WPIRG TheSupermarketTour

The Supermarket Tour
NEW & D IMPROVE
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an OPIRG Publication
NEW & D IMPROVE
ENTER Here
an OPIRG Publication
CREDITS
Research and writing for the Supermarket Tour were by Stella Lee, Caroline Liffman and Cindy McCulligh. Final editing by Stella Lee. Design, layout, and additional editing was by Daryl Novak at the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG) at the University of Waterloo. The project was coordinated by Shelley Porteous and Hanna Schayer at OPIRG McMaster. Illustrations by Julian van Mossel-Forrester. Additonal graphics by Juby Lee and Julia Wilson. Special thanks go to Brewster Kneen, Cindy McCulligh, Chris Watson, and Ann Clark for their assistance in reviewing the Tour. The views expressed in this booklet are not necessarily those of the reviewers. Thanks also go to Sandro Giordano at McMaster Design & Copy for his generous help in producing the Tour, and to the Council of Canadians, Waterloo PIRG and OPIRG-Toronto for their financial support in this project. For more information on OPIRG, or for an electronic PDF copy of this document, visit http://opirg.org If you would like to receive additional printed copies of the Supermarket Tour, contact OPIRG McMaster.
2001, 2002 by: OPIRG McMaster Box 1013, McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, Ontario L8S 1C0 (905) 525-9140 ext. 27289 <macearth@mcmaster.ca>
Title: The Supermarket Tour by Stella Lee, Caroline Liffman, and Cindy McCulligh ISBN 0-9690545-7-2
Printed in Canada in 2001, 2002
MENU
Credits ..................................................................................................... 4
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Eaten Anything Lately? ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Aisle 1: The Food system ....................................................................... 8

GOING TO MARKET .............................................................................................................................................................. 8 OUTSIDE THE STORE ENTRANCE .................................................................................................................................... 8 Whos the Boss? ..................................................................................................................................................... 8 Vertical Integration ................................................................................................................................................ 9 Weve Come a Long Way ................................................................................................................................... 9 INSIDE THE SUPERMARKET ENTRANCE ...................................................................................................................... 10 Consumer Manipulation ..................................................................................................................................... 10 The Lure ................................................................................................................................................................ 10 Entrances ................................................................................................................................................................ 11 Music or Muzak ...................................................................................................................................................... 11 Produce Section .................................................................................................................................................... 12 Shelf Space ............................................................................................................................................................. 12 Product Placement .............................................................................................................................................. 12 Advertising & Packaging .................................................................................................................................... 13 ALTERNATIVES ................................................................................................................................................................. 13
Aisle 2: Produce .................................................................................. 16

POISON & POVERTY .........................................................................................................................................................16 PESTICIDES ............................................................................................................................................................................16 WHY WORRY ABOUT PESTICIDES? ................................................................................................................................16 Health Effects ........................................................................................................................................................ 17 Government Standards ....................................................................................................................................... 17 An Apple a Day May Not Keep the Doctor Away ....................................................................................... 18 BANANAS: A CLOSER LOOK AT TOXIC TRADE ...................................................................................................... 20 Environmental Degradation ............................................................................................................................ 20 Deforestation, loss of biodiversity ..................................................................................................................... 20 Heavy pesticide use ............................................................................................................................................... 21 Toxic wastes and contamination ...................................................................................................................... 21 Labour Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 21 Worker Health ..................................................................................................................................................... 22 Worker Rights ...................................................................................................................................................... 23 SPOTLIGHT ON NAFTA: THE EFFECTS OF FREE TRADE ON WORKERS IN MEXICO ...................................... 24 SPOTLIGHT ON STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS (SAPS) ...................................................................... 25 ALTERNATIVES ................................................................................................................................................................ 26
Aisle 3: Biodiversity ............................................................................. 30

BIODIVERSITY: HOW MUCH WE HAVE LOST ............................................................................................................ 30 Why Were Losing It ............................................................................................................................................. 31 ALTERNATIVES ................................................................................................................................................................ 32
Aisle 4: Biotechnology .......................................................................... 34

BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GENETIC ENGINEERING 101 ................................................................................................ 34 WHY DO WE NEED GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS? .................................................................................... 35 WHY ARE PEOPLE CONCERNED ABOUT GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS? ........................................... 38 MONSANTO ........................................................................................................................................................................ 40 WHAT PLANTS ARE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED? ..................................................................................................41 WHY ARENT GMOS LABELLED? .................................................................................................................................. 43 ALTERNATIVES ............................................................................................................................................................... 44
Aisle 5: The Meat Market .................................................................... 48

ANIMAL ABUSE ................................................................................................................................................................... 48 Crowding ............................................................................................................................................................. 49 To the Slaughterhouse ...................................................................................................................................... 49 Sick Animals ......................................................................................................................................................... 50 YOU ARE WHAT THEY EAT ............................................................................................................................................ 50 Antibiotics ............................................................................................................................................................. 50 Something Fishy? ................................................................................................................................................ 50 Hormones ............................................................................................................................................................... 51 Toxins ..................................................................................................................................................................... 51 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ............................................................................................................................................. 52 World Hunger ...................................................................................................................................................... 52 Desertification ....................................................................................................................................................... 52 Greenhouse Gases ............................................................................................................................................... 52 Walkerton tragedy ............................................................................................................................................. 53 SPOTLIGHT ON WALKERTON ........................................................................................................................................ 53 ALTERNATIVES ................................................................................................................................................................ 54
Aisle 6: Additives ................................................................................ 58

GOT ANYTHING TO ADD? ................................................................................................................................................ 58 THE 10 MOST QUESTIONABLE FOOD ADDITIVES ..................................................................................................... 58 ALTERNATIVES ................................................................................................................................................................ 59
Aisle 7: Corporate Control ..................................................................62

CORPORATIONS CONTROL WHAT WE CONSUME .................................................................................................. 62 CORPORATE POWER ....................................................................................................................................................... 62 CORPORATE PROFILES .................................................................................................................................................... 63 ALTERNATIVES .................................................................................................................................................................. 71
Appendix 1: How To Lead a Supermarket Tour ................................. 73

FACILITATING A TOUR ...................................................................................................................................................... 73 Some Suggestions for Facilitating a Tour ........................................................................................................ 73 Preparing for a Tour .......................................................................................................................................... 73 SAMPLE ACTIVITIES ........................................................................................................................................................... 75 Making a Banana Split ...................................................................................................................................... 75 Lets Go Shopping! A Window on Corporate Concentration ................................................................... 76
Appendix 2: Grocery Store Profiles ..................................................... 77 Appendix 3: Sample Letters ................................................................ 81 Appendix 4: Which Brands Claim to be GE-Free? ............................. 85
INTRODUCTION
Eaten Anything Lately?
What strikes you as you enter the brightly lit environment of the supermarket? As the clean aisles, the colourful arrays of fruits and vegetables, the full shelves and the cool frozen foods stand mutely before you? What messages do these potential breakfasts, lunches and dinners impart? Twenty years ago, the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) produced an educational booklet, the Supermarket Tour, which told a story about store-bought foods that many of us had never heard before. Showing connections among food issues, the popular Supermarket Tour has since been updated twice to incorporate more recent developments in Canada's ever growing and changing food system. Using the supermarket as a classroom, the Tour asks questions about the products on supermarket shelves, providing a focus for discussion on a wide range of food issues, from labour to labeling, from marketing to genetic manipulation, from pesticides to profit. The information in this booklet is by no means complete or exhaustive; instead, it is meant to highlight some key issues and to serve as a starting point for further research and education. The information presented here is arranged in more or less the same order you would move through the store on a tour. Each chapter is a self-contained unit, though, to give you the freedom to change the order, do the tour in several sessions, or leave sections out. If you are planning to take a group on a supermarket tour, please refer to the section entitled "How To Lead a Supermarket Tour" (Appendix 1) for some helpful guidelines. There is a lot of information here, which may seem overwhelming at times-but don't give up! Each chapter concludes with a list of alternatives-realistic ways to protect yourself from the risks of the food system, to make your voice heard and to help bring about local and global changes. What follows is the latest version of the Supermarket Tour that anyone can use to educate themselves and others about food. If you eat, the Supermarket Tour is for you!
Aisle 1
The Food System
AISLE 1: THE FOOD SYSTEM GOING TO MARKET

Our food system has changed tremendously in the past 50 years, keeping in step with the pace of technological progress. These changes, for the most part, have been made without our approval or even our awareness. Yet they can significantly affect our health, our environment and our values. In the past, a shopping trip would include going to the butcher, the baker and several other independent specialty shops. Shop owners knew their customers and would have been concerned about getting them the best quality food possible. The system now is much less personal. These days we go to one-stop supermarket chains that offer everything, from baked goods to TV dinners even non-food items, from medicine to photographic services. Although we can appreciate the convenience offered by supermarkets, one has to ask: what has been compromised? The food industry would like us to believe that nothing has been compromised. However, this booklet provides information suggesting that the system we have now is not a healthy one. The benefits of the system are in some cases illusory, or they have been achieved only at a terrible cost, including producer exploitation, loss of control, environmental degradation, consumer manipulation, declining food quality, and the destruction of our national food security.1 Throughout the Tour we will be looking at how these costs have been incurred. This aisle (or chapter) in particular will focus on the loss of control and the consumer manipulation that occurs inside the supermarket. When you set foot in a supermarket, are you aware of what youre buying into?
OUTSIDE THE STORE ENTRANCE

Whos the Boss?
Take a few moments outside the supermarket to review where you are shopping. Who owns the store? What other stores do they own? Where do they operate? [See Appendix 2 for Grocery Store Profiles.] Especially in urban centres, there seem to be several choices about where to do your shopping. This choice is somewhat illusory, at least in terms of who profits most. For example, whether you are shopping at no frills, Fortinos or Your Independent Grocer, you are shopping at a store owned by Loblaws Companies Ltd., a division of George Weston Ltd., which makes $21 billion annually in sales. With revenues going to a single corporation, consumer choice is more limited than it may initially appear.
Vertical Integration
Another form of corporate control and restriction of choice is found in the food products themselves. Transnational corporations typically seek vertical integration, a process where companies take over all levels of a given industry. For instance, companies seek to control everything including farm equipment, seeds, fertilizers, animals, meat processing and packaging. The end result is that a few companies dominate the entire industry, a condition known as oligopoly. Consumers have less real choice, and do not receive the benefits of real competition. Later on in the Tour (See Aisle 7), we will be looking at corporate concentration in more detail as it relates directly to the food products we buy.
Weve Come a Long Way

Many of the issues we will be looking at throughout the Tour depend on a phenomenon called distancing. This is when consumers are increasingly alienated from their food sources. Nowadays, most people in the city dont know where their food came from, where it was grown, how it was produced and by whom, what has been added or taken away from it or where it travelled to get to their dinner table. Distancing from field to table creates opportunities to extract money from the system and to gain control over aspects of it. Distancing therefore represents a shift in values from the nutrition of the food itself to the potential profit to be gained by adding value to foods. Forms of this include: breeding or engineering shelf life into food increasing the physical distance between where the food is grown and where it is sold and eaten processing raw food into a different end-product preserving and packaging foods for longer storage and easier shipping and handling urbanizing populations so that fewer people have any connection to the rural farm experience.2
In the industrialized world it is hard to have any sense at all of where our food comes from, how it gets to us, or what happens to it along the way. Rather than being a focal point of our culture, food has become for us a business activity in which we participate as workers, customers, or consumersand, one must add, owners and corporate shareholders.3 Brewster Kneen
Aisle 1: The Food System
INSIDE THE SUPERMARKET ENTRANCE

