Why do producers fight so hard against labeling their food products? I’m asking mostly about such things as BHT in milk and genetically altered produce.
I read a while back about a civil suit brought by the makers of BHT against a dairy (in the N.E. USA?) for labeling their milk “BHT free”. They sued someone for saying what the milk did not contain?. I also read that the Canadian govt. prohibited such labeling. Gimme a break.
Distributors are also fighting against labeling such items as Irradiated meat and genetically altered produce.
Peace,
mangeorge
I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000
Labelling genetically modified products, irradiated products, and certain others would imply that there is something more dangerous or less healthful about the foods. Kinda like putting a warning label on a bottle of drinking water that says it contains “dihydrogen monoxide”.
Although there are people who would want to avoid these products because of some philosophical reasons, it wouldn’t be practical to label foods (and other products) this way. For example, I read recently that labor organizations in California want tomatoes to be labelled to indicate whether they were picked by a person or a machine. True, there are some people who want to know this, but just imagine society mandating labels for every concievable philosophy.
So it makes sense only to require labels when there are health ramifications, and with GMO’s, BHT milk, and irradiation, there are none. I’d go out of my way to buy irradiated food and several genetically modified foods.
I have no knowledge of laws preventing someone labelling food if they want to. I’m not saying they don’t exist. If someone has a cite, I’d like to see it.
Thanks for the link. The link to the euphoria site was indeed about how Illinois went against the FDA’s guidelines allowing voluntary labelling, and how that’s now been overturned.
However, the other three links (one of the five didn’t work) were about something else. Two were about Monsanto trying to stop news reporters from saying certain things about their products, which I would expect from anyone who thinks their products are being blatantly misrepresented. Since the news editors stopped the story, it makes me think that maybe the reporters didn’t have their facts straight, as opposed to editors buckling under industry pressure.
And the last link (concerning GM foods) was about something else too. Monsanto sued a farmer for using its seeds without a license, not for anything having to do with labelling. I got an idea of the objectivity of this piece when it called the “researcher” Arpad Pusztai “a respected British scientist”. Respected by whom? As far as I know, only by Greenpeace.
Here in Wisconsin, when BHT was oked for use, the stores had up signs from the dairy companies at the coolers. “The FDA has determined BHT is not harmful, and so we will not label products that contain or do not contain this.”
After weeks of low milk sales, signs started to go up from some dairy companies that stated the following. “Our farmers have certified that the milk they sell us does not come from cows treated with BHT.” The container were then marked “Contains No BHT”, or something similar.
The product on the shelves marked “Contains No BHT” were low to empty. The other brands were full cases.
I wasn’t going to support the use of this hormone. I didn’t buy milk for about four weeks, until the BTH free stuff came out. The FDA wasn’t going to get me to accept this in my milk just because they said that the companies shouldn’t label the milk differently. It’s about freedom of choice. You label it correctly, and I’ll decide if I want to buy it.
I also think that products that contain geneticaly altered ingredients, should be labeled so.
I’m only your wildest fear, from the corners of your darkest thoughts.
That’s pretty much how I feel about labeling, Phobia. If all these food probucers weren’t so secretive about their products, people wouldn’t be so suspicious about what’s in them. It’s not their milk, fer crissakes, it’s ours.
I remember when organic food started showing up in markets a lot of the traditional suppliers didn’t want them labeled as such.
Peace,
mangeorge
One of the dairies here in California (Alta Dena) states prominently on the label that it doesn’t use milk containing hormones and then goes on to say, on the same label that there is no difference between milk with and without hormones. I always wondered if they were required to do that in order to join the Dairy Association or something. It always seemed a bit insulting to me, since most people who buy products from that dairy do so because they don’t use hormones.
Lots of people don’t know, Johnny. They were never taught. Besides, people used to buy meat from a butcher. Now we get it from a giant producer, and they grind hamburger 100’s of pounds at a time. They don’t have to see you face to face.
Well, this subject interests me more than you could know. As a sufferer of food allergies it is very important to me to know exactly what genes are being spliced into my foods. I wrote both of my senators about this but have received no response. I imagine that they are supporting the agro side anyway, but just felt like I had to say something.
I wrote my congresswoman about the FDA’s failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act regarding the rBGH and Monsanto. She sent me back a letter thanking me for letting her know my position on food labeling of genetically modified organisms and a big review about what’s going on in Congress so far. Huh? I mean that was great to get, but that’s not what I wrote HER about. That’s what I had written my senators about. Weird.
Anyway, the hungerstrike that www.hungerstrike.com is about is regarding the FDA’s failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act regarding rBGH. Does that make anyone else nervous? Shouldn’t we be able to know the details about the food we eat? You can read a lot about it at the site.
You can also find interesting stuff at www.delphi.com/nondairy Well, obviously I think it’s interesting. I’m the host.
Here’s an article I found regarding possible dangers of GM foods: http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/news/10037.htm I was not able to find more on this subject, but I would be very interested in knowing more. This report seems kind of vague.
In his book “Imagine a World Without Monarch Butterflies”, Alex Jack talks about the Cornell University study that reported the gene-altered corn can kill Monarch butterflies. I recommend it for reading on this subject. I bought 2 copies of the book so that I was sure the library would have a copy. The Monarchs come right through our town on their migration.
There are hundreds of good reasons to label GMO’s and the only reason for not is to make more money for Monsanto. But hey, that’s my opinion.
We lost the date label fight decades ago, and for the same reason that we are loosing this one. Businesses don’t want to give you information. Open labeling is cheap, easy, and informative. Take dating of packaged foods. Those that are required by law to have “sell by” dates do have them. No one has “packed on” dates. No one. Not one product in your supermarket has a label on it that says we put this stuff in the package on this date, you decide when it is best to use it. Why is that? It is because consumers are not willing to go a single day without their favorite goodies. Consumers don’t mind having the producers decide how long a shelf life should be.
If consumers required labels that said “This product contains no genetically altered material” you would find the words on your packages in a matter of weeks. Consumers don’t care. Individual consumers are not the target market, the majority is. Our society does not have the ability to deny itself its least pleasure, nor delay its most trivial gratification. As a result we get instant crap, at high prices. Consumers respond to labels that say “If you buy this, you will be Cool!” So, consumers get screwed, because they love getting screwed. They want to get screwed. They pay extra for the right to buy crap when producers are willing to supply it. And they will wait in line to fork of over the money to get screwed.
Tris
Imagine my signature begins five spaces to the right of center.
Can anyone offer a logical reason why alcoholic drinks are exempt from all these labeling requirements?
They can and do put sweeteners, flavorings, colors, preservatives, etc, in all sorts of drinks, and nothing shows up on the label. Is there a reasonable explanation, or is it simply because they have a powerful lobby?
Keeves, I do not have an explaination for this, but I do think it has something to do with politics. I have quit drinking wine since I found out that casein (milk protein) can be used as a filter in the wine-making process. It would have been nice to know that before I had a reaction to it.
