My friend sent me an email trashing Whole Foods for their stance on the GM Alfalfa situation --

********************

Hi,

I received the below email from a trusted source.
I recommend reading it, and deciding based on its information whether you choose to buy products from Whole Foods given
their support of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's) and now including them (without labeling or warning) in the 'natural' products they sell.
Although Whole Foods makes a public show of wanting to keep "organic" foods clear of GMO's, in reality they sell twice as much 'natural' products than organic, doing their best to obscure the profound difference between the two.
They are now also accepting and promoting the general policy of inclusion of GMO's in the food chain in general, calling it "co-existence" with GMO's and Monsanto.
Details are in the article below.


Begin forwarded message:

Subject: Whole Foods Market betrays the Organic Movement to Monsanto!!!

This is a must read. Please circulate it via Bcc to everyone you know and ask them to do the same.

[www.organicconsumers.org]

Today she sent me this email -

Whole foods email may have been misleading...sorry?

Sorry to bother everyone...

From a friend:

this from my dear friend who works for the whole foods...please send this to all you sent the other email to

Here’s the company response…


[www.facebook.com]


[blog.wholefoodsmarket.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2011 01:44AM by KidRaw.

I liked this comment from a poster on the facebook page -

"...And what did you get for your 'compromise'? Today GE alfalfa was approved with NO geographhic restriction. Congratulations. Instead of fighting for a full ban (just how do you coexist with a deadly killer of the planet and our health?),

you were graciously granted a seat at their table and in return you got this. Well, now you can say you did the best you could. Except you can't. You didn't even try. Pathetic!"


It would seem to me that Whole Foods "followed the money"...after all, that is the bottom line, correct...?

I don't know. Maybe they felt like they were between a rock and a hard place. Like they were better off trying to change things from the inside rather than being left out altogether.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2011 02:14AM by KidRaw.

That may be...I know it is hard to fight the big boys from the outside...I guess you have to sit at the same table with them.

For me though, there is just no room for compromise when it come to clean foods, & it looks like many feel that Whole Foods did compromise, didn't take a strong enough stand...

KidRaw,

The Organic Consumers Association article you posted was one of the most interesting and detailed analyses I have read on this subject[I posted at the OT Forum about approval of GMO alfalfa a few days back]. I think it is a very unfortunate fact that Whole Foods is a corporation whose main purpose is to generate profits for their investors, which requires throwing the net as wide as possible to capture the broadest possible demographics. This is not inherently bad--it's just the how the market works. Whole Foods became a publically traded company in the early aughts, I believe, so I am surprised it's taken this long for them to start conspicuously making exceptions and allowances(I dismiss the article's argument that the acceptance of GMOs is some sort of gentlemen's agreement between Tom Vilsack and John Mackey,btw). I'm sorry to say that when you are beholden to shareholders, you're gonna have to play the game according to established rules. I bet some of the most vociferous anti-GMO consumers are personally invested in Monsanto itself without realizing it, as with mutual funds. I am trying to see it juicerkatz's way--pragmatically

Thanks for posting.

"I think it is a very unfortunate fact that Whole Foods is a corporation whose main purpose is to generate profits for their investors, which requires throwing the net as wide as possible to capture the broadest possible demographics. "

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say...

Thank God I can still shop at a "Mom & Pop" establishment where they buy/sell from local growers...although I don't know how long that will last...I have my fears...

Here's another article explaining the situation more succinctly -

US Government Brokers Deal Between Big Biotech and Big Organic

[www.lewrockwell.com]

the more i know .. the more i grow im getting more an more suspicious of retail/wholesale markets .. obviously my suspicions are coming true .. if i dont grow it i dont know it !

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist