You are what you... a note on CA Prop 37

Ever wonder exactly what's in Miracle-Gro? Or what kind of "filter" the water goes through, and what kind of "water" is used, to make your beverage? Or why it is that supermarket produce look so much bigger and brighter than those from your local farmers' market (you do have one, right?!)? Or how in the world your food is made? If not - you should. I mean, you're worried about carbs, calories, and quantity - ever wonder about content, composition, and quality?

Of most recent interest is the developments regarding Proposition 37 in California. Now, this is not some extreme-left-wing swing at the mainstream, though it may appear that way. It's a proposition on how we should regard GMO's (genetically-modified organism) and bring them to consumers' awareness on store shelves in this country.

I may have been swayed by my reading of some works by Michael Pollan. I may have been swayed by years of teachers and media shoving it down our throats that we need to recycle, because putting that plastic bottle in the trash will yield centuries of undecomposed plastic bottles piled up next to undecomposing diapers and undecomposing metal waste next to seagulls and penguins with their beaks tied up by Coca-Cola can holders. I may even have been swayed by my neighborhood's (read: metro DC) and most urban areas' tout of local is better, and the more local the better (as in, if you got the yard, you better use it for more than just tossin' the ball around with the young whippersnapper).

All these factors may have held me in their hypnotic clasp, which make me all the more concerned about what I'm eating. But as I look back, I find that I was swayed not by any of these factors, though they did help bolster my original beliefs that our ecosystem is a closed system, and stuff doesn't just disappear - no matter if it's tangible or not. I also find that these factors may help reinforce my beliefs that we are indeed what we eat - so we should have some serious awareness of what we eat, because our bodies are indeed closed systems that at some point really can not heal themselves. What I found most remarkable was that my concern about the significance of Proposition 37 stemmed from a deep-rooted background developed by a couple of FOB parents who (a)insisted on a Buddhist mentality in approach on life; (b) practiced a brief stint in macrobiotic eating at a time when health-food stores were little more than dark, tiny vitamin-marts with small selections of homemade granola, Amy's was just a starting company whose only product on the shelves were their soy-cheese pizzas, and running chicken was the terminology for the whole chickens they sold; and (c)did not buy their produce from supermarkets but from the local farmer's market whose products came from Lancaster County, a mere 2 hours away. Oh, we still hit the supermarkets all right - for mass-produced goods like plastic bags, dried goods, bread, canned goods - and meat. I know, I eschew the canned-food approach and search out organic meats now, but for a couple of parents whose childhoods of (basically) poverty were shaped in part by their parents who survived occupation and stowed food whenever they could, their blind cost-effective approach made sense.

(what was funny, and what IS funny, is that I still love going to that farmers' market. that farmers' market was around when i was little kid, long before farmers' markets were part of the mainstream.)

Soda was a treat at our family potluck parties, but dimsum was akin to back-to-roots mom's ole coking for them. We rarely cooked pasta Italian style, but they did cook quite a few other rice pastas throughout my childhood (still miss Mom's stir-fried rice vermicelli with chicken, dried shrimps, and julienne vegetables). We used oil in cooking, but just enough to do what it's supposed to (lightly coat by a mere tablespoonful for stir-fry items, or enough for deep fry) - we did not use oil as a means of saucing any dish. Most of our day-in/day-out stir-fry dishes were, for the most part, very simple: salt, pepper, garlic. That's it.

So here's the quick nickel tour of Prop 37: it is a requirement, primarily, for food producers to label their foods if they used GMO raw materials as ingredients. The only exceptions: if the GMO materials do not account for more than .5% of the total product weight or if the product does not include more than 10 such ingredients; alcoholic beverages; restaurant-prepared foods; food produced that have not been knowingly comingled with GMO foods; foods that have been produced using genetically-engineered enzymes or processing aids; foods derived entirely from any animal that has not been genetically engineered (but may have been injected with genetically engineered medicines).

For people who shop along the perimeter for food, this may not be so much of an issue - unless the fruits and vegetables were grown from genetically-modified seeds. What troubles me so much in this development is not that there is opposition - for any idea, there should always be some opposition so as to keep the spirit of debate and discussion alive in this country. It is the shear mass of opposition. And all just for this issue to have been raised not at the federal level, but at the state level in one state: California.

Could it be that in the realm of progressive, anti-mainstream thinking, this is the state where things start - and the opposition is worried about the progression of the same line of thought through other states as well? I'd like to think that they were that actively concerned that this move would put a microscope and a magnifying glass on their production process - but I'm more worried that it's simply because they have such a stronghold on the industrialization of the country and the blinding of the American consumer that they'd like for us to think that the status quo - their status quo - is perfectly acceptable and would like for us to continue thinking that way, all in the name of money-saving.

Socialist agenda or not - remember reading The Jungle, in our grade-school days? Did you ever have that sinking feeling of seeing what Jurgis and his family was going through, and realizing that every step he took was one in the wrong direction, but that every step was one that was orchestrated by some bigger hand he couldn't escape - and even if he took the right step, he still wouldn't be able to get away from the hand? It was akin to watching a horror movie and knowing exactly which dumbass was going to die next. Paste to our country's food-processing industry. It's enough to want me to grow my own rice, fish my own fish, raise my own animals, farm all my own vegetables.

