poor Mitch and Elaine got hassled at chi chi restaurant...my elderly
disabled and poor people in Wisconsin get a MAX of $15.00 a MONTH in
FoodStamps...pennies a day....
Over
73 percent of Democrats would give up alcohol for the rest of their
life if it meant President Trump would be impeached tomorrow, according to a survey released on Thursday by a drug and alcohol rehabilitation group.
Only
17 percent of Republicans would give up alcohol for Trump’s
impeachment. The poll also found that nearly 31 percent of Republicans
would give up drinking if it meant the media stopped writing negative
things about President Trump.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) formally introduced an article
of impeachment against President Trump on Wednesday, accusing the
president of obstructing justice during the investigation of Russia’s
2016 election interference. It was the first time a lawmaker had offered
an impeachment article against Trump.
Detox.net
surveyed 1,013 active alcohol drinkers on March 14 and asked questions
related to what they would be willing to sacrifice in exchange for
alcohol. Forty-one percent of those surveyed identified as women, 58
percent as men and 1 percent identified as a gender not listed on the
survey.
As for political affiliation, 21 percent identified as Republican, 43 percent as Democrat and 36 percent as other.
The
minimum amount of money the Americans surveyed would accept to quit
drinking for a year is at least $4,700 and to give up alcohol for life
they would expect at least $365,458.
There was a 5
percentage point margin of error when asking about the average minimum
amount of money respondents would be willing to give accept to give up
alcohol.
House Republicans just voted to slash hundreds of billions of dollars
in health care for the poor as part of their Obamacare replacement.
Now, they’re weighing a plan to take the scalpel to programs that
provide meals to needy kids and housing and education assistance for
low-income families.
Donald Trump’s refusal to overhaul Social Security and
Medicare — and his pricey wish-list for infrastructure, a border wall
and tax cuts — is sending House budget writers scouring for pennies in
politically sensitive places: safety-net programs for the most
vulnerable.
Under enormous internal pressure to quickly balance the budget,
Republicans are considering slashing more than $400 billion in spending
through a process to evade Democratic filibusters in the Senate,
multiple sources told POLITICO.
The proposal, which would be part of the House Budget Committee's
fiscal 2018 budget, won't specify which programs would get the ax;
instead it will instruct committees to figure out what to cut to reach
the savings. But among the programs most likely on the chopping block,
the sources say, are food stamps, welfare, income assistance for the
disabled and perhaps even veterans benefits.
If enacted, such a plan to curb safety-net programs — all while
juicing the Pentagon’s budget and slicing corporate tax rates — would
amount to the biggest shift in federal spending priorities in decades.
Atop that, GOP budget writers will also likely include Speaker Paul
Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal to essentially privatize Medicare in their
fiscal 2018 budget, despite Trump’s unwavering rejection of the idea.
While that proposal is more symbolic and won’t become law under this
budget, it’s just another thorny issue that will have Democrats again
accusing Republicans of “pushing Granny off the cliff.”
“The Budget Committee is trying to force the entire conference and
committees of jurisdiction to focus on ways to bring down this deficit,”
said senior budget panel member Rep. Tom Cole.
Republicans have long
sought to tackle the nearly $20 trillion debt, but Trump has tied their
hands by ruling out cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
The Oklahoma Republican, however, acknowledged that mandatory
spending reductions could become “very tough issues” — though he
declined to name which programs would see major cuts:
“These are hard
for anybody, no matter where you’re at on the political spectrum.”
While budget writers are well aware of the sensitive nature of their
proposal, they feel they have no choice if they want to balance the
budget in a decade, which they’ve proposed for years, and give Trump
what he wants.
Enraged by Democrats claiming victory after last month’s government
funding agreement, White House officials in recent weeks have pressed
Hill Republicans to include more Trump priorities in the fiscal 2018
blueprint.
House Budget Republicans hope to incorporate those wishes and are
expected, for example, to budget for Trump’s infrastructure plan. Tax
reform instructions will also be included in the budget, paving the way
for both chambers to use the powerful budget reconciliation process to
push a partisan tax bill through Congress on simple majority votes, as
well as the $400 billion in mandatory cuts.
“The critique last time was that we didn’t embed enough Trump agenda
items into our budget,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), a budget panel
member. Trump has "made it clear it will be embedded in this budget. …
And so people will see a process much more aligned with President
Trump’s agenda in this forthcoming budget.”
New spending, however, makes already tough math even trickier for a
party whose mantra is “balance the budget in 10 years.” Lawmakers need
to cut roughly $8 trillion to meet that goal, budget experts say. And
while a quarter of their savings in previous budgets came from repealing
Obamacare and slicing $1 trillion from Medicaid, Republicans cannot
count on those savings anymore because their health care bill sucked up
all but $150 billion of that stash — relatively speaking, mere pocket
change to play with.
Republicans’ first reflex would be to turn to entitlement reform to
find savings. Medicare and Social Security, after all, account for the
lion’s share of government spending and more than 70 percent of all
mandatory spending.
But while former Freedom Caucus conservative-turned-White House
budget director Mick Mulvaney has tried to convince the president of the
merits of such reforms, Trump has refused to back down on his campaign
pledge to leave Medicare and Social Security alone. (He’s reversed
himself on a vow not to touch Medicaid, which would see $880 billion in
cuts under the Obamacare repeal bill passed by the House.)
Mulvaney, sources say, has been huddling on a weekly basis with House
Budget Chairwoman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) and Senate Budget Chairman Mike
Enzi (R-Wyo.) to plot a path forward. There appears to be some common
ground to consider cuts to other smaller entitlement programs:While
the Office of Management and Budget would not respond to a request for
comment, CQ reported Tuesday that the White House was also considering
hundreds of billions in cuts to the same programs being eyed by House
budget writers.
“I’ve already started to socialize the discussion around here in the
West Wing about how important the mandatory spending is to the drivers
of our debt,” Mulvaney told radio host Hugh Hewitt in March. “There are
ways that we cannot only allow the president to keep his promise, but to
help him keep his promise by fixing some of these mandatory programs.”
Final details of the GOP’s budget plan aren’t expected until June,
and specific language mandating the mandatory cuts still hasn’t been
written, according to one aide familiar with the process.
Committees
would then have several months to put together the
department-by-department details on what exactly to cut, proposals that
probably won’t land until the fall at the earliest, given the
legislative calendar.
The idea could run into problems: It is unclear whether such cuts
would be acceptable in the more moderate Senate. In order for the
proposal to actually move, Senate Republicans would need to include the
same instructions in their own budget.
In the House, Republican leaders hope the moves toward deficit
reduction will buy them some good will with conservatives going into
September, when the party’s right flank will have to swallow difficult
votes to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government.
Cole argued the deficit-trimming push will appeal to the House
Freedom Caucus, which blocked the House GOP’s budget on the floor last
year in protest of spending levels its members considered too high.
But pleasing conservatives this time around will fuel anxiety on the
other end of the conference. Endorsing cuts to programs for the poor
will certainly make centrist House Republicans — many of whom were
uncomfortable voting to slice Medicaid just weeks ago in the Obamacare
repeal bill — very uncomfortable.
Rep. Charlie Dent, a centrist and senior Appropriations Committee
member, said budget reconciliation instructions should center solely on
tax reform, which “is complex enough on its own,” he said.
“All I can say is: Tax reform by itself is very complex and
controversial,” Dent (R-Pa.) said. “Adding some of these other changes
will only make the tax reform more difficult.”
