The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.

Hello, I'm Kimberly King, and welcome to the mother's market radio show, a show dedicated to the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the human condition. On today's show, we get information on the current label gmos ballot initiative, right now, California is getting ready to vote on Prop 37, so pull up a chair and listen to why this is so important, plus later, we'll tell you what's new and mothers and what's going on around town, first step, we are what we eat, and it's important to know exactly what goes into the food we buy, and today we are pleased to welcome paler to the show. Ham is an advocate for labeling on genetically modified foods or gmos, and it's our pleasure to welcome her to the mother's market radio show.

Em, how are you?

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me here.

Absolutely. Why did you fill our audience a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to the show's topic?

Sure, I'll take a try to do as short as I can, I'm a grandmother from a small town north of Sacramento called Chico. I've been interested in food issues forever in a day, and I started finding out about these things about nine years ago and started becoming increasingly alarmed that we don't know what we're eating, and more importantly, we aren't given a choice about what we're eating, so... Long story condensed, I had an epiphany on January 20th of 2011, that it was my job from that day forward to do everything I could to get a ballot initiative on the November 6 ballot to... So that the people of California could vote to get genetically engineered for Foods label.

So it took a little bit of time to learn how to do this kind of stuff, 'cause I had no funding, I had no experience, I had no contacts, I had a thing. And I just started being on the road, and I've been pretty much on the road ever since we built a grassroots movement by people around the state, so it's saying, Yes, I wanna lead my community, then we got professionals, nature's path, RCA dot com, and a few others behind us, and we wrote the initiative, we handed it in, we started gathering signatures on February 18th, we handed them in 10 weeks later, we got 971126 signatures.

Got pretty unusual. We did have some paid folks in there too, but volunteers did a goodly portion of those more than all the other ballot initiatives combined.

Anyways, so now we're on the ballot and our opposition is coming out full force, we have the six largest chemical companies on the planet in most of the largest grocery store grocery manufacturers against this. So it's definitely one of those situations where it's the people's right to know and mega huge corporations not really wanting us to... Well, you know what, you have made an impact, and when you sat down, you said you're Italian and your Leo and I have a feeling you're forced to be recognized, so you're here to be heard, so that's a good thing. Family, you also said your initial investment in atrial myself, I call myself... People often ask me what my title is, and I call myself the initial instigator and Chief rapper rose or of Prop 37.So love that title. I like your title, it's not my business card, I want one of those business hired for you. Well, today we are discussing gmos, and since our last show on this topic, California will be voting, of course, on Prop 37, the California right to know initiative in the next general election on November 6.Span, What is a GMO?

GMO is not a hybrid. It is not something that happens with selective reading, it stands for genetically modified organism, what this means is it's a very specific process that happens only in a laboratory, it cannot happen in nature, whereby they extract the DNA or the RNA from one plant animal or species and they insert it in the lab, in the lab, into another plant animal or species, using viruses and bacteria to make sure they stick.

Now, for an example, I always like to give this one, there's a bacteria called bacillus-Tern genes or but it lives in the soil and it kills bugs, and so they take out the part that kills the bugs, they take up that gene and they insert it into the genes of the corn, so that every sub-molecular thing in the corn now has an insecticide in it, so that when the bug eats the corn, the bug dies, they even have to register it as a pesticide when they grow it.

Okay, and so when the buggy hit, the bug dies and then they feed this corn to the pigs and the cows and to our children eating their corn chips and a variety of other things that corner in.

So we're not only eating a genetically modified food, but we're also eating a pesticide, and so that's okay to some people, and that's fine with me if those folks wanna eat it, feed it to their children, but I feel that we... In the United States, in order to have a free market should have information that you cannot have a free market if there's no transparency, and so I believe we have a right to know what we're buying, what we're spending our money on, what we're feeding our children. If you're in simple... Yeah, and the numbers, of course, come up when you have cancers and when this all turns around, This is kind of what gmos... Well, you're here to tell us about like...