So here's a rundown on the two sides of the battle and what they've contributed to their sides to-date, as released by the California Secretary of State. And what's most concerning is that some of the big producers have ownership of organic brands who have made headway in the mainstream markets

(see the full list here: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21386000/prop-37-donations?source=pkg&appSession=53810318406463&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=2&cpipage=2&CPIsortType=desc&CPIorderby=Position&cbCurrentPageSize=)

For Prop 37:
MERCOLA.COM HEALTH RESOURCES LLC - $800,000.00
ORGANIC CONSUMERS FUND - $634,639.25
DR. BRONNER'S MAGIC SOAPS ALL-ONE-GOD-FAITH INC. - $290,000.00
NATURE'S PATH FOODS U.S.A. INC. FINE NATURAL FOOD PRODUCTS - $250,709.21
WEHAH FARM, INC., DBA LUNDBERG FAMILY FARMS - $200,000.00
CROPP COOPERATIVE INC. ORGANIC VALLEY - $50,000.00
ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION - $40,000.00
AMY'S KITCHEN - $25,000.00
PRESENCE MARKETING, INC. - $20,000.00
ACE HOLDINGS LLC - $10,000.00
SKY VALLEY FOODS - $7,500.00
TRACEY MCGRATHTRACEY MCGRATHARTIST AND INVESTOR - $6,125.00
STRAUS FAMILY CREAMERY - $5,000.00
TRADITIONAL MEDICINALS - $5,000.00
EDWARD & SONS TRADING COMPANY, INC. - $4,000.00

Against Prop 37:
MONSANTO COMPANY - $4,208,000.00
E.I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & CO. - $4,025,200.00
PEPSICO, INC. - $1,716,300.00
BASF PLANT SCIENCE - $1,642,300.00
BAYER CROPSCIENCE - $1,618,400.00
DOW AGROSCIENCES LLC - $1,184,800.00
NESTLE USA, INC. - $1,169,400.00
COCA-COLA NORTH AMERICA - $1,164,400.00
CONAGRA FOODS (owns ALEXIA) - $1,076,700.00
SYNGENTA CORPORATION - $821,300.00
KELLOGG COMPANY - $632,500.00
GENERAL MILLS, INC. (owns LARABAR, MUIR GLEN, NATURE VALLEY, MOUNTAIN HIGH, CASCADIAN FARM, GOOD EARTH) - $519,401.17
HERSHEY COMPANY (owns SCHARFFEN BERGER) - $498,006.72
THE J.M. SMUCKER COMPANY - $388,000.00
COUNCIL FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY INFORMATION - $375,000.00
GROCERY MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION - $375,000.00
HORMEL FOODS CORPORATION - $374,300.00
BIMBO BAKERIES USA - $338,300.00
PIONEER HI-BRED INTERNATIONAL, A DUPONT BUSINESS - $310,100.00
OCEAN SPRAY CRANBERRIES, INC. - $301,553.21
PINNACLE FOODS GROUP LLC - $266,100.00
DEAN FOODS COMPANY (dairy production company which owns Horizon, Silk, Lehigh Valley, Shenandoah, PET, Swiss Farms, Dean's Purity, Brown's, Foremost, Oak Farms, Hygeia, McArthur, Meadow Gold, Morning Glory, Jilbert, Meadow Brook, Friendship, Tuscan, Mayfield Dairy Farms, Berkeley Farms, Model Dairy, Alta Dena, Swiss, Robinson Dairy, Creamland, Alpro, International Delight, Land-o-Lakes, and TruMoo) - $253,950.00
BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY ORGANIZATION - $252,000.00
MCCORMICK & COMPANY, INC. - $248,200.00
WM. WRIGLEY JR. COMPANY - $237,664.90
RICH PRODUCTS CORPORATION - $225,537.15
CARGILL, INC. (OWNS TRUVIA) - $202,229.36
DEL MONTE FOODS COMPANY - $189,974.61
KNOUSE FOODS COOPERATIVE, INC. - $135,831.53
MARS FOOD NORTH AMERICA - $100,242.69
BUMBLE BEE FOODS, LLC - $98,073.62
SUNNY DELIGHT BEVERAGES COMPANY - $96,952.57
SARA LEE CORPORATION - $96,833.22
CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY - $70,454.91
SOLAE, LLC - $61,207.43
MCCAIN FOODS USA, INC. - $52,295.63
DOLE PACKAGED FOODS COMPANY - $45,580.05
C. H. GUENTHER & SON, INC. - $24,189.18
LAND O'LAKES, INC. - $21,513.78
HERO NORTH AMERICA - $21,044.96
MORTON SALT - $20,957.42
INVENTURE FOODS, INC. - $11,343.80
GODIVA CHOCOLATIER, INC. - $11,121.53
HOUSE-AUTRY MILLS, INC. - $1,077.27
RICHELIEU FOODS, INC. - $165.80

Some of these companies were complete givens (damn, where's Walmart when you need it!) - but who knew how deep some of these companies reached into our definitely of wholesome eating? And granted, while I don't encourage eating of the foods from the middle of the supermarket or from the drive-thru, we don't completely eschew some of these little once-in-a-long-while (i.e., if you can't remember the last time you were in the place + 6 months) snacks. But while we eat this food, just as while we recognize how out-of-norm eating out should be, we do recognize the negative effect the foods have on us. And outside of our kids' continuous pandering for all things colorful, overly sugared, and processed, we typically do not even entertain purchasing these items except in dire emergencies. Like, hurricane's a-comin and we might not get out of it until the next season rolls around kind of emergency.

Take a read, understand what's at stake if we let things just go along their merry way as they have been. There's a lot more than just dollars here. And it could be a huge wake-up call for anyone who has never read a food label on the stuff they're putting into their bodies.