Asked about mandatory programs that might be cut, he added: “This
will create challenges, no question about it. When so many of the
entitlement programs are taken off the table for discussion … that
limits our ability to fund the non-defense discretionary programs and
other mandatory programs that affect a lot of people.”
GOP backers of the idea will argue in the coming weeks and months
that moderates have voted for GOP budgets that included similar cuts in
the past — so they should be able to support them again.
But if House GOP leadership has learned anything from the Obamacare
repeal debacle, it should be that voting for something that has no
chance of becoming law and makes for great campaign fodder is much
easier than backing a bill that could be enacted.
"So, the health care entitlements are the big, big, big drivers of our
debt. There are three. Obamacare, Medicaid, and Medicare. Two out of
three are going through Congress right now. So, Medicaid—sending it back
to the states, capping its growth rate. We’ve been dreaming of this
since you and I were drinking out of a keg."
"The preliminary outline for President Donald Trump's 2018 budget could
slash some funding for a program that provides meals for older,
impoverished Americans.
The budget blueprint suggests cutting
funds for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by about $6.2
billion, a 13.2% decrease from its 2017 funding level.
Here's what Trump wants cut
Almost
half of those savings will come by eliminating the $3 billion Community
Development Block Grant program, which provides money for a variety of
community development and anti-poverty programs, including Meals on
Wheels."
"At a news conference Thursday, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget
chief, defended proposed cuts to the Meals on Wheels program, which
provides food aid to needy senior citizens, by saying the program is one
of many that is “just not showing any results.”
Trump Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters today that
eliminating food for senior citizens via the Meals On Wheels program was
the compassionate thing to do because if a program can't demonstrate
results, it should get cut.
When Mulvaney was asked about the elimination of funding for Meals On
Wheels, he answered, “I think you know that Meals On Wheels is not a
federal program. It’s part of that Community Development Block Grants
(CDBG) that we give to the states, and then many states make the
decision to use that money on Meals On Wheels. What I can tell you about
CDBG's is that’s what we fund. Right? So we spend $150 billion on those
programs since the 1970's. The CDBGs have been identified as programs
since I think the second Bush administration as ones that we just not
showing any results. We can’t do that anymore. We can’t spend money on
programs just because they sound good. Meals On Wheels sounds great.
Again, that’s a state decision to fund that particular portion, but to
take the federal money and to give that to the states, and say look we
want to give you federal money for programs that don’t work. I can’t
defend that anymore.”
Later Mulvaney was asked if this is a hard-hearted budget. He
answered, “I don’t think so. In fact, I think it is one of the most
compassionate things we can do to. You’re only focusing on half of the
equation. Right? You’re focusing on recipients of the money. We’re
trying to focus on both the recipients and the folks who give us the
money in the first place, and I think it’s fairly compassionate to go to
them and say look, we’re not going to ask you for your hard earned
money anymore.”
In other words, screw the starving elderly and the kids who are going
to go without afterschool programs, people like Donald Trump aren’t
giving you their “hard earned” money anymore.
Meals on Wheels helps 2.4 million seniors have access to food while
being able to stay in their own homes. The results for the program can
be seen in both nutritional terms and increased independence for
millions of Americans. Meals on Wheels saves taxpayers $34 billion a year in healthcare costs.
This is a vital program for America’s communities, and anyone who
claims otherwise is not telling the truth. The selfish argument about
taxpayers isn’t going to fly in this case.
The Trump administration has gone from being out of touch with America to trying to starve Americans.
Here’s a problem that may have slipped under your radar: The United States is in the midst of an epic 1.25 billion pound
cheese glut. Low world market prices, increased milk supplies and
inventories, and slower demand have pushed the country’s cheese surplus
to its highest level in 30 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.
Blocks, crumbles and curds are sitting in cold storage stockpiles
around the nation; a mountain of cheese so large that every American
man, woman and child can eat an extra 3 pounds of cheese this year.
You might have noticed that the cost of dairy products has fallen across the board
at the supermarket, and while that’s good news for cheese lovers, dairy
farmers and producers have seen their revenues drop 35 percent over the
past two years. With more cheese than it knows what to do with, the
USDA decided to make two $20 million purchases of surplus cheese in
August and October and donated them to food banks. Critics say that the government is simply waving money—ahem, taxpayer funds—at the problem.
This handout abets large-scale dairy producers, who despite the glut, are on their way toward churning out a record 212 billion pounds
of milk this year. Michigan dairy farmer Carla Wardin told the Wall
Street Journal that she and her colleagues plan to deal with the
situation by “doing the same thing … you milk more cows.”
The problems don’t end there. Cheap dairy is not only bad for the health of
the environment (from methane-burping cows to water pollution), it’s
bad for public health. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
criticized the USDA and its decision-maker Tom Vilsack for effectively
dumping artery-clogging food products on poor people. “Please take a
moment to ask Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to reconsider the
USDA's plan to distribute the fatty cheese to programs that are already
struggling to provide participants healthful foods that fight disease,”
the group writes in an online petition.
Although cheese has some healthy properties such as bone-building calcium, cheese is loaded with fat and sodium, and even low-fat varieties
can contribute to “bad” cholesterol levels. And let’s face it, the way
we usually eat cheese is slapping it generously on top of pizza or
nachos, making it a delicious but unhealthy treat.
“Typical
cheeses are 70 percent fat and are among the foods highest in
cholesterol and sodium, exacerbating obesity, heart disease, and
diabetes," says PCRM. "Cheese is the number one source of saturated fat
in the American diet."
PCRM's petition concludes that
the USDA should help food banks and food assistance programs by
providing healthier fare such as fruits, vegetables, beans and whole
grains. The diabetes epidemic has risen in poor populations, and sending highly processed, high-fat cheese to food banks isn’t going to make things any better.
Manel Kappagoda, senior staff attorney and program director at ChangeLab Solutions, wrote in a 2014 article
that food banks are “a lifeline” for the 50 million Americans who live
in food-insecure households and lack access to affordable, nutritious
food."
Food pantries, she noted, are critical in
maintaining and improving the health of food-insecure Americans. For
this reason, many food banks across the country have implemented
nutrition standards that eliminate unhealthy products such as candy,
sugary drinks and other junk foods. Citing a survey from the Alameda
County Community Food Bank in San Francisco, Kappagoda said that
families and individuals who go to food banks don’t just want any
food—they want fresh produce, low-fat items and other healthy staples.
As
Kappagoda wrote, “to help improve the health of the people they serve,
food banks can’t just offer food—they must offer good food.”
Lorraine Chow is a freelance writer and reporter based in South Carolina.
Among the many things New Yorkers pride ourselves on is food: making
it, selling it and consuming only the best, from single-slice pizza to
four-star sushi. We have fish markets, Shake Shacks and, as of this
year, 74 Michelin-starred restaurants.
Yet most everything we eat is fraudulent.
In his new book, “Real Food Fake Food,”
author Larry Olmsted exposes the breadth of counterfeit foods we’re
unknowingly eating. After reading it, you’ll want to be fed
intravenously for the rest of your life.
Think you’re getting Kobe steak when you order the $350 “Kobe steak”
off the menu at Old Homestead? Nope — Japan sells its rare Kobe beef to
just three restaurants in the United States, and 212 Steakhouse is the
only one in New York. That Kobe is probably Wagyu, a cheaper, passable
cut, Olmsted says. (Old Homestead declined The Post’s request for
comment.)
