Whole Foods has announced that, by 2018, all GMO products sold in their stores will carry GMO labels, so customers know what they're buying.Whole Foods has also asserted they are working with their suppliers to find non-GMO raw ingredients, so that current GMO products sold in the stores can become non-GMO.
Whole Foods presents this two-pronged program as their best shot at making intelligent consumers into game changers.
More and more consumers, at Whole Foods, and hopefully other markets that follow suit, will choose non-GMO products; many markets will find and stock non-GMO products; the trend will move America's buying public away from GMOs in a very significant way.
That's the best-case scenario.
Mike Adams, at naturalnews, has stated in several articles that activists must a) keep a close eye on what Whole Foods does for the next five years and b) keep the pressure on to make Whole Foods' plan a reality.
Adams has gone so far as to promise he will put up a prominent Hall of Shame at naturalnews, naming and pounding on those Whole Foods suppliers who refuse to go non-GMO.
I agree with Adams that these measures are absolutely necessary. They aren't just a good idea. They have to happen.
Because it all comes down to this. Should we trust Whole Foods, a natural-food giant that thinks about its bottom line, money, 24/7?
I can't pile praise on a food retailer who, for years, has posted a big sign on its stores that says NOTHING ARTIFICIAL, EVER, when the statement is such a blatant lie.
Perhaps you recall the famous undercover Organic Spies video (now banned from YouTube), secretly documenting Whole Foods employees lying about GMOs in a number of stores. The employees stated that Whole Foods sold no GMOs, when that was clearly false.
I'd like to have a look at the upcoming Whole Foods GMO label and read exactly what it says and see how it's laid out and how specific it is. I'd like to see how large it will be displayed on products in their stores.
Warning to Whole Foods: if you somehow cheat on the label or somehow downplay its prominence, you're going to have hell to pay.
I'd like to have a precise breakdown on this: how many GMO and how many non-GMO products is Whole Foods selling right now? Let's have a complete list on both counts.
The current line-up of non-GMO products is available at Whole Foods' website, on a store by store basis. I like that, except for the fact that many products on the list obviously wouldn't contain GMOs, even if they were sold at a conventional supermarket, because Monsanto hasn't gotten around to inserting genes in them, yet.
Okay, let's dig much deeper now. I'm going to present extensive quotes from an article Ronnie Cummins wrote for the Huffington Post on January 28, 2011. Cummins is the director of the Organic Consumer Association. His article was headlined: "The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?"
The burning article goes to the heart of the trust issue, as far as Whole Foods is concerned. It's exactly why I agree with Mike Adams' strategy for dealing with Whole Foods, as they implement their five-year plan to go non-GMO.
Cummins' article came on the heels of a disastrous Obama-adminstration decision to allow GMO alfalfa to be grown all over the US.
Cummins writes:
"In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto's Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation's 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America's organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it's time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto's controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for "coexistence" with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack."
Does that make you feel warm and cuddly about Whole Foods? Let's continue:
"In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, Whole Foods Market, while proclaiming their support for organics and 'seed purity,' gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the 'conditional deregulation' of Monsanto's genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa. Beyond the regulatory euphemism of 'conditional deregulation,' this means that WFM [Whole Foods Market] and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S."
Boom.
Before continuing to quote Cummins, I should point out that, after he published this piece, there was strong and angry reaction from Whole Foods. They suggested that Cummins was just trying to raise money for his Organic Consumer's Association by making his wild accusations. I find this charge absurd. Cummins eventually stated that Whole Foods was not the enemy, Monsanto was. But I believe Cummins was content to have blown the whistle on Whole Foods, and he had a clue that they were about to change their behavior. In other words, his attack got way under the skin of Whole Foods and they saw the handwriting on the wall. Do the right thing, or you'll suffer serious consequences.