Well, you know, I don't make those leaps, I don't really talk about the science tremendously because there's so much... So much on both sides. You'll talk to somebody from... You could get someone sitting here telling you these things are completely... So if they've been started for 00 story... Yup, yep. Yep, you up, you up. And we could look at that and say, Oh well, you're studies flawed, at the same time, they will look at other folks, other scientists, data independent scientists, by the way, all the progestins are done by the actual companies that make these things, the FDA relies on them.

And then you get an independent scientist who will come up with some different findings, but then the Ag Biotech industry, the chemical industry, we'll look at those and say, Well, they weren't done correctly and they don't acknowledge them, and scientists are losing funding or getting fired for all sorts of stuff.

So because of that, and we've got science on both sides, I just gotta ask, Where is mom in the aisle with all this... What do we do? How does a mother go and look at a food... And now if it's okay.

Yeah, and that's exactly what leads to my next question is, aren't almost all foods, gmos and Heaven, we've been doing this for thousands of years.

No, actually, like I was saying, this is something completely different, that process that they're talking about happens in nature, it's like Assisting nature a little bit more closely, where you find two different strains of rice that might grow really well in an area, you put them close to each other, they pollinate or maybe you assist them a little bit with the pollinating, it's not like in a laboratory where they shoot the genes into the cell, and like I was saying, use a virus to make sure that it stays in... Gets into the dean nature has certain barriers between crossing species or between doing certain kinds of things, and this is bypassing that system completely.

Right, and you're here to say... Yeah, this is a completely different system.

Yeah, and again, if people are okay with that, and many people are, that's fine with me, they can feed that to themselves and their children, but I have a right to know when I'm eating them, What are the health risks, if any... Well, before these things were introduced on the market, the fda's own scientists warned of problems with increased toxicity, increased allergies, and all sorts of stuff that we might not know could happen because this is such a new technology. We don't know what we don't know.

Although they wouldn't have put it that way.

So increased studies are showing that in animals that there are increased allergies, there are problems with fertility, there's all sorts of different things going on with animals, both in anecdotal reports and actual studies when they are actually allowed to happen.

We were told for many years that this stuff was just digested, just didn't harm humans, not to worry, but yet a study last year out of Canada showed that it is impact is in the blood of pregnant women and babies when they are born. So this pesticide is... Babies are born with it.

It's everywhere, and again, people come to this from different issues, but again, eating a pesticide isn't something that most of us would do it be like feeding your baby a bottle of round-up, right?

You can just imagine being at the store, the grocery shelf and saying, Well, yeah, that looks pretty good, I'm gonna have some tore... The other piece would be, is here take lay baby into your lab and do whatever you want to with this child, we wouldn't do that now with this new something, we would wait full at somebody else may... And you know I am, it's really... Sometimes it takes that visual to really... And that's what you're here for, you're really saying, This is what it is you... That's what you're doing. You're describing the visual, we talked about the health, but what about the environmental risks, there are quite a few environmental risks, what's happening right now is because nature wants to continue on, she adapts, and so we have now super bugs and super weeds. They're becoming tremendous problems. The bugs, they're touted as reducing pesticide use, which is totally false, because like I said, they are the past decide number one, but number two, when you get rid of one bug, you then leave open all sorts of room for other bugs to come in that aren't necessarily affected by these particular pesticides, and so other kinds of pesticides have to be used to get rid of those.

Another thing about the super-weeds is back east in the Midwest, that sounds kind of weird, back in the Midwest, farmers are having a real problem with pig weed and are having to pull it out by hand.