Fraudulence spans from haute cuisine to fast food: A February 2016
report by Inside Edition found that Red Lobster’s lobster bisque
contained a non-lobster meat called langostino. In a statement to The
Post, Red Lobster maintains that langostino is lobster meat and said
that in the wake of the IE report, “We amended the menu description of
the lobster bisque to note the multiple kinds of lobster that are
contained within.”
Moving on: That extra-virgin olive oil you use on salads has probably
been cut with soybean or sunflower oil, plus a bunch of chemicals. The
100 percent grass-fed beef you just bought is no such thing — it’s very
possible that cow was still pumped full of drugs and raised in a cramped
feedlot.
Unless your go-to sushi joint is Masa or Nobu, you’re not getting the
sushi you ordered, ever, anywhere, and that includes your regular sushi
restaurant where you can’t imagine them doing such a thing, Olmsted
says. Your salmon is probably fake and so is your red snapper. Your
white tuna is something else altogether, probably escolar — known to
experts as “the Ex-Lax fish” for the gastrointestinal havoc it wreaks.
Escolar is so toxic that it’s been banned in Japan for 40 years, but
not in the US, where the profit motive dominates public safety. In fact,
escolar is secretly one of the top-selling fish in America.
The food industry isn’t just guilty of perpetrating a massive health and economic fraud: It’s cheating us out of pleasure.
“Sushi in particular is really bad,” Olmsted says, and as a native
New Yorker, he knows how much this one hurts. He writes that multiple
recent studies “put the chances of your getting the white tuna you
ordered in the typical New York sushi restaurant at zero — as in never.”
Fake food, Olmsted says, is a massive national problem, and the more
educated the consumer, the more vulnerable to bait-and-switch: In 2014,
the specialty-foods sector — gourmet meats, cheeses, booze, oils —
generated over $1 billion in revenue in the US alone.
“This category is rife with scams,” Olmsted writes, and even when it
comes to basics, none of us is leaving the grocery store without some
product — coffee, rice or honey — being faked.
The food industry isn’t just guilty of perpetrating a massive health
and economic fraud: It’s cheating us out of pleasure. These fake foods
produce shallow, flat, one-dimensional tastes, while the real things are
akin to discovering other galaxies, other universes — taste levels most
of us have never experienced.
“The good news,” Olmsted writes, “is that there is plenty of
healthful and delicious Real Food. You just have to know where to look.”
‘Safety isn’t a niche’
One of the most popular, fastest-growing foods in America is olive
oil, touted for its ability to prevent everything from wrinkles to heart
disease to cancer. Italian olive oil is a multibillion-dollar global
industry, with the US its third-largest market.
The bulk of these imports are, you guessed it, fake. Labels such as
“extra-virgin” and “virgin” often mean nothing more than a $2 mark-up.
Most of us, Olmsted writes, have never actually tasted real olive oil.
Old
Homestead in NYC lists “Kobe Beef” on its menu, but that’s not
precisely true. The luxurious Japanese meat can be found at only three
restaurants in the country, including 212 Steakhouse in Midtown.Photo: Shutterstock
“Once someone tries a real extra-virgin — an adult or child, anybody
with taste buds — they’ll never go back to the fake kind,” artisanal
farmer Grazia DeCarlo has said.
“It’s distinctive, complex, the freshest thing you’ve ever eaten. It
makes you realize how rotten the other stuff is — literally rotten.”
Fake olive oil, Olmsted claims, has killed people. He cites the most
famous example: In 1981, more than 20,000 people suffered mass food
poisoning in Spain. About 800 people died, and olive oil mixed with
aniline, a toxic chemical used in making plastic, was blamed.
In 1983, the World Health organization named the outbreak “toxic oil
syndrome,” but subsequent investigations pointed to a different
contaminant and a different food — pesticides used on tomatoes from
Almeria. (Olmsted stands by his reporting.)
Some of the most common additives to olive oil are soybean and peanut
oils, which can prove fatal to anyone allergic — and you’ll never see
those ingredients on a label. Beware, too, of olive oil labeled “pure” —
that can mean the oil is the lowest grade possible.
Some
of the most common additives in olive oil are soybean and peanut oils,
which can prove fatal to anyone allergic — and are often missing from
labels.Photo: Shutterstock
“No one is checking,” Olmsted writes.
How do we find the real thing? Olmsted recommends a few reliable
retailers, including Oliviers & Co. in New York and New Jersey.
Otherwise, look for labels reading “COOC Certified Extra Virgin” — the
newly formed California Olive Oil Council’s stamp — or the international
EVA and UNAPROL labels.
In terms of scope and scale, there’s an even greater level of fraud
throughout the seafood industry.
“Imagine if half the time you pulled
into a gas station, you were filling your tank with dirty water instead
of gasoline,” Olmsted writes. “That’s the story with seafood.”
He cites a 2012 study of New York City seafood done by scientists at
Oceana, a nonprofit advocacy group. They discovered fakes at 58 percent
of 81 stores sampled and at all of the 16 sushi restaurants studied, and
this goes on throughout the United States. If you see the words “sushi
grade” or “sashimi grade” on a menu, run. There are no official
standards for use of the terms.
Red snapper, by the way, is almost always fake — it’s probably tilefish or tilapia. (Tilapia also doubles for catfish.)
“Consumers ask me all the time, ‘What can I do?’ and all I can say
is, ‘Just don’t ever buy red snapper,’ ” Dr. Mark Stoeckle, a specialist
in infectious diseases at Weill Medical College, told Olmsted. “Red
snapper is the big one — when you buy it, you almost never get it.”
Red snapper is almost always fake — it’s probably tilefish or tilapia, which can also double for catfish.Photo: Shutterstock
Farmed Cambodian ponga poses as grouper, catfish, sole, flounder and
cod. Wild-caught salmon is often farmed and pumped up with pink coloring
to look fresher. Sometimes it’s actually trout.
Ever wonder why it’s so hard to properly sear scallops? It’s because
they’ve been soaked in water and chemicals to up their weight, so
vendors can up the price. Even “dry” scallops contain 18 percent more
water and chemicals.
Shrimp is so bad that Olmsted rarely eats it. “I won’t buy it, ever,
if it is farmed or imported,” he writes. In 2007, the FDA banned five
kinds of imported shrimp from China; China turned around and routed the
banned shrimp through Indonesia, stamped it as originating from there,
and suddenly it was back in the US food supply.
Seafood fraud puts pregnant women at risk; high levels of mercury in
fish are known to cause birth defects. Allergic reactions to shellfish
have been known to cause paralysis.
“All the gross details you have heard about industrial cattle farming
— from the widespread use of antibiotics and chemicals to animals
living in their own feces and being fed parts of other animals they
don’t normally consume — occurs in the seafood arena as well,” Olmsted
writes. “Only it is much better hidden.”
Red Lobster’s lobster bisque contains a non-lobster meat called langostino.Photo: Shutterstock
Corruption in the seafood industry is so rife that in 2014, President
Obama formed the Presidential Task Force on Illegal, Unreported, and
Unregulated Seafood Fraud. In the meantime, Olmsted has some
suggestions.
Look for the reliable logos MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) for
wild-caught fish and BAP (Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture
Practices) for farmed, he says.
The most trusted logo is “Alaska Seafood: Wild, Natural,
Sustainable.” Alaska’s system mandates complete supervision of chain of
custody, from catching to your grocery store.
Perhaps most surprising of all: Discount big-box stores such as
Costco, Trader Joe’s, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Walmart are as stringent
with their standards as Whole Foods.
“When customers walk into a store, they don’t expect to have to pay a
premium for safe food,” Walmart exec Brittni Furrow said in 2014.
