix, Peanut butter Tomato products, ketchup, Salad dressings, Mayonnaise.

One of the first foods to be processed by man was sugar around 600 A.D. Over the centuries the refinement developed more and more into the white sugar we use today. A popular sweetener currently, agave, is also highly processed and contains at least 70 percent fructose. Most doctors, including Dr. Nicholas Perricone, anti-aging expert and author, agree that fructose without the fiber will increase triglycerides and contribute to hardening of the arteries. The fruit juices we have with breakfast every morning fall into this category. It's interesting to note that the fresh juice from the raw sugarcane is one of the most nutritious things a person can consume.

For more: Linda Larrowe Bergersen: What Makes a Food Junk?

Food Industry: Junk food-addicted rats chose to starve themselves rather than eat healthy food

A diet including unlimited amounts of junk food can cause rats to become so addicted to the unhealthy diet that they will starve themselves rather than go back to eating healthy food, researchers have discovered.

In a series of studies conducted over the course of three years and published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Scripps Florida scientists Paul Johnson and Paul Kenny have shown that rats' response to unlimited junk food closely parallels well-known patterns of drug addiction -- even down to the changes in brain chemistry.

For more: Junk food-addicted rats chose to starve themselves rather than eat healthy food