One of the things that they've now done is because so many weeds have become resistant to the round-up or the glyphosate as it's called, they now have taken one-half of Agent Orange called 24 and are now using that as a resistance they're engineering to... For resistance into corn and soy now, so we've got that, and so a lot of veterans when they hear that, they're not that excited about that because for years, the company that made Agent Orange, the Monsanto, told us that it was completely safe and not a problem, and they're the same folks that are telling us that these things are safe and could be they are. I don't think so, but could be they are, but are we gonna trust a company that has repeatedly said stuff that has been proven untrue to tell us that these are things were safe and to tell us we don't have a right to know... I mean, I'm sorry, that just seems pretty egregious to me... Correct, yeah.

Okay, and you mentioned right when you sat down that you're a grandmother, and I would imagine that has something to do with how you certainly started and now how's it grown so big, so I would imagine passion is probably... It's just, yes, it's looking at my grandchildren and all the grandchildren and just wondering what we're leaving them, what kinds of choices, because they have stated over and over that is their intention to have every food on the market genetically engineered, and so I believe. Okay, well, the world wants it, that's fine, but we live in a free market and maybe many of us don't, and so the free market should prevail before it's too late.

Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. And we want something left over for all of our kids and our grandkids and... Who supports this initiative?

Who supports this initiative? A wonderful osteopathic doctor named Dr. Marco, he has a health website, they are... He and his CEO or libertarians, and they very much believe in a free and transparent market and the forces of the market being able to drive... So they've donated heavily nature's path, organic cereals, lumbar Grice, the Organic Consumer Fund has done a tremendous amount of fundraising. Their funding comes from small folks, and we've got more and more medium-sized donations coming in now, mothers has donated. Thank you so much, Sharon. Much mother has donated a lot and really, really helped us out a lot, probably the most of any chain store that I could say has been just supportive and always imaginable, well, you've got other folks coming on board with some medium-sized donations too, but if you look at our opposition, they have companies that are donating 20000, 100000 millions of dollars. And we just don't have that kind of funding.

Yeah, and that was my next question is who opposes this and why?

And it's pretty strong.

We expect our opposition to spend anywhere between 50 and 100 Million against this campaign, and we are hoping to make a tenth of that... Oh my goodness, yeah. And that's because of the corporation for a...

I would imagine, yes.

Yeah, are spending so much money on something they say is gonna be so costly and it's crazy, and that's unfortunate, but you know what, it's more power to you because you've made an impact already, and you know what you're working through.

I'm backing up a question here and we can edit this through, but what is the fda's position on the environmental risks... Well, the FDA doesn't take a position on the environmental risks, that would be more the EPA, the FDA... A lot of times, our opposition will say that the FDA takes a position saying These things are safe, and actually that is not true, what the FDA says Is it knows of no studies that are indicating that it's unsafe, it also says that it relies on the industry to determine safety, and the industry says that It's not its job to determine safety, it's the fda's job to determine safety, so once again, we have one of those catch-22s where what does the person in the grocery store do? Being left in the lurch between these two opposing perspectives... Yeah, and it's probably all in the wording of that as well too... Well, you have... You're up against Goliath here, aren't you a...

Well, this is so interesting, very interesting information, and I can see him how passionate you are, but you do have a lot of supporters here as well, we have a lot more to get to, we're not ending here, so we're gonna take a quick break, but we will be right back. We're gonna talk about how you can sign up and volunteer and donate to... But more from Pam, Larry, just a minute. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right that a... Welcome back to the mother's market radio. And we wanna remind you that if you missed any portion of today's show, you can find us on iTunes by searching mother's market or download the show from our website, mother's market dot com, click the link for radio and listen to past shows, plus download our Healthy Recipes and money savings coupons, all available at mother's market dot com. And now back to our interview with Pam lari, and we're discussing genetically modified foods, so Pam, do other countries label gmos?

They most certainly do, the most recent country to add labeling a law was India, aside from that, all of the EU labels of some of the countries are at least one of the countries, there also Bans genetically engineered crops, China for that in Russia. Those very advanced countries label, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, there are almost 50 countries throughout the world label there for genetically engineered foods, and we're just asking because many of the companies that are opposing us already make foods for all those country countries, and they somehow have figured out how to get genetically engineered foods label there, and we're just asking for some of that food to be sent here to California, and with that, does the opposition... See that then... Has that changed then, obviously? Doesn't take them... Their minds at all, right?