“Safety isn’t a niche.”
Your grass-fed cow was drugged
One of the simplest things we can do, Olmsted writes, is to look for
products named after their geographical location. Grated Parmesan cheese
is almost always fake, and earlier this year, the FDA said its testing
discovered that some dairy products labeled “100% Parmesan” contained
polymers and wood pulp.
That’s all the FDA did: You can still buy your woody cheese at the supermarket.
The term “grass-fed” does not ensure free-range meat.Photo: Shutterstock
Parmigiano-Reggiano, however, derives its name from Parma, the region
in Italy that’s produced this cheese for over 400 years. If you buy it
with that label, it’s real.
Same with Roquefort cheese and Champagne from France, and San Marzano
tomato sauce, Bologna meat and Chianti from Italy, and Scotch whisky
from Scotland. Still, Olmsted strongly advises looking for the label PDO
— Protected Designation of Origin, the highest guarantee of
authenticity there is.
As for our own lax labeling standards, Olmsted is outraged.
Ninety-one percent of American seafood is imported, but the FDA is
responsible for inspecting just 2 percent of those imports. And in 2013,
the agency inspected less than half of that 2 percent.
“The bar is so low,” he says. “Congress could not have given them
less to do, and they still fail.
They’re not clueless. They know.
They’re actually deciding not to do it. They say they don’t have the
budget.”
When it comes to beef, Olmstead reports that the USDA is no better;
the agency repealed its standards for the “grass-fed” designation in
January after pressure from the agriculture industry.
All that stamp now means, he says, is that in addition to grass, the
animals “can still be raised in an industrial feed lot and given drugs.
It just means the actual diet was grass rather than corn.”
If you don’t have access to a farmer’s market, Olmsted says that
Eli’s and Citarella in New York are reliable providers of true grass-fed
beef.
“Go up to the counter and ask them where the grass-fed beef comes
from,” he says. “They need to know. In New York in particular, you have
access to a lot of specialized gourmet stores, and you can source stuff
locally. You can’t do that in most of the country.”
Here’s a look at some of the grossest ingredients that might be lurking in your favorite foods, including human hair:
Gold Medal, Gold Medal Wondra, and Signature Kitchens flour recalled due to possible E. coli O121 contamination
May 31, 2016
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota – General Mills is collaborating with health officials to investigate an ongoing, multistate outbreak of E. coli O121 that may be potentially linked to Gold Medal flour, Wondra flour,
and Signature Kitchens flour (sold in Safeway, Albertsons, Jewel,
Shaws, Vons, United, Randalls, and Acme). Out of an abundance of
caution, a voluntary recall is being made. To date, E. coli O121
has not been found in any General Mills flour products or in the flour
manufacturing facility, and the company has not been contacted directly
by any consumer reporting confirmed illnesses related to these products.
Consumers: Please open this page to ask additional questions of our consumer relations team, or call us at 1-800-230-8103.
State and federal authorities have been researching 38 occurrences of illnesses across 20 states related to a specific type of E. coli (E. coli
O121), between December 21, 2015, and May 3, 2016. While attempting to
track the cause of the illness, CDC found that approximately half of the
individuals reported making something homemade with flour at some point
prior to becoming ill. Some reported using a General Mills brand of
flour.
Based on the information that has been shared with General Mills,
some of the ill consumers may have also consumed raw dough or batter.
Consumers are reminded to not consume any raw products made with
flour. Flour is an ingredient that comes from milling wheat, something
grown outdoors that carries with it risks of bacteria which are rendered
harmless by baking, frying or boiling.
Consumers are reminded to wash
their hands, work surfaces, and utensils thoroughly after contact with
raw dough products or flour, and to never eat raw dough or batter.
“As a leading provider of flour for 150 years, we felt it was
important to not only recall the product and replace it for consumers if
there was any doubt, but also to take this opportunity to remind our
consumers how to safely handle flour,” said Liz Nordlie, president of
General Mills Baking division.
Although most strains of E. coli are harmless, others can make you sick. E. coli
O121 is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause bloody diarrhea
and dehydration. Seniors, the very young, and persons with compromised
immune systems are the most susceptible to foodborne illness.
Any consumers concerned about an illness should contact a physician.
Anyone diagnosed by a physician as having an illness related to E. coli O121 is also urged to contact state and local public health authorities.
The recall affects the following retail flour products that could be
currently in stores or in consumers’ pantries. It includes six SKUs
(stock keeping units or UPC codes) of Gold Medal flour, 2 SKU’s of Signature Kitchens flour and 1 SKU of Gold Medal Wondra flour.
If you have any of the products listed below, they should not be used.
Consumers, please visit this page to ask additional questions of our consumer relations team or you can also call us at 1-800-230-8103
For additional information on this recall, please visit the General Mills blog.
Media can reach the General Mills communications team at 763-764-6364 or at media.line@genmills.com
The specific products in the recall include:
13.5 ounce Gold Medal Wondra
Package UPC 000-16000-18980 Recalled Better if Used by Dates 25FEB2017 thru 30MAR2017
2 poundGold Medal All Purpose Flour
Package UPC 000-16000-10710 Recalled Better if Used by Dates 25MAY2017KC thru 03JUN2017KC
5 poundGold Medal All Purpose Flour
Package UPC 000-16000-10610
Recalled Better if Used by Dates 25MAY2017KC, 27MAY2017KC thru 31MAY2017KC, 01JUN2017KC, 03JUN2017KC thru 05JUN2017KC, 11JUN2017KC thru 14JUN2017KC
10 poundGold Medal All Purpose Flour
Package UPC 000-16000-10410 Recalled Better if Used by Dates 02JUN2017KC,03JUN2017KC
10 pound Gold Medal All Purpose Flour- Banded Pack
Package UPC 000-16000-10410 Recalled Better if Used by Dates 03JUN2017KC, 04JUN2017KC, 05JUN2017KC
5 poundGold MedalUnbleached Flour
Package UPC 000-16000-19610 Recalled Better if Used by Dates 25MAY2017KC, 27MAY2017KC, 03JUN2017KC, 04JUN2017KC
5 pound Signature Kitchens All Purpose Flour Enriched Bleached
Package UPC 000-21130-53001 Recalled Better if Used by Dates BB MAY 28 2017
5 pound Signature Kitchens Unbleached Flour All Purpose Enriched
Package UPC 000-21130-53022
Recalled Better if Used by Dates BB MAY 27 2017
2 poundGold MedalSelf Rising Flour
Package UPC 000-16000-11710 Recalled Better if Used by Dates 23AUG2016KC
What a "Luddite" this guy is. He runs a profitable operation without
spraying his fields with chemical poisons and artificial fertilizers and
without buying patented GM seeds.
Doesn't he know he is rejecting the
"scientific" approach to modern agriculture? How dare he have the gall
to succeed by simply mimicking the processes of nature on his farm, and
then have the nerve to tell other farmers they too can use the same
methods to get themselves off the chemical agriculture treadmill,
improve their own soils and still have a profitable farm.
Why, if his
methods work, it would mean Monsanto and its big-ag partners are mostly
full of bovine excrement. Hard to believe, I know.
Indiana Rep. Todd Rokita wants to limit access to free lunch for poor children.
When it comes to children, Republicans are hypocrites.
They go
on and on about how "pro-life" they are, but they really only care about
"humans" before they're born. After that, they couldn't care less.
Case
in point: the so-called "Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of
2016," the brainchild of Indiana Rep. Todd Rokita that would decimate a
key part of the federal free lunch program.