Consumer Manipulation
Its time to enter the store and feast your eyes on the abundance, your ears on the Muzak and to pause and consider the environment you have just walked into. As soon as you enter a supermarket, you are being manipulated. After all, this is not a neutral spaceit is a space designed to make it easy for you to spend money. Did you know that you, the average Canadian, are most likely to shop on a Thursday or Friday afternoon, be in the store for 44 minutes, purchase 28 items and spend $84?4 A great deal of research is invested in the manipulation of consumer habits, so that in the design of a supermarket and the placement of products, consumer preferences are not always the highest priority. If youve often wondered how on earth you spent so much money on groceries when you only meant to buy a few items, heres why. The following are a few notable tricks of the trade, all designed to make you spend more money than you intended:
The Lure
Why do you choose one supermarket over another? Many supermarkets go beyond low food prices to attract customers. Current trends include: Promoting and rewarding customer loyalty with such programs as Air Miles, Club points, and free groceries. Providing non-grocery services like wine stores, film-processing, and banking at low costs (which are made up by other purchases customers might not have intended to make). One-stop shopping: This is especially characteristic of hypermarkets such as Costco, but it is becoming increasingly popular with other supermarkets. By making more products available, supermarkets can eradicate smaller competitors and lure more consumers through the convenient nature of their operation. Such stores can sell a variety of non-food items including clothing, prescription drugs, gasoline and audio/ visual equipment.
From the freshest produce, to toys and childrens wear, expansive Superstores provide the ultimate in one-stop shopping. Loblaw Companies 5
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Entrances
How many entrances are there to your supermarket? Many stores have only one entrance so they can control where a consumer starts shopping. Staple items are spread throughout the store to encourage the consumer to pass through most sections of the store.
Left to Right
Most consumers are right-handed and are therefore inclined to move in a right-handed direction, according to Design Forum. A good way to increase sales would therefore be to put the stores most frequently visited department furthest from the entrance and then build a right hand loop pattern that leads to it naturally, but passes through areas of specials and high-profit merchandise.6 Once inside, supermarket planners like to place specialty items at store entrances, especially since you are likely to spend more money at the beginning of your shopping trip than at the end. Often plants, wines, gourmet food and candy are placed at the entrances, in the hopes that you will make an impulse buy. Also, end-of-aisle displays are considered prime selling locations because consumers pass by them more frequently than they do items placed in the middle of an aisle. These displays are often used to feature new productsdont assume they are always sale items!
Music or Muzak
The barely noticeable background music in a supermarket is likely programmed to make you spend more money. Music programmers choose popular tunes and analyze them according to beats per minute, style, chart position, emotional content, political content, and the age group to which a track will appeal.7 They then modify the songs. For example, they might remove extreme dynamics, sudden key changes or improvisations, or any other feature that might momentarily distract the listener.8 The new tracks are then played in a sequence that is intended to have a calculated effect on the mood of the listener. Sometimes, promotional messages are also played between musical selections. Muzak, Inc., the most successful company to create and market programmed music, knows that sixty-six per cent of all buying decisions are made after the consumer enters the supermarket.9 In response, Muzaks company website tells business owners: What does that mean for you? Put simply, you have a tremendous opportunity to describe products or services to people who had no interest in them before they walked through your door. Muzaks In-Store Marketing allows you to speak to your target audience subtly, yet convincingly. Blended seamlessly with appropriate music, our customized messages have been proven to increase sales.10 Designed to reduce stress, improve morale and delay fatigue, Muzak is not meant to catch the attention of the consumer. Rather, it is a subliminal anesthetic made to relax the consumer and invite him or her to shop longer.
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What is retailing, other than manipulative? We are a retail organization. We are there to manipulate people. Michael Clark, Managing Director, Muzak UK 11
Produce Section
No one likes their bananas bruised or their strawberries smushed, so it makes sense to buy produce at the end of a shopping trip, right? However, because produce is perishable, supermarkets want to get rid of it quickly. Again, since consumers tend to spend more money at the beginning of their shopping trip than at the end, produce sales are markedly higher when it is placed at the beginning of the store. Therefore, fresh fruits and vegetables are usually located in the first aisle.
Shelf Space
Competition for shelf space is fierce. Thousands of new products fight to get onto supermarket shelves each year so if you do see a new product, its likely that the manufacturer had to pay to get it there. Retailers dont want to risk replacing a tried and true product with one new to the market, so they protect themselves by providing shelf space in exchange for discounts, favourable payment terms and a guarantee that the manufacturer will heavily advertise their product.12 In 1987, manufacturers paid Canadian retailers an estimated $2 billion in shelf allowances, which added 10% to shoppers food bills.13 This only adds to the monopoly larger corporations have on grocery store products, as smaller manufacturers with smaller budgets have a more difficult time competing.
Product Placement
Shelving strategies also come into play when arranging products. Products placed at eye level tend to sell better than similar products at different heights. Most people dont even look at a product that is 40 cm (16 in.) or less from the floor.14 Sugar cereals are placed lower on shelves so kids can see them. As well, if cereal is arranged by type, instead of by brand name, sales drop by five per cent. In the same way, soup cans are not arranged alphabetically because sales would drop six per cent if they did.15 Having to scan the soup display forces consumers to look through all the varieties instead of just the ones they were going to buy, increasing the likelihood of impulse buys. Stores will also employ a boutiquing technique, where products like barbecue sauce are next to the meat section, or bread is found at the deli counter. Often more profitable items will be placed around staple items. And of course, all this is designed to have you make an impulse buy.
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Advertising & Packaging

Part of your grocery bill includes money spent by manufacturers on advertising and packaging designed to win your shopping dollar. Note, for example, the amounts spent on advertising in 1997 by the following food manufacturers:16 Proctor & Gamble Company Phillip Morris Company PepsiCo $2.74 billion USD $2.14 billion USD $1.24 billion USD
A typical grocery store carries over 12,000 products. The typical consumer sees less than a thousand of these. Adding to this that 75 to 80 per cent of all brand decisions are made right in the store, and that this brand selection takes about seven seconds, you can see how important eye-catching packaging is to a manufacturer.17
Right to Left
Retailers often place in-store labels to the left of brand-name products because the eye, trained by reading, naturally shifts left. The thinking is that price-conscious consumers will notice the private label is cheaper and as visually appealing as the name brand, and buy it.18
ALTERNATIVES
If you are uncomfortable with the idea of being manipulated by the corporate food system, here are some practical suggestions for reducing its influence on you: Stick to a list. The best way to avoid impulse buying is to make a shopping list, and stick to it! Step into smaller shops. Small shops and specialty stores generally cannot afford the strategies used by supermarkets to boost sales. As a result, they are much more straightforward, customer-oriented, and tend to be more community-based. Join a food co-op. There is likely a food co-operative in your area. A co-operative is an independent association made up of people who want to achieve a common goal through a democratically controlled enterprise. All members of a co-op have a say in how the organization is run, so you are not reduced to being a nameless consumer. Buying from food co-ops usually means that you are supporting smaller, local enterprises and organic food businesses.
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Endnotes
1 2 3 4 5 6 Philip White, The Supermarket Tour: A Handbook for Education and Action (Toronto: OPIRG, 1990), 1-2. Ibid., 39. Ibid., 40. Canadian Grocer Executive Report (Toronto: Maclean Hunter, 1997), 9. Loblaw Companies, Annual Report, 1994, 18. Lee Carpenter, Eight Sure Ways to Drive Customers Out of Your Store, Retail Merchandising 39, 10 (October 1987): 3, quoted by White, The Supermarket Tour, 14. 7 Rick Poynor, Muzak 2wice Magazine: Uniform, Winter 1997, <www.2wice.org/~uniform/muza.html> (19 June 2000). 8 Simon Jones and Thomas Schumacher, Muzak: On Functional Music and Power Critical Studies in Mass Communication (June 1992): 156-169. 9 Muzak, Muzak is Messaging, Muzak Home Page, 1999, <www.muzak.com> (19 June 2000). 10 Ibid. 11 Quoted by Rick Poynor, Muzak. 12 Steve Brearton, Grocery-store Confidential, Toronto Life Magazine, September 1997, 15. 13 Robert Matas, Stocking Shelves Has a Hidden Cost, Globe and Mail, 28 February 1987, A1, cited in White, The Supermarket Tour, 26. 14 Tom Eklof, Triggering More Sales Through POP, Progressive Grocer 67, 9 (September 1988): 19. 15 Brearton, Grocery-store Confidential, 14. 16 The Billion Dollar Ad Spenders, Adbusters 24 (Winter 1999): 12. 17 Thomas Pigeon, Jean Pierre Lacroix, Steve Candib, Ed Shikatani, and Shelley Marchant, Marketplace Packaging Strategies [Special Report] Canadian Packaging 50 (November 1997): 13-16. 18 Brearton, Grocery-store Confidential, 15.
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Aisle 2
Produce
AISLE 2: PRODUCE POISON & POVERTY

Take some time to wander through the produce section. Pay special attention to where the fruits and vegetables were produced. Is most of the produce imported or local? What sort of information is on labels? How fresh do you think the food is? Do you know what is locally in season? Is there an organic section? We, the Canadian public, know very little about where our food comes from. But with the growth of the global village and global interdependence, we have to realize that the choices we make about the food we buy affects people all over the world. This section looks at the importance of knowing the conditions under which our food is produced, highlighting consequences to our health, the environment and labour in developing countries.
PESTICIDES
Most of us like to think our produce is fresh and nutritious. However, given the state of modern agriculture, you are probably eating several different synthetic chemicals regularly. Pesticides are present, to some degree, in most of our foods. Whether youre eating a peanut butter sandwich, spaghetti or fruit salad, you may be biting into pesticides at every meal. Pesticides are chemicals designed to kill organisms regarded as pests, including weeds, insects, fungi, spiders, worms, mice, algae, mites and snails. They often kill several non-target plants and animals as well. Pesticides are also used to improve the appearance of produce and to protect it from bruising and spoiling.1 Pesticides are usually sprayed or dusted onto plants and seeds, or injected into the soil. They are applied to crops used for human and animal consumption. This means that we can be exposed to pesticide residues in two ways: directly from produce (and processed foods) or indirectly through animal products.
WHY WORRY ABOUT PESTICIDES?

Pesticides are designed to be toxic. It doesnt really make sense to believe they will not have a negative effect on the human body. Government and corporate testing agencies assume that pesticide residues are present in such small doses that they will not have any significant effect in humans. As we will see, there are severe limitations to this kind of thinking.
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Health Effects
Many pesticides that are currently used are known to have one or more of the following effects on humans and animals: Carcinogenic (cause cancer) (e.g. Captan, 2,4-D) Cause birth defects (e.g. Diazinon) Damage reproductive system (e.g. Carbaryl) Interfere with hormones (e.g. Methoxychlor) Damage brain and nervous system (e.g. Methyl Parathion) Damage immune system2 (e.g. Dieldrin) Embryonic and Fetal Development: Recent studies show that extremely small quantities of chemicals that disrupt hormones can cause all kinds of problems in the womb. During this sensitive and critical period, hormone disrupters can seriously threaten a babys development with lifelong consequences. In animals, hormone disrupters are known to derail sexual development, creating intersex individuals that are neither male nor female sabotage fertility, erode intelligence, undermine the immune system, and alter behaviour.3 Children: Risks from pesticide exposure are especially high for children. Children eat more food, drink more water and breathe more air per kilogram of body weight than do adults. As well, pesticides are likely to have a greater impact on children because their tissues and organs are still developing and growing, and their metabolic rate is higher than that of adults.4
Government Standards
Around the world, 100,000 synthetic chemicals are now on the market, with 1,000 new chemicals being introduced each year.5 At this rate, it is impossible for each chemical to be adequately tested. General toxicity tests are usually done on lab animals over short periods of time, and with chemicals in isolation. These test standards do not take into consideration: The effects of long-term exposure to a chemical (many chemicals are stored and build up in body fat for years) Different sensitivities and safety standards for children or fetuses (tests focus on the tolerance of the average adult; children and fetuses are particularly sensitive to chemicals) The effect of pesticides in combination with other chemicals (since we are usually exposed to several chemicals at a time from food, water, lawns, air, etc.) Since governments have accepted these loose standards of testing, it is not surprising that some pesticides, such as DDT and Methyl Bromide, have been in use since the 1940s and then banned much later (in Canada, DDT sales were permissible until 1990, and Methyl Bromide is to be phased out by 2005).6
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Aisle 2: Produce
The government assumes that synthetic chemicals are innocent until proven guilty, and not the other way around. In many cases, the discoveries that certain chemicals have very negative effects on the human body and the environment have been quite accidental. If we still do not know what the effects of these chemicals will be on us and our children, we are essentially participating in a large-scale experiment when we eat food, drink water, or breathe air that has been exposed to pesticides.
An Apple a Day May Not Keep the Doctor Away