No, no, not at all, no, no, I'm just asking that question. reads the opposition companies label the foods in other countries... Is the opposition?

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like craft and Kellogg, they all have the same version or something very, very close over there, the same, it'll be corn, soy, but that's all genetically engineered free or it's labeled... Yeah.

Okay.

In other country. So you would think that they see that and working in other countries, and you would think that, well, Hey, it's working there. Why can't we all get along, right? What about feeding the world?

That's a real interesting one. Well, first of all, again, I don't talk too much about the science, but I will suggest that people refer to a UN report from last year called The I-stat report, and in it, they talk about how these things actually are not feeding the world, and that in fact for the future, this is an unsustainable... We can't continue farming this way, that the plan, it can't continue on with it, and they suggest that we go back to ARO ecological forms of farming, which are more in harmony with the planet, keep things a little more local, that kind of stuff.

You can also check out another book called failure to yield, which talks specifically to this topic about how genetically engineered crops, I actually do not increase yield over the long haul, and then... Third of all, that is true, and it all matters, but I don't really understand what labeling food in California has to do with feeding the world, a lot of countries label somehow that hasn't really affected the rest of the world hunger supply... When were the other genetically-engineered foods have been out there for about 20 years now, and we've got more people that are hungry, not less, and there's no connection, it's another one of those PR things that people are pulling away from the real topic, which is that we have a right to know what's in our food here in the United States, we're not asking that these things go away, we're not saying anybody can't develop them, we're not saying anybody can't eat them, we're not saying anybody can't grow them. All we're doing is we're asking for a little label so that those of us who don't wanna eat them can find them and makes you wonder What are you hiding?

Exactly like the one conservative guy I know of, he calls himself a plumber up in Northern California, he's like, If you can't put your signature on it, I wanna know what's wrong with it, well stated, what are the new genetically engineered foods coming coming... Oh, so next on the horizon, we have non-browning apples, which are really important for feeding the world, and the hungry little children over in Africa care deeply about the fact that their apples are not proof that won't brown anymore. This is important. The other thing that a lot of people are a little flipped out about is that the first genetically engineered Sam animal is on the market, coming on the market, and that's salmon.

It's been in development for about 10 years, it's called the Aqua bounty salmon.

It's a very interesting business model in that they started off like in the northern part of the world, and then they ship it down to South America to grow. It is a combination of a chink salmon and an ocean pout, which is an ES sort of fish, and they take genetic material from both of those and then they put them into an Atlantic salmon to make that salmon grow about three times the size that it's supposed to grow, it's a voracious eater, and many environmentalists are concerned that if it gets out into the ocean, that after only 40 generations, we won't have any more wild salmon left just because it's a very strong... A voracious eater. an attacker.

Oh my goodness.

And both of both, that's the salmon, the Tinian, the salon, where it's the Chinook and the ocean pow into the Atlantic salmon and then... But I think the one that might get here faster is the non-brand... Yeah, and just this year, not too many people know that there is the 24 sweet corn. Walmart has says that, it has said that it will sell that in... This is so interesting, but it's here in the... Now, I mean it is... It's happening as we speak. What you say to your opposition who says it will raise food prices, what I say is this, it's like, Excuse me, we're giving you 18 months to do something that... Everyone in your industry does. I just noticed that Kellogg's had five different new boxes that they made for the Olympics, and I didn't notice a big rise in food costs associated with those labels, and our labels will have a much smaller, much less ink. That'd be very small. They won't be half the package, and people bought those... Didn't they?

They tattered, he said anything and look at... Yeah, people were out there and the... The grocery stores.

What can we do?

What can we do?