This bill is about as
mean-spirited as it gets, and to understand why, you first need to
understand something about how the federal free lunch program works.
Thanks
to something called "community eligibility," students at certain
schools automatically qualify to get a free lunch if 40 percent of their
classmates live in poverty.
Although it may not sound like much, this is a really big deal.
Under
community eligibility, high poverty schools no longer have to fill out
the mountains of paperwork they'd normally have to fill out to get
individual students enrolled in the free lunch program.
Everyone
is enrolled, and as a result, these high poverty school are now free to
focus on other problems like, you know, educating their students.
Sounds like pretty good idea, right? Not only are you keeping kids healthy, you're also cutting a lot of red tape.
That's something everyone can get behind.
Everyone that is, except for Representative Rokita.
Rokita's
"Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016" would raise the
poverty threshold necessary to participate in community eligibility to
60 percent.
Again this might not sound like much, but in the
context of how the free lunch program actually functions, it's a really,
really, big deal.
If Representative Rokita's bill becomes law, more than 7,000 schools serving almost 3.5 million students would be affected.
Those
schools would no longer get to use community eligibility to
automatically enroll all students in the free lunch program and would
instead have to go back to the old application system, student by
student, with its mountains and mountains of paperwork.
This isn't
quite a death sentence, but for high poverty schools that are already
struggling to deal with things like violence, drugs and broken homes,
it's just another thing to deal with, and an unnecessary one at that.
Obviously,
there's a certain amount of irony in the fact that Representative
Rokita, a Republican, is pushing a bill that would create even more red
tape.
But then again, Republicans have always been fine with "big government" if it means demonizing poor people.
So that's not that shocking.
No, the really shocking thing here is the fact that this is the same Representative Rokita who is 100 percent on board with House Republicans' kangaroo court investigation of Planned Parenthood.
That investigation, of course, is based on a total lie, and it's cost taxpayers' so much money that House Republicans have had to dip into Congress' reserve fund to help pay for it.
You
really couldn't ask for a better example of the screwed-up priorities
of so-called "pro-life" Republicans like Representative Rokita.
They'll
go out of their way to protect a mass of cells that is only
philosophically a child, but once it comes to real, live, breathing
children, suddenly there's no money, suddenly cost is an issue, suddenly
we need to talk about cutting spending.
And here's the thing: Republicans don't even really care about "unborn children" - the whole "pro-life" thing just a front.
Sure,
some of them probably believe that abortion is the next Holocaust, but
in the grand scheme of things, most of them know that all the outrage
about Roe v. Wadeis just a way to keep the suckers in line.
How do you know? Well, if Republicans really cared about kids they'd stop their blockade of Medicaid expansion.
They'd
also stop supporting the war on drugs that creates the school-to-prison
pipeline. They'd stop turning our schools into profit-making engines
for the billionaire class; and they'd stop trying to cut
Head Start,
food stamps and welfare for single moms.
They'd also pass federal funding for Flint, Michigan.
The list goes on.
When it comes down to it, most Republicans don't give a rat's ass about US children.
Students are helping to investigate GE health
claims — one banana at a time.
A recent controversy about
an upcoming genetically engineered (GE) banana study at Iowa State University
(ISU) highlights public universities’ reluctance to engage with students in
critical dialogue. Several graduate students, over the course of the last year,
have raised critical
questions about the claims made by ISU administrators and others that the GE
banana study will save lives. The research will test the bioavailability of beta
carotene in bananas genetically engineered to contain more of the Vitamin A
precursor. The study recruited 12 female ISU students (ages 18-40) to eat GE
bananas in return for $900. This study is one of the first human feeding trials
of GE products and the first feeding trial of the GE banana.
The students also recently delivered 57,309
petition signatures to ISU in conjunction with a parallel delivery to the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle by AGRA Watch and the Community Alliance
for Global Justice. Critics of the initial questions and subsequent petition
delivery use an increasingly common
argument that critical questions about GE technology are somehow
“anti-science.” Several GE proponents also accused students and activists
involved in the delivery of using their white privilege to keep Africans hungry
and malnourished.
Yes, students are privileged to ask these questions. The opportunity to
engage in a scientific dialogue is a powerful privilege. This privilege compels
us to ask difficult questions about the ethical dimensions of this GE banana
research process, as well as its impacts and other viable alternatives.
Last year, the concerned ISU graduate students drafted scientific questions
investigating how the study would be conducted and potential effects the GE
bananas could have on Ugandan food systems.
Their questions are not about
whether the use of biotechnology is morally right or wrong, or if the
researchers are good or bad people. At their heart, these questions are about
social, economic and environmental impacts that this kind of research will have
upon real people in real places. Hunger and malnutrition are not only biological
challenges, they are social problems rooted in inequality.
The questions boil down to four main queries: (1) How will GE bananas impact
nutrition and hunger in Uganda, or how will ISU and/or the Bill and Melinda
Gates foundation address this question? (2) How was the technology determined to
be a culturally appropriate intervention? (3) Who will own or control this
technology upon its development? and (4) How should public universities be
involved in GE biofortification and testing?
These questions highlight the need for a public dialogue on our campuses
about the role of power in the scientific process. Claims
made by ISU officials that this research will save lives are premature and a
smokescreen to deflect students’ questions. These claims are made without any
grounding in research or recognition of the power differential between their
privileged positions as tenured faculty, deans, or department chairs and the
would-be recipients of their GE hunger “solutions.” The claims ignore the ways
in which the incessant battle to convince communities across the world to accept
GE technology as a one-size-fits-all solution to complex social problems is
itself a privileged perspective.
Such far-reaching claims are not only
unscientific but may lead to dangerous assumptions. These claims have also
falsely implied that students, in asking their questions, attempted to directly
malign the study’s primary researcher. Aligning the ISU students’ critical
questions with attacks on the researcher is a sabotage of the scientific process
itself.
GE proponents’ over-simplified approach poses risks to us all. Genetic
engineering, in some cases, may be an appropriate technology that helps to solve
agricultural and human health problems. Yet, for this approach to be scientific,
it must incorporate – and take part in dialogue about – the social, economic,
and environmental consequences associated
with this technology.
No scientific study is free from the social, political, and cultural context
in which it is conducted. We must be able to have meaningful critiques, pulling
from multiple scientific disciplines, that challenge GE technology, including
its potential uses, as well as interrogating who controls, owns, and benefits
from it.
Science is a negotiation – an iterative process rooted in asking questions,
in testing hypotheses and counter-hypotheses. Thus it is crucial that scientists
and students of science – regardless of status, expertise, or background – be
able to ask critical questions regarding each other’s work without fear of
vitriolic retribution or retaliation.
We need a long view that takes into account social inequality and includes
space for critical dialogue. No single crop, GE or otherwise, will solve the
fundamental problems of hunger and malnutrition.
There is a great deal of evidence that
a more diversified agriculture – a system that places women’s empowerment and
food sovereignty at its center – is likely to be more successful in the long
term in achieving these ends. Many in agriculture and food systems scientists
acknowledge that we need more
research and development in alternative agricultural solutions.
To raise questions about the safety, utility, as well as the social and
ecological consequences of GE is scientifically valid, and not akin to wanting
people to go hungry or become malnourished. While administrators at public
universities, philanthropic organizations, and private corporations talk about
“saving lives,” many others want to talk about rebuilding their lives on their
own terms, through agroecological methods and food sovereignty. As such, we
should be investing in these endeavors just as we invest in GE technology.