According to numerous studies and tests performed in the United States, pesticide residues are present in many of our foods. (U.S. statistics are used due to information availability, but this data is relevant to Canadians because a large proportion of the produce section is product of the U.S.A.) Many of these pesticides, known to cause negative effects, are regularly eaten by children. In the U.S., 20 million children five and under eat an average of eight pesticides a day, every daya total of more than 2,900 pesticide exposures per child per year, from food alone. Between 1992 and 1996, pesticide concentrations increased for seven out of eight foods highly consumed by children, especially apples and peaches. Pesticide use in the U.S. has increased by eight per cent (60 million pounds) since 1989.7
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A recent survey of U.S. produce has determined the 10 most contaminated and least contaminated foods on the market:
MOST Contaminated Foods Apples Spinach Peaches Pears Strawberries Grapes (Chile) Potatoes Red Raspberries Celery Green Beans LEAST Contaminated Foods Corn Cauliflower Sweat Peas Asparagus Broccoli Pineapple Onions Bananas Watermelon Cherries (Chile)
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Source: Environmental Working Group. Complied from USDA and FDA pesticide residue data 1992-1997.13 Keep in mind that this data will be different for produce available in Canada. Also, the ranking of foods is always changing. Consult the Environmental Working Group for updates at <www.ewg.org>. Pesticides can be found lingering in almost any food product, from fruit to bread to meat. If you would like to find out what pesticides you may have eaten lately, visit the Environmental Working Group Supermarket at <www.foodnews.org>. Post Harvest Treatments: The shiny red apples in your supermarket disguise another toxic secret. Although we expect fruits and vegetables to be fresh and unaltered, many undergo post harvest treatments and contain several additives.
By the time an ordinary apple reaches the fresh produce shelf, it has been dipped in fungicide, bathed in chlorine, scrubbed with detergent and polished with wax.14 Waxed and/or shellacked fruits and vegetables include apples, avocados, bell peppers, cantaloupes, cucumbers, eggplant, grapefruit, lemons, limes, melons, nectarines, oranges, passion fruit, peaches, pineapples and squash.15 The wax may contain fungicides, bacteriacides, colouring agents and ripening inhibitors. Grocery stores do not advise customers to peel their produce even though these waxes are fat-soluble, which means they stay in our bodies and accumulate over time.16 The only safe method of removing all the wax is to peel your fruits and vegetables, thus sacrificing many of the nutrients, although a mild detergent or non-toxic produce wash may remove most of the wax and some of the external pesticide residues.
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Aisle 2: Produce
Double Standard: Industrialized countries generally have higher standards for approving pesticides than non-industrialized countries. For example, at least 32 pesticides authorized for use in Mexico are banned in other countries.17 Even if a pesticide is banned for use in Canada, we can still import foods that have been treated with that pesticide in another country. The Food and Drug Regulations tolerate limited amounts of these banned pesticide residues so that we can continue to import produce from other countries.18 You may be exposed to banned pesticides when you bite into food from another part of the world! It is also worth noting that laws in the largest pesticide-making countries (e.g. U.S., France, Germany, Britain, Switzerland) allow pesticides banned in their own countries to be produced and exported. It is commonly the people in developing countries who are exposed to the devastating effects of these pesticides.
BANANAS: A CLOSER LOOK AT TOXIC TRADE

Each one the same size, the same colour, a jewel among homogenous industrial fruits, we can only wonder if it is the sweet taste or the inexpensive price that has made the banana Canadas favourite fruit. Canadians consume an average of 13 kg of bananas each year, paying as little as $0.29 per pound for the yellow treasures merely labeled From The Tropics.19 In 1996, Canada imported almost a billion dollars worth of fruit and fruit products from southern countries, with bananas making up 25 per cent of that total.20 While picture-perfect bananas, melons, mangos, pineapples and grapes have become commonplace year-round in Canadian grocery stores, the distance between us and the producing countries makes it easy to keep us in the dark about the environmental and social impacts of exotic fruit agriculture.
Environmental Degradation
In getting those perfect, identical bananas from the South to your supermarket, the environment has suffered every step of the way. Without even taking into account the environmental costs of transporting and preserving the fruits from the plantations to the supermarket, lets look at the kind of damage that is done on the plantation itself.
Deforestation, loss of biodiversity

In Costa Rica, for example, large tracts of rainforest land have been cleared to make room for banana plantations. Tropical rainforests are incredibly diverse areas; a single hectare of primary tropical forest contains 100 to 250 or more species of trees alone.21 When these forests are cleared to grow only bananas, all of this plant diversity is lost, and the diverse wildlife along with it.
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Heavy pesticide use

When a huge plot of land is used to grow only one crop, the natural checks and balances are no longer in place; the loss of diversity usually leads to increasing pest and soil problems. Instead of hitting the root of the problem, producers and farmers tend to rely more heavily on chemicals such as pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Banana plantations are an extreme example of this. Central American banana plantations apply about 30 kg of active chemicals per hectare per yearmore than 10 times the average for intensive agriculture in industrialized countries.22 Developing countries are subject to harsher qualities and quantities of pesticides because of lax government regulations. It is estimated that up to a third of the pesticides on the market in developing countries do not meet international standards.23 Many of the pesticides used on banana plantations are in the most or second-most dangerous categories according to the World Health Organization, and several are among the Dirty Dozen, a list of the most hazardous pesticides according to the Pesticide Action Network in San Francisco. The strength of these poisons is evident on banana plantations, where there are no bird songs or animal calls because there is no longer any wildlife.24
Toxic wastes and contamination

For each ton of bananas exported from Costa Rica, three tons of waste are created in the forms of excess pesticides, pesticide containers, rejected fruit, tree stems, leaves, and plastic bags. For each hectare of bananas grown, 67 kg of plastic bags are thrown away.25 These bags, infused with pesticides, are used to prevent rotting and to protect bananas from insects. Eventually, these bags end up in drainage ditches, to be washed into streams and rivers, contaminating the water with pesticides and building up solid waste.26 Some of these bags, laden with toxic pesticides, have been found in the stomachs of dead sea turtles.27 Pesticides do not stay in one place. Less than 0.1 per cent of pesticides actually stay where applied. The other 99.9 per cent contaminate surface and ground water, air, other soils, and other foods.28 Pesticides and organic wastes are blamed for killing 90 per cent of the coral reefs off the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.29 [T]he existence of this huge monoculture has resulted in a concentration of the best lands in the hands of large banana producers and impoverishment of much of the population. It has created a food security crisis and destroyed thousands of acres of primary forests.30
Labour Issues
How often do you bite into a fruit and think about the hundreds of people who worked to produce it? Probably not very often. And yet its the labourers on the farms and plantations who are most affected in this production linethey put in the bulk of the work, take on most of the risks, and suffer most of the consequences.
21
Aisle 2: Produce
Worker Health
The above-mentioned environmental hazards affect the workers most. Although pesticides do come with safety regulations, many farm managers do not train workers in the proper handling of chemicals, nor do they provide protective clothing, in order to lower production costs.31 Aerial fumigation, a process whereby pesticides are sprayed by an airplane over the plantation, occurs while workers are still in the fields, maximizing their exposure to poisons. Thousands of cases of pesticide poisoning are reported each yearbut the actual number is believed to be much higher, since not all incidents are reported. Also, reports do not consider long-term or chronic repercussions such as asthma, allergies, cancer and reproductive problems caused by pesticide poisoning. The World Health Organization estimates that pesticides are responsible for the poisoning of at least 3 million people and the deaths of 200,000 people each year. Agricultural workers, who are often poor, are at the highest risk.32
What level of ignorance has the civilized man reached to cultivate his food with poison? And how many more of us will have to die quickly or slowly before these agrochemicals are banned? Or do you want to kill us? - In a 1996 letter by representatives of the Huichol people, calling for the elimination of pesticide use in Mexico.33
ERE... BANNED H RE? ABOUT THE ...WHAT

