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Random snips
For instance, Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola and Boca Burger is owned by Kraft, itself a subsidiary of Altria, which owns cigarette-maker Philip Morris. "Unfortunately, these sales take place without the knowledge of consumers, who continue to buy thinking they are supporting these funky little businesses," says Hollender.
This is a big warning sign that conglomeration is really getting out of controll...
In the U.S., by contrast, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) opposes labeling, although polls show that most consumers would prefer that GE foods be identified. Seventy percent or more of processed foods on grocery shelves in the U.S. may contain GE ingredients, but American consumers can't exercise their economic muscle if they don't know what they're buying! Several international companies and fast-food chains, including Kellogg's, Kraft, McDonalds, Nestlé, and Quaker Oats, offer GE-free foods abroad but not here.
Compairing stuff made for use in the US and stuff make for use in Europe REALLY makes me want to move. We get chemicals, GE stuff and artifical colours up the wazzoo and they get the more natural stuff. WTF is up with that? Why are Americans marketed SHINEY garbage? And why do they BUY it? ><
Even in the U.S., consumers aren't as obedient as industry would like. Over the past half century, at the urging of big buyers, Washington apple growers bred a beautiful, red, perfectly-shaped Red Delicious apple with a thick skin for protection when being shipped long distances. The only trouble: It was virtually tasteless. Consumers simply stopped buying them. Now, growers report they have lost $760 million in the past three years, prompting the biggest federal bailout in the history of the apple industry.
Side story about apples:
Almost every apple comercialy grown is a clone. 'Natural' apples are nasty things, like crabapples and are only good for hard cider, but everynow and then you get ONE tree of a million that produces a sweet, nummy apple, so they take cuttings from it and graft onto other trees, cloaning that apple. That's how you get varieries of apples that tastegood.
I learn neat things in class. :D
Deirdre also discovered that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows cosmetics to go to market without prior third-party testing for safety. The agency has never required the $20-billion-a-year industry "to label its products with any warning of well-documented risks . . . nor has the FDA banned the sale of a wide range of unsafe products to an unsuspecting public," says Samuel Epstein, M.D., chair of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and professor emeritus of environmental and occupational medicine at the University of Illinois at the Chicago School of Public Health.
...
"The use of the word 'hypoallergenic' on labels is unregulated and therefore doesn't necessarily mean anything," cautions Joan Muratore, senior project leader at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports.
...
And, despite statements such as that on Clairol's Herbal Essences website, which calls itself "your head-to-toe online guide to the Totally Organic Experience," the words "organic" and "natural" on labels are also not regulated with regard to personal-care products.
THis is why you find 'Organics' and 'Natural' stuff that has artifical colours in them... And you know my bitching about artifical colours...
Some of the FDA-approved coloring agents, listed as FD&C colors*, while sounding terribly safe and official, are anything but: some contain lead acetate*, a heavy metal* toxic to the nervous system; others are allergens or irritants, or linked with cancers.
I look at stuff like that and feel almost greatful for my alergies. Being alergic to artifical colours in a world wher ethey;'re in EVERYTHING is a bitch, but I honestly feel I'm a hell of a lot healthier for it. Especialy since stuff that's artificaly coloured normaly has much more hidden in it's lable then Red 40 and Yellow 2. And this colouring is hidden in near everythign around you. Bread will sometimes be died yellowish to make it look more wholesome, marshmellows are died with blue to make them appear more white. Read lables someday on all the food you normaly eat and see how much stuff you can't pronounce is on teh lable...
In July 2003, Dean Foods, the nation's largest milk producer, purchased Horizon Organic Milk, which itself had swallowed small companies and farms. PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Tyson's Chicken, General Mills and Heinz have acquired organic product lines. Recently, Country Hen and Fieldale Farms lobbied Congress and the USDA to relax the organic rules for animal feed and access to the outdoors.
There's that conglomeration again...
This is a big warning sign that conglomeration is really getting out of controll...
In the U.S., by contrast, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) opposes labeling, although polls show that most consumers would prefer that GE foods be identified. Seventy percent or more of processed foods on grocery shelves in the U.S. may contain GE ingredients, but American consumers can't exercise their economic muscle if they don't know what they're buying! Several international companies and fast-food chains, including Kellogg's, Kraft, McDonalds, Nestlé, and Quaker Oats, offer GE-free foods abroad but not here.
Compairing stuff made for use in the US and stuff make for use in Europe REALLY makes me want to move. We get chemicals, GE stuff and artifical colours up the wazzoo and they get the more natural stuff. WTF is up with that? Why are Americans marketed SHINEY garbage? And why do they BUY it? ><
Even in the U.S., consumers aren't as obedient as industry would like. Over the past half century, at the urging of big buyers, Washington apple growers bred a beautiful, red, perfectly-shaped Red Delicious apple with a thick skin for protection when being shipped long distances. The only trouble: It was virtually tasteless. Consumers simply stopped buying them. Now, growers report they have lost $760 million in the past three years, prompting the biggest federal bailout in the history of the apple industry.
Side story about apples:
Almost every apple comercialy grown is a clone. 'Natural' apples are nasty things, like crabapples and are only good for hard cider, but everynow and then you get ONE tree of a million that produces a sweet, nummy apple, so they take cuttings from it and graft onto other trees, cloaning that apple. That's how you get varieries of apples that tastegood.
I learn neat things in class. :D
Deirdre also discovered that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows cosmetics to go to market without prior third-party testing for safety. The agency has never required the $20-billion-a-year industry "to label its products with any warning of well-documented risks . . . nor has the FDA banned the sale of a wide range of unsafe products to an unsuspecting public," says Samuel Epstein, M.D., chair of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and professor emeritus of environmental and occupational medicine at the University of Illinois at the Chicago School of Public Health.
...
"The use of the word 'hypoallergenic' on labels is unregulated and therefore doesn't necessarily mean anything," cautions Joan Muratore, senior project leader at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports.
...
And, despite statements such as that on Clairol's Herbal Essences website, which calls itself "your head-to-toe online guide to the Totally Organic Experience," the words "organic" and "natural" on labels are also not regulated with regard to personal-care products.
THis is why you find 'Organics' and 'Natural' stuff that has artifical colours in them... And you know my bitching about artifical colours...
Some of the FDA-approved coloring agents, listed as FD&C colors*, while sounding terribly safe and official, are anything but: some contain lead acetate*, a heavy metal* toxic to the nervous system; others are allergens or irritants, or linked with cancers.
I look at stuff like that and feel almost greatful for my alergies. Being alergic to artifical colours in a world wher ethey;'re in EVERYTHING is a bitch, but I honestly feel I'm a hell of a lot healthier for it. Especialy since stuff that's artificaly coloured normaly has much more hidden in it's lable then Red 40 and Yellow 2. And this colouring is hidden in near everythign around you. Bread will sometimes be died yellowish to make it look more wholesome, marshmellows are died with blue to make them appear more white. Read lables someday on all the food you normaly eat and see how much stuff you can't pronounce is on teh lable...
In July 2003, Dean Foods, the nation's largest milk producer, purchased Horizon Organic Milk, which itself had swallowed small companies and farms. PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Tyson's Chicken, General Mills and Heinz have acquired organic product lines. Recently, Country Hen and Fieldale Farms lobbied Congress and the USDA to relax the organic rules for animal feed and access to the outdoors.
There's that conglomeration again...