It is essential that there is a space at public universities, with large
philanthropic organizations, and in broader society where students, academics,
and activists can ask difficult questions in the name of a more sustainable and
equitable food system without being labeled as unscientific or accused of
misusing their privilege.
No illnesses have yet been associated with a recall of bulk and
packaged Curry Chicken Salad and Classic Deli Pasta Salad for possible
Listeria contamination. The recall was issued by Whole Market of
Cambridge Massachusetts. The recall involves Whole Foods in Maine, New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New
Jersey.
A
sampling of the products tested positive for Listeria Monocytogenes
during a routine inspection of Whole Foods Market’s North Atlantic
Kitchen facility.
The recall notice said the recalled products have “the potential to
be contaminated with Listeria Monocytogenes” Listeria is a pathogen that
can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, especially in young
children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune
systems.
Others may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever,
severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea,
Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant
women. Anyone with symptoms should seek immediate medical care if they
develop these symptoms.
The salads were sold prepackaged, in salad bars, in store’s chef’s
cases and in sandwiches and wraps prepared in the stores. The effected
products were sold in stores between October 18 and October 22, 2015 and
have a “sell by” date of October 23, 2015. The recalled items include:
The
recall list with UPC Codes and product descriptions includes these
products:
285551–Curry Chicken Salad, Our Chef’s Own, sold by weight
263144–Curry Chicken Salad Wrap, Made Right Here, sold by weight
263126–Single Curry Chicken Salad Wrap,
261068–Curry Chicken Salad CC, sold by weight
263142–PPK Salad Chicken Curry, sold by weight
265325–Curry Chicken Salad Rollup, 7oz
260976–Classic Deli Pasta Salad, Sold by weight
270742– Pasta Salad Classic Deli, sold by weight
0 36406 30001 7–Classic Deli Pasta Salad, 6oz
0 36406 30264 6–Classic Deli Pasta Salad, 14 oz
Monsanto has been reeling from a number of setbacks around the globe. Here's
a look at some of the main reasons that 2015 has been a giant headache for the
biotech giant. But that headache could find some reilef if the U.S. Senate hands
them a legislative victory that would keep American consumers in the dark about
what's in their food.
Roundup Probably Causes Cancer
In March, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World
Health Organization's cancer arm, said that the controversial herbicide
glyphosate — the main ingredient in Monsanto's popular weedkiller Roundup — is
"probably
carcinogenic to humans." IARC noted, "Case-control studies of occupational
exposure in the USA, Canada, and Sweden reported increased risks for non-Hodgkin
lymphoma that persisted after adjustment for other pesticides." Used by home
gardeners, public park gardeners and farmers, and applied to more than 150 food
and non-food crops, Roundup is the Monsantot's leading product and the world's
most-produced weedkiller.
In June, France banned Roundup. French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal said,
"France must
be on the offensive with regards to the banning of pesticides." She added,
"I have asked garden centers to stop putting Monsanto's Roundup on sale" in
self-service aisles. And earlier this month, California issued a notice
of intent to list glyphosate as a carcinogen. “As far as I’m aware, this is
the first regulatory agency in the U.S. to determine that glyphosate is a
carcinogen,” said Dr. Nathan Donley, a scientist at the Center for Biological
Diversity. “So this is a very big deal.”
In April, U.S. citizens filed a class
action lawsuit against Monsanto, claiming that the company is guilty of
false advertising by claiming that glyphosate targets an enzyme only found in
plants and not in humans or animals. The plaintiffs argue that the targeted
enzyme, EPSP synthase, is found in the microbiota that reside in human and
non-human animal intestines. In addition to its potential cancer-causing
properties, Roundup has been linked to a host of other health
issues, environmental
problems and the record decline
of monarch butterflies.
And in September, another of the company's herbicides got slammed when a
French appeals court confirmed that Monsanto was guilty
of chemical poisoning, upholding a 2012 ruling in favor of Paul Francois,
whose lawyers claimed the company's Lasso weedkiller gave the cereal farmer
neurological problems, including memory loss and headaches.
Tweet Backfires
Monsanto would probably love to forget one of their recent tweets that tried
to put out the glyphosate-fueled public image fire. A day before the
cancer-listing announcement by California's EPA, Monsanto posted a tweet, asking
if people has questions about glyphosate with a link to a FAQ page:
The tweet wasn't the PR success that the company had hoped for. Instead of
helping to alleviate consumer fears about the chemical, the tweet became a
target for the Monsanto-hating Twitterati:
@MonsantoCo
can u drink a glass of some on TV so we can see what happens? U like conducting
experiments on us. Try it on your self first.
In addition to the glyphosate backlash, Monsanto has had to deal with several
EU countries who have said no to the company's GM crops. A new European Union
law signed in March allows individual member countries to be excluded from any
GM cultivation approval request. European opposition to GMOs has been strong:
Unlike in the Americas and Asia, where GMO crops are widely grown, only
Monsanto's pest-resistant MON810, a GMO maize, is grown in Europe. Several
nations have taken advantage of the new exclusion law: Scotland, Germany,
Latvia, Greece, France and recently, Northern Ireland, have all invoked it.
In August, Scotland became the first EU nation to ban the growing of
genetically modified crops by requesting to be excluded
by Monsanto's application to grow GMO crops across the EU. “Scotland is known
around the world for our beautiful natural environment — and banning
growing genetically modified crops will protect and further enhance our
clean, green status,” said Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead.
Germany cited strong resistance from farmers and the public when it made its
opt-out request. “Germany has committed a true
act of food democracy by listening to the majority of its citizens that
oppose GMO cultivation and support more sustainable, resilient organic food
production that doesn’t perpetuate the overuse of toxic herbicides,” said Lisa
Archer, food and technology director at environmental nonprofit Friends of the
Earth. “We are hopeful that more members of the EU will follow suit and that the
U.S. Congress will protect our basic right to know what we are feeding our
families by requiring mandatory GMO labeling.”
Soon after Germany's decision, Latvia and Greece announced that they too are
taking advantage of the EU law. France, too, is using the opt-out law to ensure
the country's GMO ban remains
in place.
While anti-GMO activists warn of the dangers that genetically modified foods
pose to health and the environment, the Big Food industry and many
scientists argue that GMOs are safe and can help feed a skyrocketing human
population. Monsanto told Reuters: "We regret that some countries are deviating
from a science-based approach to innovation in agriculture and have elected to
prohibit the cultivation of a successful GM product on arbitrary
political grounds.” There is a significant political dimension as well:
Newswire reported that the GMO opt-out law "directly
confronts U.S. free trade deal supported by EU, under which the Union should
open its doors widely for the U.S. GM industry." It remains to be seen how the
opt-out law will play out in the long run.
But for now, could the GMO resistance in Europe be working? Following the
announcements by Latvia and Greece, EurActiv, an online news service covering EU
affairs, reported that Monsanto "said it had no
immediate plans to request approvals for any new GM seeds in Europe."
The GMO Debate Rages
On
The debate over genetically modified foods is complex, and not without its
contradictions. While the anti-GMO movement appears to gaining steam, GMO foods
have been a big part of the U.S. food system for many years. The vast majority
of several key crops grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, including soy
(93 percent), corn (93 percent) and canola (90 percent). As Morgan Clendaniel,
editor of Co.Exist, points out, "Many crops are genetically modified so
frequently, it’s nearly
impossible to find non-GMO versions." He adds that, althought 80 percent of
all packaged food sold in America contain GMOs, consumers are kept in the dark,
because the U.S. is "one of the few places in the developed world that doesn’t
require food producers to disclose whether or not their ingredients have any
modifications."