Well, as we've talked in this show, this is definitely a David and Goliath sort of situation, we've got a lot of moms and grandmas out there that have been out there volunteering around this for over a year, dads have been out there right along with us, leading groups and getting signatures and doing all sorts of stuff, we got families, we've got organizations on board, people who care, Sierra Club, you got larger environmental folks that are on board, we've got more and more folks coming forward, like Tea Party groups are seeing the value of this and its people, this is about people wanting the choice and the right to know, and it takes a lot of energy for all of us to do this, like I was saying earlier, many of us donated our time, I don't need the equivalent of two full-time jobs for 16 months for this.

And there are many, like the woman in Sonoma, Karen and Sonoma, she volunteers at least 60 hours a week for this many people have jobs, we need help. We need people out there. We're expecting or I'm sure we have a large barrage of commercials that are coming our way and probably on the air by now by October, and what we need is our little personal mini commercials is what I call them, where we're talking to people and we're reminding people who's behind this? The same people who told us for years that tobacco was safe, the same people that... They do all sorts of stuff with hiding things from people around the oil business, these are the people that are running the pack on our opposition. We have a company, Monsanto is its name, who told us for years that 24 And Agent Orange were safe, who talked about PCBS being safe and courts of law.

These are the same people that are running this campaign who are funding it, are we gonna believe them or are we gonna believe the people that are around us, our pastors are our healthcare providers, our massage therapists, the people who care about us.

Is we have a right to know what's in our food.

Pure and simple, and I wanna know why there's such a big stink and why people are so afraid that about us knowing what's in our food, this is what really gets me going, it's like... It's everywhere, people not Lovering omitted on yourself. oxalate it, you're good.

Yeah, anyway, so I just, I believe, and I coined this phrase when I was driving one time, this is where my favorite lines, consumer rights to know should supersede corporate rights for a non-transparent profit, and that kind of says it for a lot of things. Now, there's a whole lot going on in this world, and it kind of makes me really angry that corporations can get away with making so much money because people don't know what they're doing, and it's about time that we had turned... Paren-y in the market, that's what drives me is my outrage over the unfairness of the... Of the market, you know what, you gave some great examples of people not willing to tell you what's on the other side, it is almost like that Wizard of is who's behind the curtain, and the curtains been unveiled already, and you're that person that's unveiling this curtain... Well, a lot of us are, we're telling the truth all over the place around here, they're saying, Well, corporate interest from outside of California, a rousing things up... Excuse me. Go look at their funding.

Please, all it's like mega corporations and lobbying groups from Washington DC... I mean, are you kidding me?

There's farmers that want this, we have tons of farmers who have endorsed... We have like 1700 endorsers so far, 1700 organizations and businesses have made the commitment and said, I approve of this large and small throughout the state. Who does that? People care about this.

Absolutely, and you're asking the question, what's in our food?

Exactly. Well, where can we sign up and volunteer and donate... Yes, please go to California, right to know that. A right-to know dot-org, please join us on the streets when you sign up to volunteer, we'll get that name to your local leader, forgot to mention, we've got 90 communities around the state that are actively working on this that are organized. We've got 130-something people who are leading or co-leading their communities, we've got people in Humboldt, we've got people in San Diego all the way from Santa Cruz to manipulate and all sorts of places in between, but we need tons more people, we have thousands of volunteers and we need tens of thousands of us to get out there and talk to each other, because this is what the initiative process was made for. It's become what some people call the initiative industrial process. But initiatives would be gone so that the people could rise up and create a law if they felt like their legislators were not doing what they wanted him to do, and after numerous attempts all over the country, it's time for the people to overcome special interests. Overcome lobbying, overcome all of the interaction between government and business, hunted. Demand our right to know what's in our food.

Wow, well, I love your style. You're excellent. thanks so very much for your time, Pam, and we look forward to having you on again. In the meantime, you can make a donation and learn more about the push to label gmos on the website, a Right to Know dot-org. Pam, thanks again for being with us.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for listening to the mother's market radio show. And for shopping at mother's market, advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen, mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition,