Viewpoint: Why farm to table organic food campaigns are ‘bunk’

| | September 25, 2019
farm table
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[T]here is big money in making consumers feel ecologically pure and big money to be lost if a certain brand of customers don’t. Especially with food, consumers equate small farms with a lower carbon footprint, purer genetics and fewer pesticides. As a result, businesses flock to label their products “organic,” “farm to table,” or “locally sourced,” even if that means the food was purchased “locally” at Costco.

(I still believe “farm to table” has too many steps, so come visit my new “stream to mouth” restaurants, where people have to pluck their food out of a running brook like a bear.)

Don’t buy the non-GMO scare campaign

Perhaps the most misunderstood — and most profitable — attempt to convince people their food is “healthy” is the anti-genetically modified organisms (GMO) campaign. Food companies are rushing to have their products listed as GMO-free, even though there is little evidence that genetically modified foods are any less healthy or safe.

Related article:  Podcast: Could a benign virus save Florida's devastated orange industry from citrus greening disease?

Yet the effort to vilify GMOs has largely been successful. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center poll, 57% of Americans think genetically modified foods are unsafe to eat. Yet 88% of scientists with the American Association for the Advancement of Science said GMOs are generally safe to eat.

Read full, original article: ‘Going green’ means big bucks for corporations, but a lot of these campaigns are bunk

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