One scientist who has been sharply critical of GM crops is David Williams, a
cellular biologist at the University of California at Los Angeles. He says that
"inserted genes can be transformed by several different means, and it can happen
generations
later," which can result in potentially toxic plants. In addition, faulty
monitoring of GM field tests presents another danger. For example, from 2008 to
2014, only 39 of the 133 GM crop field trials in India were properly monitored,
"leaving the rest for unknown
risks and possible health hazards."
But within the scientific community, Dr. Williams is in the minority, In
fact, as science writer David H. Freeman notes in Scientific American, "The vast
major it of the research on genetically modified crops suggests that they are safe
to eat." David Zilberman, an agricultural and environmental economist at the
University of California at Berkeley (who Freeman describes as "one of the few
researchers considered credible by both agricultural chemical companies and
their critics") says that the use of GM crops "has increased farmer safety by
allowing them to use less pesticide. It has raised the output of corn, cotton
and soy by 20 to 30 percent, allowing some people to survive who would not have
without it. If it were more widely adopted around the world, the price [of food]
would go lower, and fewer
people would die of hunger.”
The European Food Safety Authority said it will issue its scientific opinion
on the GM crops by the end of 2017. For now, the GMO debate — filled with a host
of pros
and cons — rages on. But beyond the health and environmental threats that
Monsanto's products may pose, some worry that about the how control of the
global food system is increasingly concentrated in a few biotech and agriculture
megacorps like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Pioneer and DuPont. "Beating in the
heart of every good capitalist is the heart of a monopolist," says Neil Harl, an
agricultural economist at Iowa State. "So we have to have rules, we have to have
the economic police on the beat. Or we end up with concentration and that means
higher
prices."
GMO Labeling Law: SAFE or
DARK?
While Monsanto has been taking a beating lately, the company is crossing its
fingers for a huge victory in the Congress. Any day now, the U.S. Senate could
take up H.R. 1599, the misleadingly named "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling
(SAFE) Act," which would make federal GMO labeling voluntary, while prohibiting
states from labeling GMOs — even though it goes against the vast majority of the
public wants.
According to a New York Times poll that, 93
percent of Americans want GMO foods to labeled as such, with three-quarters
of survey respondents expressing concern about GMOs in food. The industry-backed
bill, which opponents have nicknamed the "Deny Americans the Right to Know
(DARK) Act" has already passed the House of Representatives and, if passed,
could overturn democratically enacted state laws.
"The bill is a sweeping
attack on states’ rights to self-govern on the issue of GMO labeling, and on
consumers’ right to know if their food has been genetically engineered," warn
Alexis Baden-Mayer and Ronnie Cummins of the nonprofit Organic Consumers
Association. "If the Dark Act becomes law, there will never be GMO labels,
safety testing of GMOs, protections for farmers from GMO contamination or
regulations of pesticide promoting GMO crops to protect human health, the
environment or endangered pollinators."
Going to
Market
It remains to be seen how Monsanto will be impacted by the persticide and GMO
backlash. Since the onslaught of bad news for Monsanto started in the spring,
the company's stock price has plummeted from a February high of $125.46 to $87.61
as of September 21. This decline follows a first quarter decline of 34
percent that analysts have tied to the cut back on Monsanto's GMO corn by
South American farmers.
Still, Roundup remains one of the world's most widely used weed killers and
the most popular weedkiller in the U.S. The global market for glyphosate is
expected to reach $8.79
billion by 2019 (up from $5.46 billion in 2012). In addition, Transparency
Market Research reported that "Monsanto Company, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont
have been shifting their focus to develop integrated weed management systems, in
order to reduce
reliance on single dominant herbicide such as glyphosate."
"Stocks in the fertilizer space have struggled all year long," said
TheStreet's Bryan Ashenberg and Bob Lang of Trifecta Stocks, noting that
Monsanto in particular "has been hit hard" and their "performance has been dreadful."
Perhaps a sign of that economic reality is the fact that last month Monsanto
dropped its $46.5
billion hostile bid for rival Syngenta, the world's biggest pesticide
company. To many Monsanto-watchers, this development may have been the company's
biggest setback of the year.
However, the Ratings Team at TheStreet sees things differently and rated
Monsanto as a buy, saying "The company's strengths
can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, growth in earnings
per share, increase in net income, expanding profit margins and notable return
on equity."
But that review holds little value for those who value health, the
environment and the fate of world's food supply more that a "notable return on
equity."
This spring, as California withered in its fourth year of drought and mandatory water restrictions were enacted for the first time in the state’s history, a news story
broke revealing that Nestlé Waters North America was tapping springs in
the San Bernardino National Forest in southern California using a
permit that expired 27 years ago.
And when the company’s CEO Tim Brown was asked
on a radio program if Nestlé would stop bottling water in the Golden
State, he replied, “Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase it, I
would.”
That’s because bottled water is big business, even in a country
where most people have clean, safe tap water readily and cheaply
available. (Although it should be noted that Starbucks agreed to stop sourcing and manufacturing their Ethos brand water in California after being drought-shamed.)
Profits made by the industry are much to the chagrin of nonprofits like Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a corporate watchdog, and Food and Water Watch
(FWW), a consumer advocacy group, both of which have waged campaigns
against the bottled water industry for years. But representatives from
both organizations say they’ve won key fights against the industry in
the last 10 years and have helped shift people’s consciousness on the
issue.
A Battle of Numbers
In 2014 bottled water companies spent more than $84 million on advertising
to compete with each other and to convince consumers that bottled water
is healthier than soda and safer than tap. And it seems to be paying
off: Americans have an increasing love of bottled water, particularly
those half-liter-sized single-use bottles that are ubiquitous at every
check-out stand and in every vending machine. According to Beverage Marketing Corporation
(BMC), a data and consulting firm, in the last 14 years consumption of
bottled water in the U.S. has risen steadily, with the only exception
being a quick dip during the 2008-2009 recession.
In
2000, Americans each drank an average of 23 gallons of bottled water.
By 2014, that number hit 34 gallons a person. That translates to 10.7
billion gallons for the U.S. market and sales of $13 billion last year.
At the same time, consumption of soda is falling, and by 2017, bottled
water sales may surpass that of soda for the first time.
But there is also indication that more eco-conscious consumers are carrying reusable bottles to refill with tap. A Harris poll
in 2010 found that 23 percent of respondents switched from bottled
water to tap (the number was slightly higher during 2009 recession).
Reusable bottles are now chic and available in myriad designs and styles. And a Wall Street Journal story
tracked recent acquisitions in the reusable bottle industry that
indicate big growth as well, although probably not enough to make a dent
in the earnings of bottling giants like Nestlé, Coke and Pepsi.
Why the Fight Over Bottled Water
“The
single most important factor in the growth of bottled water is
heightened consumer demand for healthier refreshment,” says BMC’s
managing director of research Gary A. Hemphill. “Convenience of the
packaging and aggressive pricing have been contributing factors.”
That convenience, though, comes with an environmental cost. The Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research organization, found that it took the equivalent of 17 million barrels
of oil to make all the plastic water bottles that thirsty Americans
drank in 2006 — enough to keep a million cars chugging along the roads
for a year. And this is only the energy to make the bottles, not the
energy it takes to get them to the store, keep them cold or ship the
empties off to recycling plants or landfills.
Of the billions of
plastic water bottles sold each year, the majority don’t end up being
recycled. Those single-serving bottles, also known as PET (polyethylene
terephthalate) bottles because of the kind of resin they’re made with,
are recycled at a rate of about 31 percent in the U.S. The other 69 percent end up in landfills or as litter.
And
while recycling them is definitely a better option than throwing them
away, it comes with a cost, too. Stiv Wilson, director of campaigns at
the Story of Stuff Project,
says that most PET bottles that are recycled end up, not as new plastic
bottles, but as textiles, such as clothing. And when you wash synthetic
clothing, micro-plastics end up going down the drain and back into
waterways. These tiny plastic fragments are dangerous for wildlife,
especially in oceans.
“If you start out with a bad material to
begin with, recycling it is going to be an equally bad material,” says
Wilson. “You’re changing its shape but its environmental implications
are the same.” PET bottles are part of a growing epidemic of plastic
waste that’s projected to get worse. A recent study found that by 2050, 99 percent of seabirds will be ingesting plastic.
Ingesting plastic trash is deadly for seabirds, like this unfortunate albatross. (image: USFWS)
“We
notice in all the data that the amount of plastic in the environment is
growing exponentially,” says Wilson. “We are exporting it to places
that can’t deal with it, we’re burning it with dioxins going into the
air. The whole chain of custody is bad for the environment, for animals
and the humans that deal with it. The more you produce, the worse it
gets. The problem grows.”
Even on land, plastic water bottles are a
problem — and in some of our most beautiful natural areas, as a recent
controversy over bottled water in National Parks has shown. According to
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), more than 20 national parks
have banned the sale of plastic water bottles, reporting that plastic
bottles average almost one third of the solid waste that parks must pay
(with taxpayer money) to have removed.
After Zion National Park in Utah banned the sale of plastic water bottles, the park saw sales of reusable bottles jump 78 percent
and kept it 60,000 bottles (or 5,000 pounds of plastic) a year out of
the waste stream. The park also made a concerted effort to provide
bottle refilling stations across the park so there would be ample
opportunity to refill reusable bottles.
There might be more parks
with bans but 200 water bottlers backed by the International Bottled
Water Association have fought back to oppose measures by parks to cut
down on the sale of disposable plastic water bottles. The group was not
too happy when National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis wrote that
parks “must be a visible exemplar of sustainability,” and said in 2011
that the more than 400 hundreds entities in the National Park Service
could ban the sale of plastic bottles if they meet strict requirements
for making drinking water available to visitors.
Water
bottle filling stations at Grand Canyon National Park provide free
spring water from the park's approved water supply located at Roaring
Springs. (image: Michael Quinn/National Park Service/Flickr CC)
Park
officials contend that trashcans are overflowing with bottles in some
parks. The bottling industry counters that people are more apt to choose
sugary drinks, like soda, if they don’t have access to bottled water.
The bottled water industry alliance used its Washington muscle to add a
rider to an appropriations bill in July that would have stopped parks
from restricting bottled water sales. The bill didn’t pass for other
reasons, but it’s likely not the last time the rider will surface in
legislation.
Changing Tide
Bottlers may be
making big money, but activists have also notched their own share of
wins. “When we first started, really no one was out there challenging
the misleading marketing that the bottled water industry was giving the
public,” said John Stewart, deputy campaign director at CAI, which first
began campaigning against bottled water in 2004. “You had no
information available to consumers about the sources of bottling and you
had communities whose water supplies were being threatened by companies
like Nestlé with total impunity.”
If you buy the marketing, then
it would appear that most bottled water comes from pristine mountain
springs beside snow-capped peaks. But in reality, about half of all
bottled water, including Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani, come
from municipal sources that are then purified or treated in some way.
Activists fought to have companies label the source of its water and
they succeeded with two of the top three — Pepsi and Nestlé. “We also
garnered national media stories that put a spotlight on the fact that
bottling corporations were taking our tap water and selling it back to
us at thousands of times the price,” said Stewart. “People finally began
to see they were getting duped.”
When companies aren’t bottling
from municipal sources, the water is mostly spring water tapped from
wilderness areas, like Nestlé bottling in the San Bernardino National
Forest, or rural communities. Some communities concerned about
industrial withdrawals of groundwater have fought back against spring
water bottlers — the biggest being Nestlé, which owns dozens of regional
brands like Arrowhead, Calistoga, Deer Park, Ice Mountain and Poland
Spring. Coalitions have helped back communities in victories in Maine, Michigan and California (among other areas) in fights against Nestlé.
One the biggest was in McCloud, California,
which sits in the shadow of snowy Mount Shasta, and actually looks like
the label on so many bottles. Residents of McCloud fought for six years
against Nestlé’s plan for a water bottling facility that first intended
to draw 200 million gallons of water a year from a local spring. Nestlé
finally scrapped its plans and left town, but ended up heading 200
miles down the road to the city of Sacramento, where it got a sweetheart deal on the city’s municipal water supply.
CAI
and FWW have also worked with college students. Close to a hundred have
taken some action, says Stewart. “Not all the schools have been able to
ban the sale of bottled water on campus but we’ve come up with other
strategies like passing resolutions that student government funds can’t
be used to purchase bottled water or increasing the availability of tap
water on campus or helping to get water fountains retrofitted so you can
refill your reusable bottle,” says Emily Wurth, FWW’s water program
director.
In
just six months, Lake Mead National Recreation Area visitors have kept
more than 13,600 water bottles out of landfills by using a new hydration
station. (image: National Park Service)
Changes
have also come at the municipal level. In 2007, San Francisco led the
charge by prohibiting the city from spending money on bottled water for
its offices. At the 2010 Conference of Mayors, 72 percent of mayors said
they have considered “eliminating or reducing bottled water purchases
within city facilities” and nine mayors had already adopted a ban
proposal. In 2015, San Francisco passed a law (to be phased in over four
years) that will ban the sale of bottled water on city property.
These
victories, say activists, are part of a much bigger fight — larger than
the bottled water industry itself. “We are shifting to fight the
wholesale privatization of water a little more,” says Stewart. He says
supporters who have joined coalitions to fight bottled water “deeply
understand the problematic nature of water for profit and the
co-modification of water” that transcends from bottled water to private
control of municipal power and sewer systems.
Currently the vast
majority (90 percent) of water systems in the U.S. are publicly run,
but cash-strapped cities and towns are also targets of multinational
water companies, says Stewart. The situation is made more dire by
massive shortfalls in federal funding that used to help support
municipal water and now is usually cut during federal budget crunches.
“Cities
are so desperate that they don’t think about long-term implications of
job cuts, rate hikes, loss of control over the quality of the water and
any kind of accountability when it comes to how the system is managed,”
says Stewart. “We need to turn all eyes to our public water systems and
aging infrastructure and our public services in general that are
threatened by privatization.”
In
2000, Americans each drank an average of 23 gallons of bottled water.
By 2014, that number hit 34 gallons a person. That translates to 10.7
billion gallons for the U.S. market and sales of $13 billion last year.
At the same time, consumption of soda is falling, and by 2017, bottled
water sales may surpass that of soda for the first time.
Ingesting plastic trash is deadly for seabirds, like this unfortunate albatross. (image: USFWS)
Water
bottle filling stations at Grand Canyon National Park provide free
spring water from the park's approved water supply located at Roaring
Springs. (image: Michael Quinn/National Park Service/Flickr CC)
In
just six months, Lake Mead National Recreation Area visitors have kept
more than 13,600 water bottles out of landfills by using a new hydration
station. (image: National Park Service)