th s cancer, bir ide that cause use estic anned from DBCP is a p DBCP was b erility. used in defects and st tes in 1977, but was still Sta ana in the United cially on ban were untries, espe o ds of workers developing c sult, thousan As a re om banana plantations. 00 workers fr 1997, 20,0 Caribbean, sterilized. In America, the Latin d nine cessfully sue plantations in east Asia suc outh ita and Africa and S luding Chiqu 34 While mpanies, inc DBCP. American co nsible use of ey their irrespo se DBCP, th Dole, for a no longer u ides. ke Chiquit armful pestic companies li with other h itute it simply subst
22
Worker Rights
The Cost of a Banana
Producer 5% Distribution & Retail 34% Export Costs 4% International Transport 11% Import Licenses 9% Profit 17%
Taxes 15%
Ripening Process 5%
Plantation workers are paid very little. The average wage on one Guatemalan plantation is $0.63 an hour, or $28 a week.35 In fact, when we buy bananas, over 90 per cent of our money stays in North America, and only five per cent goes to the producer, who then has to distribute wages to the workers.36 Why do they accept these low-paying terms? One immediate reason is that there are more workers than there are jobs, so people are often forced to accept any job they can find. In this way, banana companies can exploit their workers, letting them choose between no wages or exploitative wages. Workers have no job security or regular employment, an uncertain state that can lead to increased alcoholism, abuse, drug use, prostitution, violence and crime.37 Labour unions, which work toward fairer wages, medical provisions, and overall better working conditions, are strongly discouraged by Latin American governments and multinational corporations. These corporations prevent the formation of unions by splitting up workers to keep their numbers small and insignificant, putting together workers from different communities who do not speak the same languages and who therefore cannot organize themselves into a union, or firing workers who join unions.
23
Aisle 2: Produce
SPOTLIGHT ON NAFTA
NAFTA: The Effects of Free Trade on Workers in Mexico
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), came into effect on January 1, 1994. The agreement was supposed to benefit Mexican fruit and vegetable producers by removing tariffs on the trade of their agricultural products, making tomatoes and other produce more affordable for consumers in the North and increasing the profits of Mexican producers. However, as in many parts of the world, fruit and vegetable production in Mexico depends largely on the exploitation and poisoning of its labour force. Field workers, including women, children from indigenous communities, live in camps on or close to the fields and are not even given access to safe, clean water. In a setting where workers die every season from pesticide poisonings, it seems that farm workers, for the fruit and vegetable producers, are waste material It may not be an exaggeration to say that a cow, for the producers, has more value than a farm worker.38 Still, despite the situation described above, the production of such fruits and vegetables as tomatoes, avocados and mangos has won under NAFTA due to increased exports from Mexico to the United States. Dare we ask who the losers are? The losers in this free trade game are the millions of Mexican families who have traditionally relied on maize (corn) production for their livelihoods. The United States is the worlds largest maize producer, and its tariff-free dumping practices are threatening Mexicos food security and the survival of millions of small farmers. Agricultural subsidies in Mexico fell drastically from 34 per cent of agricultural production in 1994 to only three per cent in 1998.39 Around the same time, agricultural subsidies in the U.S. tripled between 1996 and 1999.40 This is ironic, considering part of the neoliberal agenda promoted by the U.S. through NAFTA calls for the elimination of subsidies, since they supposedly distort prices. The result is an abundance of U.S. corn at very low prices. When this corn enters the Mexican market, Mexican corn loses out to its U.S. competition. Mexican farmers have sold their corn at 1,300 pesos per ton for the last three years, the lowest price in the history of the country, but U.S. corn continues to flood in at 1,000 pesos per ton.41 Although the phase-out of tariffs for corn and beans was supposed to occur gradually over 15 years, the Mexican government has not abided by this agreement and has allowed millions of tons of tariff-free corn imports from the U.S. into Mexico. In 1996, when the quota for tariff-free corn imports was set at 2.65 million tons, the Mexican government authorized the imports of 5.8 million tons; similarly, in 1998 when the quota was set at 2.8 million tons, 5.03 million tons were imported tarifffree, contravening the accords reached under NAFTA.42
As a result of [NAFTA], the proportion of Mexicos food supply that is imported has increased from 20 percent in 1992 to 43 percent in 1996. After 18 months of NAFTA, 2.2 million Mexicans have lost their jobs, and 40 million have fallen into extreme poverty. One out of two peasants is not getting enough to eat. As Victor Suares has stated, Eating more cheaply on imports is not eating at all for the poor in Mexico 43
NAFTAs quick implementation of trade liberalization supplies the North with cheap fruits and vegetables, especially in the winter months. But while we benefit from NAFTA, the people of rural Mexico are being hurt, poisoned by pesticides and stripped of their food security.
SPOTLIGHT ON SAPS
Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)
In the 1970s and 1980s, many countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean faced intense debt crises, and they were forced to turn to international financial organizations for help. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and commercial banks imposed economic reformscalled structural adjustment programs (SAPs)on indebted countries, in return for much-needed aid. New loans and aid are given to developing nations only if they have adhered to SAP reforms. In addition, most donor countries, including Canada, also hold off their assistance until a country has accepted these reforms, thus leaving indebted countries with nowhere else to turn for help. In general, SAPs enforce a variety of economic measures, which include: increasing production of cash crops and export commodities; liberalizing trade to attract foreign investment; reducing government spending by cutting agricultural subsidies, cutting social programs such as health care, education and housing, and privatizing government enterprises.44 The IMF and the World Bank believe that a countrys wealth will trickle-down and eventually reach the poor. However, the suggested reforms hurt the poor much harder than the rich through its deep cutbacks to social programs, drastic currency devaluation, and lack of protection from market competition. Instead of assisting the poor, SAPs have oftentimes contributed to more land being taken away from peasants and indigenous peoplewho could have used the land to grow food and become selfreliantto be given over to foreign entrepreneurs. In the end, SAPs have only increased the developing worlds dependence on the global economy, imperiling local food security and further
exposing the land and the people to the environmental consequences of chemical-intensive export agriculture.45
ALTERNATIVES
At this stage, you may feel overwhelmed in knowing the many issues surrounding the food you eat. Here is a word of advice start small. Instead of trying to change your entire lifestyle immediately, or ignoring the information here because the issues seem so big, make small changes one step at a time. Be realistic about what you can handle for now, and stick with that decision for a while. Over time, as these changes become part of your everyday lifestyle, the changes will not seem so overwhelming. Here are some steps you can take to reduce your exposure to pesticides and to foods grown under exploitative working conditions. Buy organic produce. Organic producers have to be certified by an independent agency. Some of the standards for organic food production in Canada are: The land must be free of herbicides for at least three years The land must be free of synthetic chemical fertilizers for two years Only natural herbicides (e.g. plants that are toxic to other plants) may be used to control plant diseases Fields that are vulnerable to drifting chemicals from neighbouring farms will not be certified.46 Organic produce from the U.S., if certified under the California Organic Foods Act of 1990, is subject to similar standards. Make sure you see the logo of the certification agency when you buy organic food. Organic produce often costs more than conventionally produced food, especially since organic growing is much more labour-intensive and not as heavily subsidized or supported by the government. Ask your supermarket to stock organic produce. Let the managers know there is a demand for organic food. Grow your own produce. If you have access to a plot of land, whether its your backyard or a community garden, try growing your own organic produce. Its a good idea to test the soils for toxins beforehand. Buy locally. Buying locally means that pesticides banned in Canada have never been sprayed on your produce. Also, local foods tend to use less preserving agents or fungicides, such as methyl bromide, since they dont have so far to travel before being consumed. The produce is probably fresher and more nutritious; tomatoes gain 80 per cent of their vitamin C from the time they turn pink to the time they turn red, and they lose these nutrients almost as quickly once theyre picked.47 The less travel time involved, the fresher your food will be. Buy in season. In the same way, buying foods that are in season reduces the need for preservative
26
chemicals. You can freeze or preserve fruits for use over the winter, and get creative with the food that is actually available in your region. Try CSA. Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) is a program where people can support local, environmentally friendly farming while receiving high quality produce directly from the farm. When you buy shares of produce through CSA, you benefit from fresh foods (CSA programs are often organic), the farmers benefit because they gain 100 per cent of your purchase, and the environment benefits due to the reduction or elimination of synthetic pesticide use. See <www.inforganics.com> to find the CSA in your area. Peel your fruits and vegetables. If you cant make the switch to organic, you can peel your produce (sacrificing some nutrients) to avoid the extra chemicals, or at least wash produce thoroughly. Some people recommend washing fruits and vegetables in a mild solution of dish detergent and water or in commercial fruit and vegetable cleaners. Eat fewer pesticides. If youre eating conventionally produced fruits and vegetables, try to eat less of those that are highly contaminated (see earlier chart). Especially if you are pregnant, and cannot switch to organic food, it is important to reduce your consumption of the more contaminated foods. Dont try this at home. Dont use pesticides in the home and the garden. A study in the U.S. shows that children are as much as six times more likely to get childhood leukemia when pesticides are used in the home and the garden.48 By not using pesticides on your lawn, youll be doing your family, your neighbourhood and the birds a big favour! Stay away from golf courses. Golf courses use at least four times more pesticides per acre of land than farmers do on their food crops49 try to stay away from them. In the same way, put pressure on your municipal government to stop using chemical pesticides in public areas, parks, and schools. Try to buy fair trade products. Fairly traded foods ensure that producers are paid a fair price for their work. They link producers more closely with consumers, reducing the need for middle people, and guaranteeing a minimum price to the workers. The International Fair Trade Labelling Organization also requires certain environmental protection standards, including: the protection of natural areas for biodiversity; policies and practices for the prevention of erosion and water pollution; documentation, control and reduction of the use of pesticides and fertilizers; control, reduction and composting of waste material; and environmental education.50 Look for a fair trade label on produce, coffee, tea, paper products, and clothing.
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Aisle 2: Produce
Endnotes
1 Pollution Probe, Additive Alert! What Have They Done To Our Food? (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994), 99. 2 Environmental Working Group, FoodNews Supermarket, <www.foodnews.org/supermarket.html> (27 June 2000). 3 Theo Colborn, Dianne Dunamoski and John Peterson Myers, Preface to Paperback Edition, Our Stolen Future (New York: Plume, 1997), xvi. 4 Katherine Davies, Pesticides and Your Child: An Overview of Exposures and Risks (Ottawa: Campaign for Pesticide Reduction, 1998), 14. 5 Colborn, Dunamoski and Myers, Our Stolen Future, 138. 6 Environment Canada, Review and Confirmation, Canada-Ontario Agreement Objective 2.1: Priority Pesticides, October 1996, <www.on.ec.gc.ca/glimr/data/zero-discharge/chapter4.html> (4 July 2000); Corinna Gilfillan, Reaping Havoc: The True Cost of Using Methyl Bromide on Floridas Tomatoes (Washington, D.C.: Friends of the Earth, 1998). 7 Environmental Working Group, How Bout Them Apples? Pesticides in Childrens Food Ten Years After Alar (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Working Group, 1999). 8 Richard Wiles, Kert Davies and Susan Elderkin, A Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce, November 1995, <www.ewg.org/pub/ home/reports/Shoppers/Shoppers.html> (5 July 2000). 9 Jamie Liebman, Alternatives to Methyl Bromide in California Strawberry Production, The IPM Practitioner Monitoring the Field of Pest Management 16 (July 1994). 10 Corinna Gilfillan, Reaping Havoc. 11 Ibid. 12 Joshua Karliner, Alba Morales and Dara ORourke, The Bromide Barons: Methyl Bromide, Corporate Power and Environmental Justice (San Francisco: Political Ecology Group and Transnational Resource and Action Centre, 1997), 5. 13 Environmental Working Group, How Bout Them Apples? 14 Dee Kramer, Out of Season, Harrowsmith 83 (January/February 1989): 40, cited in White, The Supermarket Tour, 17. 15 Pollution Probe, Additive Alert! 126. 16 Philip White, The Supermarket Tour, 17. 17 Fernando Bejarano, for Red de Accin sobre Plaguicidas y Alternativas en Mxico (RAPAM), Plaguicidas, <www.laneta.apc.org/emis/ sustanci/plaguici/plagui.htm> (23 August, 2000). 18 Pollution Probe, Additive Alert! 113. 19 Asoka Mendis and Caroline Van Bers, Bitter Fruit: Attractive Supermarket Displays of Tropical Fruit Conceal Ugly Environmental and Social Costs Alternatives Journal 25 (Winter 1999): 18-19. 20 Mendis and Van Bers, Bitter Fruit, 19. 21 George Cox, Conservation Ecology: Biosphere & Biosurvival (Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1993), 61. 22 David Ransom, BananasThe Facts New Internationalist, October 1999, 18. 23 Nikki van der Gaag, Pick Your Poison New Internationalist, May 2000, 11. 24 Foro Emas, The Price of Bananas: The Banana Industry in Costa Rica Global Pesticide Campaigner 8 (March 1998): <www.igc.org/ panna/resources/_pestis/PESTIS980522.4.html> (12 July 2000). 25 Mendis and Van Bers, Bitter Fruit, 20. 26 Ibid. 27 Andrew Wheat, Toxic Bananas Multinational Monitor 17 (September 1996): 11. 28 Pollution Probe, Additive Alert!, 109. 29 Mendis and Van Bers, Bitter Fruit, 20. 30 Emas, The Price of Bananas. 31 Mendis and Van Bers, Bitter Fruit, 20. 32 van der Gaag, Pick Your Poison, 10. 33 Plaguicidas en Mxico 1991-1998: Carpeta de Prensa, coordinator Patricia Daz Romo, (Mexico: ITESO, 1999), 255. 34 Mendis and Van Bers, Bitter Fruit, 20. 35 David Ransom, Into the Dead Zone New Internationalist, October 1999, 12. 36 Ransom, BananasThe Facts, 18. 37 Emas, The Price of Bananas. 38 Jorge Guillermo Cano, quoted by Armando Seplveda Ibarra, Miles de Nios Trabajan y Mueren en los Campos de Sinaloa, Excelsior, 16 February 1996. 39 Anglica Enciso, Por Reduccin de Subsidios, Cada Anual de 1.57% del PIB Agropecuarios Desde 1995, La Jornada, 22 February 1999, 15. 40 Tim Weiner, Congress Agrees to $7.1 Billion in Farm Aid, New York Times, 14 April 2000, A18. 41 Anglica Enciso, La Tortilla, a $4 Desde Hoy, La Jornada, 18 January 2000, 22. 42 Enciso, Cada Anual, 15. 43 Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), 9. 44 The Halifax Initiative, Background on Structural Adjustment Programmes, <www.web.net/~halifax/SAP/sap.htm> (8 August 2000). 45 Mendis and Van Bers, Bitter Fruit, 18. 46 Pollution Probe, Additive Alert! 124. 47 Wayne Roberts, Rod MacRae and Lori Stahlbrand, Real Food For a Change (Toronto: Random House of Canada, 1999), 32. 48 Sierra Club of Canada, Pesticide Facts, 1998, <www.sierraclub.ca/national/pest/pesticid.html> (13 July 2000). 49 Colborn, Dunamoski, Myers, Our Stolen Future, 218. 50 Fair Fruit Initiative, Fair Trade Bananas, 13 September 1999, <www.web.net/fairfruit/ftbananas.html> (13 July 2000).
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Aisle 3
Biodiversity
AISLE 3: BIODIVERSITY
Have you ever wondered why supermarkets always store the same varieties of foods? Three kinds of rice, five kinds of apples, one kind of banana, three kinds of potatoes You may be surprised to learn that some species of foods consist of thousands of different varieties. But if we keep seeing the same varieties in each supermarket, what has happened to all the others?
BIODIVERSITY: HOW MUCH WE HAVE LOST

Diversity is the characteristic of nature and the basis of ecological stability. Diverse ecosystems give rise to diverse life forms, and to diverse cultures. The co-evolution of cultures, life forms and habitats has conserved the biological diversity on this planet.1 Agriculture is thought to have begun in three different parts of the world, where wild grains were brought under cultivation: in North Africa with wheat, barley and millet; in Central and South America with beans and corn; and in East Asia with rice.2 For centuries, people living in these centres of diversity have used wild plant relatives with characteristics such as drought tolerance or insect resistance to constantly improve their cultivated crops. With each farmer able to propagate slightly different strains, a vast number of plant varieties evolved from small farms all over the world.3 The relatively recent rise of industrial agriculture has endangered the rich heritage of plant and animal diversity. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that since 1900, approximately 75 per cent of crop genetic diversity has been lost.4 The following are some indicators of the magnitude of our worldwide loss: In India, farmers had evolved 200,000 varieties of rice through innovative breeding practices.5 However, over the past two decades, thousands of varieties have been lost, due in large part to the imposition of the Green Revolution and its hybrid seeds. Now, just 12 varieties dominate production.6 Globally, of the 4000 breeds of livestock believed to exist, 27 per cent are at risk of extinction. Five per cent of these breeds are lost every yearthat is, almost one breed of cow, horse or pig is lost per week.7 Approximately 70 per cent of the worlds marine species are fully exploited, depleted or in the process of recovering from over-fishing. One fifth of all freshwater fish are either extinct or endangered.8
30
By the year 1900, 7500 different varieties of apples grew in North America.9 Today, there remain only a few hundred varieties, and only about a dozen varieties of apples are commercially grown. Although there are 2000 species of potatoes, commercial production is almost completely restricted to just one species, solanum tuberosum. Twelve varieties of this one species dominate 85 per cent of the U.S. potato harvest.10
WHY WERE LOSING IT

Agricultural biodiversity is critical to our global food security. Without it, we lose the basis for improving pest resistance, disease resistance, flavour and other attributes in our food crops. The loss of agricultural biodiversity is largely a result of monoculture food production. During the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, a few high-yield varieties of grains replaced the vast quantities of traditional varieties. For example, in the Philippines, where thousands of traditional rice varieties had once been cultivated, only two Green Revolution varieties took up 98 per cent of the rice-growing land by the mid-1980s.11 This assault, which struck hardest during the Green Revolution and continues today with the GE revolution (see Chapter 4), has not only reduced genetic crop diversity, but has shifted the control over production from farmers to multinational corporations. Since modern agriculture depends on the purchase of external inputs, corporations who supply inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and equipment have tremendous power in determining the fate of the agricultural industry. This shift in control from farmers to corporations is evident in the seed industry, which came into being in the early 20th century as seed houses began to replace the seed-saving and breeding previously undertaken by individual farmers. With small seed companies not able to compete against larger ones, there is now a relatively small concentration of companies providing seeds for the worlds farmers. In the U.S. and Canada alone, 125 seed companies have gone out of business since 1984, with many more having been bought out by pharmaceutical and chemical corporations.12 When large corporations cut out the production of more obscure seeds for commercially successful varieties, biodiversity is at risk. One example of this is the recent announcement that Seminis, the worlds largest vegetable seed corporation, is eliminating 2,000 varieties (or 25 per cent) of its total product line to cut costs.13 Forgetting that for generations, farmers have pooled their knowledge to provide some of the most nutritious and durable crops, we risk irreversibly losing the products of centuries of wisdom and ingenuity.
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Aisle 3: Biodiversity
ALTERNATIVES
While there are hundreds of gene banks where scientists try to preserve endangered seeds, a more viable and sustainable alternative would be to empower farmers to conserve seeds and carry on the long tradition of innovation in agriculture. The following are some ways to get involved with preserving the treasure that is the earths agricultural biodiversity: Support Seed Conservation. Campaigns such as the Seeds of Survival programme of the Unitarian Service Committee Canada has worked with up to 20,000 traditional farmers in Ethiopia in rescuing indigenous seed varieties. Supporting such projects encourages farmers around the world to preserve sustainable agricultural practices while ensuring global food security. Adopt a Plant and Save Your Seeds. Whether youre a farmer or grow food on tiny plots of earth, you can learn correct seed-saving methods, plant endangered varieties and share your seeds with others. For more information on seed-saving, contact any of the following groups: Seeds of Diversity Canada Box 36 Stn. Q, Toronto, Ontario M4T 2L7 (905) 623-0353, mail@seeds.ca, <www.seeds.ca> Linnaea Farm (a non-profit land trust with educational status) Box 98, Mansons Landing, Cortes Island, BC V0P 1K0 Seed Savers Exchange 3076 North Winn Rd., Decorah, Iowa 52101 (319) 382-5990 Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) 110 Osborne St., Suite 202, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3L 1Y5 The Garden Institute Box 1406, 194-3803 Calgary Trail, Edmonton, Alberta T6J 5M8 Unitarian Service Committee Canada 56 Sparks Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5B1 (613) 234-6827
Endnotes
1 Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind (London: Zed Books, 1993), 65. 2 Bob Wildfong, Saving Seeds Alternatives Journal 25 (Winter 1999): 13. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), 7. 6 International Development Research Council, Seeds of Change (Ottawa: National Film Board, 1993). 7 Jy Chiperzak, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, Eee eie eee eie oh-oh, Alternatives Journal 25 (Winter 1999), 15. 8 Hope Shand, Bio-meltdown, New Internationalist, March 1997, 22. 9 Wildfong, Saving Seeds, 13. 10 Brewster Kneen, From Land to Mouth: Understanding the Food System (Toronto: NC Press, 1993), 80. 11 Shiva, Stolen Harvest, 80. 12 Wildfong, Saving Seeds, 14. 13 RAFI, Earmarked for Extinction? RAFI News, July 17, 2000, <www.rafi.org/web/news.shtml> (1 August 2000).
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Aisle 4
Biotechnology
Can you find the frankenfood?
AISLE 4: BIOTECHNOLOGY CAN YOU FIND THE FRANKENFOOD?

Make your way over to the oil section, and look for any oil products that are labelled for genetically modified contents. Though most of Canadas canola crop is genetically engineered, you wont find any such labels on canola oil or any other food product in the supermarket. Genetically modified crops, first planted in Canada in 1996, have quickly become part of our food system. In 1999, a quarter of the corn and majority of the soybeans and canola grown in Canada were GE strains.1 But grocery stores, government regulators and multinational corporations who produce genetically engineered (GE) seeds are now under fire from farmers, scientists and consumers all over the world. Because GE foods (also known as Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs) raise a myriad of health, ecological and ethical concerns, many citizens are demanding proper labelling of GE foods leading to a ban. In this chapter you will find background information on GE foods, why people are concerned and ways in which you can join the movement toward a more healthy food system.
BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GENETIC ENGINEERING 101

Biotechnology: The business of creating new products from living organisms.2 Modern biotechnology is rapidly changing how we think about everything from food to illness to reproduction. The tools of biotechnology are used in areas such as agriculture, food processing, pharmaceuticals, medical diagnostics, chemicals, textiles, household products, manufacturing, environmental cleanup and criminal forensics. Some claim that plant biotechnology is merely an extension of traditional breeding practices. Its true that for many centuries, farmers have created new variations of plants through selective breeding techniques, but these were always created by crossing within the same species, following the natural laws of reproduction seeking expression of a characteristic already present within a species. The difference today is that scientists can use genetic engineering techniques to exchange genetic information between different species, by forcibly inserting a bacterial gene into corn, or an anti-frost fish gene into a tomato. And it isnt just one gene, its five: a start segment; promoter; transgene; marker; and end. Although foreign genes have intermingled across species barriers through evolutionary time, when it happened, it was a point source, not on millions of hectares simultaneouslythe issue is scale. This is where the traditional breeding argument fails and the GE food controversy begins.3 Genetic Engineering: One of the most recent developments of biotechnology, genetic
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engineering involves a set of techniques for isolating, modifying, multiplying and recombining genes from different organisms.4 Using genetic engineering techniques, scientists can manipulate an organisms DNAits genetic blueprintto block or add certain traits. Genetic engineering usually involves isolating a desired genethe segment of DNA that causes a particular traitfrom humans, animals, insects, bacteria or plants, and adding it to the DNA of an entirely different species. At present, genes inserted into various GE foods come from species such as viruses, bacteria, flounder, wasps and other plants and animals,5 thereby creating transgenic organisms. Transgenic Organisms: Life forms that contain genes from different species. Although genetic engineering techniques are promoted as being precise and exact, the process of forcible gene insertion into a higher organism (such as a plant) is random and unrepeatable. The new gene can end up anywhere. As a result of the randomness of insertion, transgenes interfere with the genetic expression of the plants normal genes.6 To see whether or not the procedure has worked, scientists will often attach an antibiotic resistance marker to the new gene. A marker gene codes for antibiotic resistance. If a plant cell survives antibiotic treatment, it means that the antibiotic resistance marker and the attached new gene have successfully made their way into the plant DNA. So, antibiotic markers are just simple selection tools--nothing to do with the intended traits. When a transgenic organism is created, its seeds will contain the new genetic information as well. Corporations patent these genes, turning the basis of life into yet another money-making commodity.
WHY DO WE NEED GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS?

The truth is there is no benefit from GE food. Food doesnt taste better, last longer, or nourish us any better. Profit, not humanitarian benefit, is the bottom line when it comes to genetically engineered foods. The corporations selling GE seeds try to convince us that they are fulfilling a global need for increased food production when they manufacture transgenic seeds. For example, Monsanto claims: Demand for food is increasing dramatically as the worlds population grows. Biotechnology contributes to our meeting this growing demand without placing even greater stress on our scarce farmland. It can help us to grow better quality crops with higher yields while at the same time sustaining and protecting the environment.7
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Aisle 4: Biotechnology
Lets take a closer look at the claims made by Monsanto and other life science corporations.
Claim #1: Biotechnology will allow us to grow more and better food to feed the growing population of hungry people around the world.
Currently, more than 80 per cent of agricultural biotechnology research focuses on developing herbicide-resistant and pest-resistant crops.8 Other research seems to be going in the direction of delaying fruit ripening for a longer transport and shelf life, increasing the solids content of tomatoes for processing advantages and producing oils with lower saturated fat content.9 None of these enhanced food products are directed at improving the quality of foods for the hungry. The recent development of Golden Rice, which includes beta-carotene (a building block for Vitamin A) due to the spliced addition of bacterium and daffodil genes, is the first serious GE food product that has any improved nutritional value. But are Golden Rice and other nutritionally enhanced foods the answer to solving the malnutrition problem? Countless studies have shown that simply increasing yield will not feed the hungry. People are hungry because they are poor. Genetic engineering will not change this. There is enough food available for every human being to receive at least 3500 calories a day, well over the daily requirements.10 In addition, food production in the past 35 years has grown faster than the worlds population by about 16 per cent.11 Finally, a 1997 study found that in the developing world, 78 per cent of all malnourished children under five live in countries with food surpluses.12 A more responsible distribution of the worlds abundance of food would be a better way to ease the problem of malnutrition, not turning to GE products.
The Green Revolution

The Green Revolution, a term coined in the 1960s, promised to end world hunger by planting seeds that produced high yields. While the first Green Revolution obviously has not put an end to world hunger, the biotech industry is now claiming that its Second Green Revolution of GE foods will be able to save the world. If they had taken the time to consider why the first revolution failed, it would be clear that this second revolution is just another empty promise. Green Revolution seeds were more responsive to controlled irrigation and synthetic fertilizers, and these miracle seeds quickly spread throughout the developing world. And while yields definitely did go up, the number of hungry people in the world increased by 11 per cent between 1970 and 1990 (excluding figures from China, data unavailable).13 In India, where the effects of the revolution were most evident, the government ended up trying to store millions of tons of extra grain while 5,000 children were still dying every day due to malnutrition.14 Some of the problems with the Green Revolution included: Most of the worlds poor dont own any land on which to increase their crop yields. Poorer farmers dont have bargaining power or even good enough credit ratings to get deals on farm inputs such as chemical fertilizers, tractors and other equipment.
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Meanwhile, large farms that can afford all the necessary inputs get the highest rewards from using new technologies. The proposed technology was not ecologically sustainableheavy irrigation and the use of fertilizers and pesticides degraded the soil, and adapted super-pests eventually destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of food.15 Many of the Green Revolution crops did not take up important minerals such as iron and zinc from the soil. As a result, one-quarter of the earths population is believed to be affected by Green Revolution iron deficiency.16 Take another look: a biotechnology-centered revolution does nothing to alleviate these problems, and only stands to make them even worse. The bottom line is that hunger is not caused by a shortage of food, but by problems in the distribution of food, land and wealth. So if biotech corporations keep taking food rights away from farmers through patents, instead of empowering farmers to become more self-sustainable, we can expect the second revolution to fail even worse than its predecessor.
Claim #2: Biotechnology will allow us to reduce the strain placed on the environment due to agriculture.
A large proportion of GE seeds on the market are made to be herbicide resistant. Strains of corn, soybeans, cotton and canola plants have been engineered to survive herbicide treatment, which has lead to farmers using more pesticides than usual without the risk of killing off their crop. Over 60 percent of soybeans in the United States in 2001 will be planted to Monsanto GE Roundup (a herbicide) Ready varieties, just five years after introduction in 1996. Despite claims to the contrary, these varieties require more herbicides than conventional soybeansfield-level data from 1998 reveals that more than a dozen soybean herbicides are applied at an average rate of less than 0.1 pound active ingredient per acre. Roundup, on the other hand, is usually applied on soybeans at about 0.75 pounds per acre in a single spray and most acres are now treated more than once.17 Herbicide resistant plants may benefit the manufacturers who make profits off both the seeds and the pesticides, but they do not help to sustain the environment. The argument that higher yields will reduce our need for clearing farmland has also been used. However, while some GE crops have slightly higher yields, other studies have shown that many bring forth yields that are lower than traditional varieties. GE soybeans actually produce 5 percent to 10 percent fewer bushels per acre in contrast to otherwise identical varieties grown under comparable field conditions.18 It is irrational to argue that GE crops which yield less and use more pesticides will somehow reduce stress on the environment.
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WHY ARE PEOPLE CONCERNED ABOUT GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS?

1) No Short- or Long-Term Safety Testing
The government response to GE foods is that they are safe until proven otherwiseand while the federal government is supposed to ensure food safety, the research on GE foods is performed entirely by the biotech industry, which obviously poses a conflict of interest.19 The testing protocol accepted by Health Canada as evidence of GE food safety is largely assupmptionsbased, with little or no actual animal testing. Seventy percent of the currently available GE crops, including all of the canola and cotton crops approved for commerce in Canada, have not been subjected to any actual lab or animal toxicity testing, either as refined oils for direct human consumption or indirectly as feedstuffs for livestock.20
2) No Decrease in Pesticide Use

There is virtually no evidence of actual reductions in herbicide or pesticide use21 and some scientists estimate that herbicide-resistant crops planted around the world will actually triple the amount of herbicide used.22 The British Medical Association in May 1999 urged that the risk that GM crops may increase the useof herbicides and pesticides in the environment needs to be comprehensively assessed to determine their full environmental impact.
3) Creation of GE Super-Weeds and Super-Pests

Weed and pest resistance is foregone conclusion which means other, potentially more toxic chemicals will be needed to control weeds and pests. For example, pest-resistant GE crops contain a protein from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that is poisonous to many pests. Organic farmers have used Bt sprays sparingly for decades. But GE crops express the Bt protein all the time, speeding up the development of Bt-resistant pests. Super-pests pose a devastating threat to organic farmers, who often depend on Bt sprays as a last resort in pest control. Already, eight species of insects have developed resistance to Bt toxins.23
4) Allergic Reactions
Genetic engineering can inadvertently transfer an allergen from one organism to another. A major disaster was narrowly avoided in 1996 when researchers found that a Brazil Nut gene spliced into soybeans caused a potentially fatal reaction when eaten by people allergic to Brazil Nuts.24 Tests on animals had turned up negative. In the absence of acceptedlab testing protocols, screening for alleregenicity of potential GM food is based entirely on comparing DNA and amino acid sequences with those of known allergens.
5) Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotic resistance markers (ARMs) might encourage the development of super-bugs that
38
cannot be killed using antibiotics. A 1999 study showed that ARMs in food could jump to bacteria in the gut during digestion.25 The British Medical Association is concerned that the widespread use of antibiotics for non-essential purposes will only aggravate the problem of antibiotic resistance, which costs the U.S. alone about $5 billion a year.26
6) Toxicity
In 1989, 37 people died, 1535 were permanently disabled and more than 5000 were temporarily disabled after taking a genetically engineered brand of L-tryptophan (a health food supplement).27 In 1999, gene scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai found that GE potatoes had anti-nutritional effects on rats.28 Earlier in 1999, Cornell researchers found that pollen from GE corn killed Monarch butterflies. All these toxic effects were completely missed by the regulatory system and were discovered well after the GE products had been sold to consumers.
7) Declining Food Quality

A 1999 study found that concentrations of phytoestrogen compounds, thought to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, were lower in GE soybeans than in traditional soybeans. There is also a concern that consumers may be misled in terms of the freshness of their food. GE tomatoes, for instance, might look fresh in the supermarket but actually be weeks old and practically devoid of nutritional value.
8) Genetic Pollution and Bio-Invasions

Wind, birds and insects quickly carry pollen from GE crops into neighbouring fields, contaminating the crops of organic and non-GE farmers. Contamination and invasion is also a problem with marine animals. Atlantic salmon has been engineered with a growth hormone that makes it grow twice as quickly as its natural counterparts.29 What will happen to wild marine species when these fish escape into the ocean?
9) Terminator Technology
To protect the financial interests of corporations, the terminator gene has been developed to render seeds that carry it sterile. This obligates farmers to buy new seeds each year, strengthening dependence on multinational corporations that already dominate the agricultural industry. Cross-pollination would cause natural crops to produce sterile seeds as well, which would endanger the worlds food security. Due to its unpopularity, Monsanto claimed in October of 1999 that it would not commercialize terminator seed technologies.30 Although companies such as AstraZeneca followed suit, in August 2001 the US Department of Agriculture licensed use of the terminator technology to the worlds 9th largest seed corporation Delta & Pine Land (DPL).31 This, despite the UNs FAO Panel of Eminent Experts on Ethics in Food and Agriculture determination that Terminator seeds are unethical because over 1.4 billion people, primarily poor farmers, depend on farm-saved seeds as their primary seed source.32
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10) Northern Profit at the Expense of Southern Farmers

Corporations have patented agricultural information that has traditionally been shared freely between farmers for thousands of years. The World Trade Organizations Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement sides with corporations, making it illegal for farmers to practice seed-saving and seed-sharing when it comes to GE seedseven when the GE content of the seeds is caused by accidental drift (see Monsanto). The progressive tightening of corporate control is marginalizing poor farmers causing millions to lose their livelihoods.
11) Ethical Problems

The genetic engineering and patenting of animals reduces living beings to the status of manufactured products.33 Rearranging the genetic codes of living beings shows a disregard for the sacredness of life. GE foods, while presenting ethical hazards at least for people who are vegetarians or follow religious diet restrictions (i.e. will people know if their food contains animal genes?), also opens the door to the larger debate of manipulating the genetic code. Currently, hundreds of genetically engineered animals are on a waiting list for patent approval in the U.S.34 The human genome has been completely decoded, with numerous patents on human genes.35 Human genes have been inserted into tobacco plants 36and rice37, and genetically engineered human babies have already been born.38 Where will we take this next, and who is to ensure that GE technologies are used responsibly?
12) Consumers are Denied the Right to Choose

The lack of labelling requirements in Canada prevents consumers from choosing whether or not to eat GE foods. In fact, it is illegal to label foods as being GE-free, because this would present an unfair market advantage. Anti-labelling regulations allow GE crops to be mixed with non-GE crops before processing, resulting in up to 75 per cent of processed foods in Canada containing GE products.39 This mixing makes it very difficult to trace any health effects resulting from GE foods back to their sources.
MONSANTO
Monsanto Company (now owned by Pharmacia Corporation) is easily the most visible and controversial corporation in the life sciences industry. Founded in St. Louis in1901, Monsanto has marketed everything from aspirin to aspartame (NutraSweet). But its current slogan, Food, Health, Hope, is inconsistent with the companys legacy of creating some of the most harmful substances in history. Some of the most notorious products introduced by Monsanto and its subsidiaries include: Polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs - found to cause cancer and reproductive, developmental and immune system disorders. PCBs remain in the environment today, decades after being banned, accumulating over time in the fats of mammals such as polar bears and humans.
40
Agent Orange - a herbicide used heavily during the Vietnam War. Monsantos Agent Orange had concentrations of dioxin several times higher than that of other chemical companies.40 One consequence is that since the 1960s, up to 500,000 children in Vietnam were born with dioxin-related deformities.41 Between 1995 and 1998, perhaps in a move to change its negative image, Monsanto spunoff its chemicals business and spent over $8 billion buying out the seed businesses from corporations such as Agracetus, Asgrow Agronomics, Calgene, Cargill, DeKalb Genetics, Holden Seeds, Monsoy, Unilever and Sementes Agrocetes.42
David and Goliath Fight Over Seeds

Legally challenging a corporate giant like Monsanto is almost impossible although Percy Schmeiser, a farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan, is trying hard in a case that will affect the future of farmers rights all over the world. Monsanto won a lawsuit against Schmeiser in March 2001, after accusing him of illegally saving seeds and planting the companys Roundup Ready canola seeds without paying the required technology fees. Schmeiser, who never bought RR canola seeds, claims that his fields were invaded by Monsantos product. He filed an appeal with the Federal Court in June 2001.43 Monsanto successfully argued that even though it believes Schmeiser knowingly obtained Roundup Ready canola from someone, legally it doesnt really matter. If Schmeisers crop contains the gene, it has broken Monsantos patent no matter how it got there or whether he knew it was there.44 Will biotech companies litigate their way into forcing consumers and nonGMO farmers to accept GE foods?
WHAT PLANTS ARE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED?

Thus far, Health Canada has approved almost 50 types of GE foods for use in Canada. These include: corn (used to make things like corn syrup, corn starch, corn sweeteners, corn chips, corn flour and other sweetened products); canola (used in hundreds of processed foods); potato (including strains resistant to Colorado potato beetles); tomato (used in processed sauces and frozen foods); squash; soybean (used in breads, baby foods and formulas and hundreds of other processed foods); cottonseed oil.45
For a partial list of which brands do and do not claim to be GE-free, see Appendix 2. 41 Aisle 4: Biotechnology
42
WHY ARENT GMOS LABELLED?

In 1992, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared GE foods to be substantially equivalent to their natural counterparts. This decision protects GE products from labelling requirements and dramatically reduces the amount of testing required on the new product. If new biotech products were required to undergo intensive testing to prove their safety, as is required of new drugs or food additives, the industry would be set back years or decades.52 Industrial giants know that labelling would be disastrous in terms of profits. In 1994, when Calgene decided to voluntarily label its genetically engineered Flavr Savr tomato, it was quickly rejected by consumersand no other biotech company has since decided to voluntarily label GE foods.53 Food manufacturers in Canada do have the option to label their food as containing or being free of GE ingredients.54 However, this is still on a voluntary basis, and many consumers feel that labelling should be required by law. The U.S. strongly opposes labelling, and also discourages voluntary labelling of foods that do not contain GE ingredients on the grounds that these labels would mislead consumers by implying that non-GE foods are safer or of higher quality. While a majority of citizens around the world support labelling and strict tracking of GMOs, many countries are under pressure by the biotech industry and their supporters (which include some nation states) to delay erecting barriers to GMOs.
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ALTERNATIVES
At present, there is a growing body of consumers who feel that the introduction of GE products into our food system is an infringement on our right to choose. The movement in Europe has been an encouraging onemore and more supermarkets, producers and retailers have banned GE ingredients in their foods. Canadian companies and governing bodies should likewise value consumer concerns over corporate interests. If you object to being unknowingly exposed to GE foods, here are some ways to make your voice heard: Go to the Manager. Speak or write to your grocery store manager, telling her/him you dont want to buy GE foods (See sample letter in Appendix 3). Call 1-800 Numbers. Call the numbers found on food packages, and ask for proof that the items do not contain any GMOs. Ask the company to label those products that have no GE ingredients with Does Not Contain Genetically Modified Organisms. In Europe, 10 companies including Nestle, Kelloggs, Kraft, Unilever and Frito-Lay produce GE-free products. Why shouldnt they do the same in Canada? Contact the Government. Phone or write to your federal MP (numbers are available at 1-800-463-6868), the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture to demand mandatory labelling or a moratorium on GE crops (See Appendix 3). Raise Awareness. Education is the key to bringing about change. Learn about the issues surrounding genetic engineering and raise awareness among your family and your community. Avoid GMOs. Avoid products that are highly suspect for containing GMOs (refer to Appendix 4). Try to eat organically grown foods. Sign Your Name. Sign petitions calling for mandatory labelling of GE foods with groups such as BAM, Council of Canadians, Culinary Crusaders Collective, Green Peace, RAFI, Right to Know and Sierra Club of Canada.
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Endnotes
1 2
Stephen Leahy, A Swim in the Gene Pool, Sustainable Times, Summer 2000, 16. Geoffrey Rowan, Globe and Mail, January 5, 1990, cited in Brewster Kneen, Farmageddon: Food and the Culture of Biotechnology (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 1999), 193. 3 Michael K. Hansen, Genetic Engineering is Not an Extension of Conventional Plant Breeding: How genetic engineering differs from conventional breeding, hybridization, wide crosses and horizontal gene transfer (Consumer Policy Institute/Consumers Union, January, 2000) <http://biotech-info.net/wide_crosses.html> (February 2002) 4 Mae-Wan Ho, Genetic Engineering, Dream or Nightmare? The Brave New World of Bad Science and Big Business (Bath, UK: Gateway Books, 1998), 19. 5 Ben Lilliston, Dont Ask, Dont Know: The Biotech Regulatory Vacuum, Multinational Monitor 21 (January/February 2000): 9. 6 Brester Kneen, Farmageddon: Food and the Culture of Biotechnology (Gabriola Ilsand, BC: New Society Publishers, 1999), 204. 7 Monsanto Company, Why Do We Need This Technology? Biotech Basics, 2000, <www.biotechbasics.com/question3.html> (20 July 2000). 8 Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), 98. 9 The CornerHouse, UK, Ten Reasons Why GE Foods Will Not Feed the World, 2000, <www.purefood.org/ge/tenreasons.cfm> (18 July 2000); Monsanto Company, Plant Biotechnology Basics, Biotech Basics, 2000, <www.biotechbasics.com/basics.html> (20 July 2000). 10 Frances Lappe, Joseph Collins and Peter Rosset, World Hunger: Twelve Myths, 2nd ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1998), 8. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 9. 13 Ibid., 61. 14 Ibid., 62. 15 Ibid., 70-71. 16 Hi-Tech Grain, Low-Tech Brain, Alive: Canadian Journal of Health and Nutrition 213 (July 2000): 71. 17 Charles M. Benbrook, Troubled Times Amid Commercial Success for Roundup Ready Soybeans: Glyphosate Efficacy is Slipping and Unstable Transgene Expression Erodes Plant Defenses and Yields, AgBioTech InfoNet Technical Paper Number 4, 3 May 2001. 18 Ibid. 19 Maude Barlow, Five Problems with GE Foods, Canadian Perspectives, Fall 1999, 5. 20 E. Ann Clark, Food Safety of GM Crops in Canada: toxicity and allergenicity, 2000, <www.plant.uoguelph.ca/faculty/eclark/ safety.htm> (February 2002) 21 E. Ann Clark, AgBiotech Issues that Matter to Farmers: yield and profitability, 2001, <www.plant.uoguelph.ca/faculty/eclark/ cwb.htm> (February 2002) 22 Organic Consumers Association, GE-Fact Sheet & Guidelines for Grassroots Action, 2000. 23 Shiva, Stolen Harvest, 107. 24 Lilliston, Dont Ask, Dont Know, 9. 25 Reuters, Antibiotics: Dutch Study casts doubts on genetically modified food, 27 January 1999, <www.purefood.org/ge/ gegut.cfm> (26 July 2000). 26 Lilliston, Dont Ask, Dont Know, 11. 27 Ingeborg Boyens, Unnatural Harvest: How Genetic Engineering is Altering Our Food (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1999), 105. 28 Organic Consumers Association, GE-Fact Sheet, 2. 29 Ibid., 3. 30 Robert Shapiro, Open Letter from Monsanto CEO Robert B. Shapiro to Rockefeller Foundation President Gordon Conway, 4 October 1999, <www.monsanto.com/monsanto/gurt/default.htm> (20 July 2000). 31 RAFI, USDA Says Yes to Terminator, 3 August 2001, <http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=84> (February 2002). 32 Report of the Panel of Eminent Experts on Ethics in Food an Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001, <http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/X9600E/X9600E00.HTM> (February 2002) 33 Organic Consumers Association, GE-Fact Sheet, 3. 34 Helen Briggs, The human gene harvest, BBC News, 4 May 2001, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1150000/ 1150415.stm> 35 Greenpeace Identifies Secret Rice Fields with Human Genes, 7 September 2001, <http://www.greenpeace.org/~geneng/highlights/ food/pharmrice.htm> 36 Jason Barritt, Mitochondria in human offspring derived from ooplasmic transplantation: Brief communication, Human Reproduction, Vol. 16, No. 3, 513-516, March 2001 37 Organic Consumers Association, GE-Fact Sheet, 3. 38 Aroha Te Pareake Mead, Resisting the Gene Raiders New Internationalist, August 1997, 27. 39 Jennifer Story, Field of Genes, Canadian Perspectives, Fall 1999, 9. 40 Brian Tokar, Monsanto: A Checkered History, The Ecologist 28 (September/October 1998): 256. 41 Hugh Warwick, Agent Orange: The Poisoning of Vietnam, The Ecologist 28 (September/October 1998): 264. 42 Shiva, Stolen Harvest, 29; Monsanto Company, Our Past, <www.monsanto.com/monsanto/about/past/index8.html> (24 July 2000).
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43 44 45
46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
54
Percy Schmeiser, June 2001, <www.percyschmeiser.com> (24 June 2001). Ed White, No Decision on GMO Case Until Fall, Western Producer, 29 June 2000, <www.producer.com> (24 July 2000). Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Office of Biotechnology, How Many Genetically Modified Food Products are Permitted in Canada? Biotechnology, 2000, <www.cfia-acia.agr.ca/english/ppc/biotech/safsal/novalie.shtml> (25 July 2000). Paul Kingsnorth, Bovine Growth Hormones, Ecologist 28 (September/October 1998): 266. Ibid.; Ingeborg Boyens, Unnatural Harvest, 83. Kingsnorth, Bovine Growth Hormones, 267. Ingeborg Boyens, Unnatural Harvest, 78. Jim Boothroyd, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, Adbusters 24 (Winter 1999): 22. Ingeborg Boyens, Unnatural Harvest, 95. Lilliston, Dont Ask, Dont Know, 10. Ben Lilliston, The Consumer as Enemy: The Biotech Labeling Dispute, Multinational Monitor 21 (January/February 2000): 12. Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, Labelling, Biotechnology, <www.ccgd.ca/en/public/frset_bio_label.html> (23 October 2000).
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Aisle 5
The Meat Market

or Whats Your Beef?
AISLE 5: THE MEAT MARKET OR WHATS YOUR BEEF?

Passing through the countryside, perhaps you have caught glimpses of these picturesque farm scenes: cows lazily grazing through the fields, carefree chickens walking around and pecking at the ground for food, or pigs happily eating from a trough in a large pen. Take a closer look: these scenes are not the reality for most livestock animals in Canada. Livestock farming has changed very quickly in the last few decades. With the rising popularity of meat, factory farming has usurped the role of traditional, small-scale farming operations. Factory Farming is the operation of large-scale intensive livestock production units. Typically, each factory farm holds thousands of hogs, fowl or cattlesome egg farms in Canada hold flocks larger than 100,000 hens.1 Most of these animals are kept in a single warehouse, in very small spaces. Traditional livestock farms might hold a few hundred animals at the most. Factory farming, which views the animals simply as commodities, has been so monetarily successful that smaller, traditional farmers are under a lot of pressure to follow suit or get out of the business. The consequences of intensive livestock farming are largely hidden from the public, but as conscientious consumers we need to know what we are implicitly supporting when we buy meat products from this system. The following briefly outlines just some of the realities of factory farming today.
ANIMAL ABUSE
Factory farms pack animals tightly into confinement facilities, feed them with the cheapest possible sources of protein, with an antibiotic supplement to counter the disease-causing effects of stress, and in the case of feedlot beef, implant them with hormone capsulesall in the name of efficiency. According to Animal Action, the cost of treating the 500 million farm animals in Canada humanely would raise the price of animal food products far beyond the reach of most Canadians.2 Abusive practices start when the animals are very young: Thousands of male chicks of the egg-laying strain are routinely killed, since they are useless for laying eggs and are too lean to be sold as meat. They are crushed, drowned, made to suffocate in bags or gassed with carbon dioxide soon after they have hatched.3 Farmers cut the beaks off of female laying chicks using a hot cauterizing blade. The chicks are painfully debeaked to prevent them from pecking at other hens later in life, a response provoked by their suffocating living conditions.4
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Crowding
Imagine being stuck in a crowded elevator, where everyone is so packed in that youre all touching. Imagine living in that elevator forever. This is the fate of most laying hens. Typically, four laying hens will permanently share a 16" x 18" battery cage.5 It is because they live in such cramped quarters, without room even to walk or stretch their wings, that hens become hysterical and violent. Farmers know that the suffering caused by crowding reduces egg production, but this is still a more efficient option, since chickens are cheap, cages are expensive.6 Broilers (chickens sold for meat), turkeys, pigs, and veal calves all experience crowdingin their cages or stalls, they often do not even have room to turn around. This way more animals can fit into one warehouse, and the animals do not go around burning off calories or toughening their muscles by walking or running. This is especially important for calves, since consumers expect veal to be tender and white.
To the Slaughterhouse
Some animals live well in the earlier parts of their lives, grazing and roaming freely on small farms. Yet few escape the horror of transportation to a central slaughterhouse. Animals are transported across the country in trucks, again in crowded conditions, resulting in crippling and millions of deaths each year from heat stress or extreme cold.7 Producers calculate for these losses, which make up only a small percentage of the total number of slaughtered animals each year. For example, approximately 2.5 million poultry die annually in Canada during shipment to slaughterhouses, but producers allow this loss because it represents only about 0.5 to 2 per cent of the chickens transported.8 Most animals are stunned unconscious before being killed while hanging from a conveyor beltfor sanitary reasons. Sometimes animals are not stunned enough to knock them out, and they are left hanging in pain and panicking until finally being killed. Canadian slaughterhouses dont seem to be moving towards making their slaughters more humane. In 1999, four provincial plants and 15 federal plants were audited, with advance notice. Of those, 50 per cent of the provincial plants and 40 per cent of the federal plants failed one or both of the stunning and handling audits for humane treatment.9 As our society has become comfortable with seeing these animals as commodities, we breed more animals in order to kill them. None of these animals live out their full life expectancies. While there is certainly nothing to live for under factory conditions, it is tragic that these animals must have such a horrible experience of life.
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Aisle 5: The Meat Market
Sick Animals
Due to overcrowding, lack of exercise, and unhealthy breeding, animals are prone to getting sick. These animals are specially bred to weigh as much as possiblebroiler chickens have been bred to grow twice as fast and twice as large as their ancestors.10 While this may be profitable, it causes problems with chickens and pigs whose bones and joints crumble under their body weight, and who develop heart and lung problems from the rapid development of the rest of their bodies.11 Veal calves are not fed their mothers milk, but are given a low-iron liquid in order to keep them borderline anemic, in order to keep their flesh pale and white.12 Some animals are born and raised inside a large warehouse, and do not see the light of day during their entire lifetime! The indoor atmosphere is not fresh by any meansin pig warehouses the air is laden with dust and noxious gases from the animals urine and feces. As a result, approximately 70 to 80 per cent of pigs have pneumonia when they are slaughtered, and about 60 per cent of farm workers experience breathing problems.13
YOU ARE WHAT THEY EAT

Antibiotics
In the factory farm, bacteria spread easily between crowded, dirty animals. To combat the risk of disease, farmers give animals feed laced with antibiotics. While most antibiotics given to animals are eliminated through urine or feces, it is possible for some of the drug to remain in the animal tissues. This can cause problems for people who are allergic or hypersensitive to the drugs. The more urgent problem is that bacteria can grow resistant to antibiotics. The antibiotics you get from the doctor are often the same ones placed in animal feed. Bacteria are known for their amazing ability to adapt and to become resistant to antibiotics. So if a species of bacteria becomes resistant to an antibiotic in animals, and that bacteria is consumed by humans, it is useless to try fighting the bacteria. Doctors will be unable to fight the consequences of what was once a simple, curable bacterial infection. Antibiotic resistance has already occurred to a significant degree with Campylobacter and Salmonella bacteria.14 Even after feeding the animals antibiotics through life, they are susceptible to diseasecausing bacteria after death. For example, after being slaughtered, poultry is placed into a communal hot bath to remove feathers.15 With this method, bacteria can spread rapidly from one diseased carcass to a host of others, become trapped in pores, and end up on your kitchen table.
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Hormones
Cattle used for beef, dairy or veal are given hormones to speed up their growth, increase milk production and the selling weight of each animal.16 The meat industry says using hormones is not harmful to the consumer, stating that plants often contain more hormones than meat. However, this comparison is rather inappropriate, considering hormones in plants are natural, much less stable than in animals and break down more easily after consumption.17 Estrogen and androgens, sex hormones naturally produced by humans, can cause cancer and premature puberty when present in slightly higher than normal amounts.18 More recently, hormones in excess have also been linked with various forms of abnormal sexual development in both animals and humans.19 Like antibiotics, it is possible for hormone residues to be found in animal tissuesand it is known that extremely small doses of hormones are potent enough to affect the human body.20
Toxins
In order to cut feed costs, livestock animals are often fed recycled waste, which contain drug residues, toxic metals, raw poultry or livestock manure.21 This simply adds to the build-up of toxins and pesticides already found stored in the fat of all living beings. Persistent chemicals such as dioxins, PCBs and DDTs move from plants to animals further up the food chain, eventually accumulating in the body fat of an animal at concentrations that can be 25 million times greater than what is present in the surrounding environment.22
Something Fishy?
toxins. Wild fish seem to be high in Both wild and farmed rlds wacontamination of the wo exposed to the general fish are e run-off, and include mercury, pesticid ter supplies, which can s of women ve shown that the babie age wastes. Studies ha levels of sew h, which contain high l d eaten Great Lakes fis who ha icant negative behavioura er toxins, display signif PCBs and oth mothers did not ces from babies whose and neurological differen 23 eat Great Lakes fish. small , fish live in unnaturally ver, in artificial fish farms Howe ns. Fish farmers re susceptible to infectio areas, making them mo es to prevent off infections, herbicid fish use antibiotics to ward will s, hormones to promote h of vegetation in pond overgrowt flesh look more to make the colour of the growth, and compounds industry, there t of the Canadian meat 24 med pealing. Unlike the res ap for the use of drugs in far al controls or limitations are no leg fish.25
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ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
World Hunger
Producing animal foods takes up a lot more resources and creates much more waste than producing plant foods. Producing only six pounds of ground beef requires the equivalent to 100 pounds of grain.26 While many parts of the world, animals can help in food production by working as draft animals and providing fertilizer, this is not the case with factory-farmed livestock. So while we fatten up 1.3 billion cattle around the world for human consumption, an estimated 800 million people in the world are suffering from hunger and malnutrition.27
Desertification
Our seemingly insatiable appetite for beef is environmentally devastating. Millions of beef cattle deplete the earths resources by overgrazing. The result is desertification: the spreading of deserts into areas that were once rich and fertile. One sad example comes from Central and Latin America, where cattle ranchers slash and burn their rainforests to create more grazing land. In just 20 years, Costa Rica burned over 80 per cent of its tropical forests for cattle grazing.28 The tragic part is that in only a few years, the land is degraded, unsuitable for cattle, and almost irreversibly devoid of good soil. Each pound of Central American beef permanently destroys over 200 square feet of rainforest.29 In the mid-1980s, American consumers boycotted Burger King for its use of rainforest beef. Since then, Burger King, McDonalds Wendys, Campbells Soup, Jack-in-the-Box, Taco Bell, White Castle, Sizzler and Mariott all claim not to use rainforest beef. However, due to poor monitoring and a lack of control over the flow of Central American beef into North America, it is difficult to be assured of the truth of this claim.30
Greenhouse Gases
The worlds huge population of cattle releases significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in the forms of methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.31 Greenhouse gases trap infra-red radiation from the sun and keep heat from escaping the earths atmosphere. However, with the unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases released since the industrial revolution, these gases also contribute to the phenomenon called global warming, whereby the average temperature of the earth is raised, with devastating ecological consequences. The anticipated impacts of global warming affect every living being on the earth, and include: Widespread extinction of plant and animal species; Rising sea levels and the flooding of coastal and low lying areas; Contamination of fresh water sources with salt water from the sea level rise; Agricultural crises due to drought, drier soils, and an increase of pests due to heat stress, resulting in food shortages around the world; and Increases in extreme climate events, including hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons.32
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The worlds cows release nearly 50 million metric tons of methaneone of the strongest greenhouse gasesto the atmosphere each year.33 The rate of global warming is sped up by the decrease of green plants and trees that can absorb carbon dioxide.
Animal Waste
The disposal of animal waste has also created a large dilemma. By placing animals indoors, the nutrient manure cycle is broken, and producers are left with gigantic masses of unusable waste. Even if it is returned to the soil, manure from factory-bred animals is full of heavy metals, additives, pesticide residues, bacteria, parasites, and residues from medications in the animals feed.34 This manure does not act as rich fertilizer, but contaminates the soil, eventually poisoning ground water and our drinking water. In Ontario alone there are about 27 reported manure spills every year that are strong enough to kill fish.35 Many more spills are not reported.
SPOTLIGHT ON WALKERTON
Walkerton tragedy
by May, 2000 At least seven people died and 2,300 people were sickened ill had sympbad water in the small town of Walkerton, Ontario. Those who fell The toms such as bloody diarrhea, cramps, nausea, fevers and kidney disorders. 0157, bacteria that cannot be culprit was a deadly strain of bacteria: E. coli treated using conventional antibiotics. E. coli 0157 is known to be present in cow manure; Walkerton is in the middle cattle of Ontarios cattle country. Within five miles of the town, there are five 2,500 animals. feedlots: four with about 200 animals each, and one with about is to And in Ontario, there are no enforceable laws dictating how animal waste ry guidelines on how to store and be treated. Farmers are only given volunta spread manure.36 Manure laden with bacteria could have escaped a dung holding tank or simply been present in soil when heavy rains hit southern Ontario, contaminating help run-off with E. coli, and then flooding the wells with the bacteria. It didnt that the chlorinating system in Walkerton was faulty as well, or that the provin than cial government had drastically cut the environment ministry staff by more 37 50 per cent in five years. The public outcry stemming from the Walkerton tragedy forced the Ontario algovernment to change some of its policies regarding factory farms. They on factory farms lowed municipal governments to place temporary moratoriums 38 of until better bylaws and controls were set. This concession still falls short tend to ensuring water security, though, especially considering the laws in place ment spending on conserfavour factory farms over municipalities, and govern vation or environmental projects has been cut dramatically.
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ALTERNATIVES
No change can be achieved in the meat industry unless the public demands it. As consumers, we have the option of pressuring the meat industry to be more humane, health-conscious and environmentally responsible. Here are some avenues for effecting change: Reduce or eliminate your consumption of meat products. Go vegetarian, or try eating smaller servings of meat mixed with vegetables. Reducing demand for meats decreases the need for large-scale feedlot operations that care more for profit than animal and social welfare. Know where your meat comes from. Though painfully difficult to find out in supermarkets, independent butchers may be able to tell you who their suppliers are, what the living conditions were for the animals, what they were fed and other pertinent information. Their suppliers are often local farmers. Animals are essential to many organic farmers, as they can fertilize gardens and eat weeds. Use your dollar to support a more local, humane and environmentally ethical business. Find out where your eggs come from. Due to pressure from the public, there are now several varieties of eggs available at most supermarkets. These include organic eggs, eggs laid by free-range hens (hens allowed to roam around freely), natural grain-fed hens, hens who have not been fed antibiotics, hormones or additives, or combinations of the above. Learn the Laws. Find out about the laws pertaining to factory farms in your province, and put pressure on your provincial government to limit the sizes of feedlots/factory farm operations. With enough public pressure, the government must respond.
54
Endnotes
1
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, All About Canadas Egg Industry, January 2000, <www.agr.ca/cb/factsheets/2egg_e.html8 (26 June 2000). 2 Animal Action, What Every Canadian Should Know: According to official sources, extreme suffering is inherent in the lives of farm animals, March 1996, <www.veg.on.ca/animal.html> (23 June 2000). 3 Gene Bauston, For A Mouthful Of Flesh, The Animals Agenda, January/February 1998, 25; Clare Druce, Chicken & Egg: Who Pays The Price? (London: Green Print, 1989), 3; John Robbins, Diet For a New America (Walpole: Stillpoint, 1987), 54. 4 Bauston, For a Mouthful of Flesh, 25; Druce, Chicken & Egg: Who Pays The Price?, 7. 5 Animal Action, What Every Canadian Should Know. 6 Bauston, For A Mouthful of Flesh, 25. 7 Animal Action, What Every Canadian Should Know. 8 Ibid.; Correspondence from Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Animal Health and Production Division, July 13, 2000. 11 Temple Grandin, 1999 Canadian Animal Welfare Audit of Stunning and Handling in Federal and Provincial Inspected Slaughter Plants, 10 July 1999, <www.grandin.com/survey/canada.audit.html> (26 June 2000). 9 Bauston, For A Mouthful Of Flesh, 24. 10 Robbins, Diet For A New America, 86; Bauston, For A Mouthful Of Flesh, 24. 11 Bauston, For A Mouthful Of Flesh, 26. 12 Robbins, Diet For A New America, 94; Bauston, For A Mouthful Of Flesh, 28. 13 Bonnie Liebman and Glenn Morris, When Antibiotics Stop Working: Magic Bullets Under Siege, Nutrition Action Healthletter (Canadian Edition), May 2000, 4. 14 Liebman and Morris, When Antibiotics Stop Working, 4; Caroline Smith Dewaal, Lucy Alderton and Bonnie Liebman, Food Safety Guide, Nutrition Action Healthletter (Canadian Edition), October 1999, 5. 15 Pollution Probe, Additive Alert! What Have They Done To Our Food? (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994), 133. 16 Ibid., 133-4. 17 David Steinman, Diet For A Poisoned Planet: How to Choose Safe Foods for You and Your Family (New York: Ballantine, 1990), 79. 18 Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future (New York: Plume, 1997). 19 Ibid. 20 Robbins, Diet For A New America, 93. 21 Colborn, Dumanoski and Myers, Our Stolen Future, 26. 22 Ibid., 190-4. 23 Bauston, For A Mouthful Of Flesh, 26; Pollution Probe, Additive Alert!, 139. 24 Pollution Probe, Additive Alert! 139. 25 Rainforest Action Network, The Hamburger Connection, 1999, <www.ran.org/info_center/factsheets/04e.html> (23 June 2000). 26 The Hunger Site, Hunger Facts, About Hunger, 2000, <www.thehungersite.com> (23 June 2000). 27 Rainforest Action Network, The Hamburger Connection. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Rainforest Action Network, Rainforests and Global Warming, 1999, <www.ran.org/info_center/factsheets/04a.html> (23 June 2000). 32 Tej and Tarang Sheth, Why Be a Vegetarian (Fremont, CA: Jain Publishing, 1995), 45; Michael Fox, Manure, Minerals, and Methane: How Factory Farms Threaten the Environment, The Animals Agenda, May/June 1998, 32. 33 Fox, Manure, Minerals, and Methane, 30. 34 Brian McAndrew, Manure From Factory Farms Causes Concern, Toronto Star, 6 June 2000, <www.thestar.com> (27 June 2000). 35 Thomas Walkom, Fatal Outbreak Exposes Something Rotten in the State of Farming, Toronto Star, 27 May 2000, <www.thestar.com> (27 June 2000). 36 Brian McAndrew, Theresa Boyle and Richard Brennan, Tightening the Tap on Water Safety, Toronto Star, 6 July 2000, <www.thestar.com> (27 June 2000). 37 Stuart Laidlaw and Richard Brennan, Tories Flip-Plop on Factory Farms, Toronto Star, 29 June,2000, <www.thestar.com> (27 June 2000).
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Aisle 6
Food Additives
AISLE 6: ADDITIVES GOT ANYTHING TO ADD?

Ostensibly, those scientific-sounding ingredients on your packaged food products are meant to enhance foods, but in fact, they offer no nutritional value and may in some cases be harmful. A food additive is a substance that becomes part of a food product either directly or indirectly during processing, storage or packaging.1 While most approved additives are essentially harmless if consumed in small amounts, a few are highly questionable, and others have yet to be adequately tested. According to Jo Ann Carson, a dietitian at the University of Texas, the problem with additives is that they are mostly found in highly processed foods, which have little nutritional value for the amount of calories consumed. The more processed the food, the more things you are losing in foods, the more things you have to add to it Its how they are used rather than the additive itself.2 Make a habit of looking at the ingredients in your food products. If you are unsure about the use or safety of certain additives, look them up (go to <www.cspinet.org/reports/ chemcuisine.htm> for a good listing of additives), and try to avoid those that are potentially harmful.
THE 10 MOST QUESTIONABLE FOOD ADDITIVES3

Salt: High sodium intake increases blood pressure, which contributes to heart disease. Salt is found in most processed foods including soups, potato chips, and crackers. Sugars, including corn syrup and dextrose: Sugar contributes to obesity, tooth decay, and poor nutrition. It is easy to over-consume as it is labeled under many different names. Sugar is found in most processed foods, including bread, soft drinks, cookies, syrups, and snack foods. Sulfites (sulfur dioxide, sodium sulfite, potassium, and sodium bisulfite): Sulfites can cause extreme allergic reactions, and they destroy Vitamin B1. Sulfites are found in dried fruits, dehydrated vegetables, soup mixes, wine, beer, processed peeled potato products, shrimp, and canned vegetables. Saccharin, and possibly other artificial sweeteners, (aspartame, acesulfame K): Saccharin has been shown to cause cancer in animals. It is found in diet products and soft drinks. Sodium nitrite and nitrate: Nitrate can form nitrosamines, known cancer-causing chemicals, in foods. The addition of ascorbic or erythorbic acid inhibits this formation. Nitrates are found in processed meats, including bacon, bologna, salami, ham, hot dogs, smoked fish, and corned beef.
58
Monosodium Glutamate and Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (contains MSG): MSG has been shown to cause headaches, nausea, and a burning sensation in the neck and upper arms in those who are susceptible. It is found in instant soups, hot dogs, sauce mixes, salad dressings, frozen entrees, seafood, poultry, stews, restaurant foods, and bouillon cubes. Artificial Colourings Blue No. 1, Blue No. 2, Citrus Red No. 2, Green No. 3, Red No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 (tartrazin), and Yellow No. 6: Multiple studies have suggested that some dyes appear to cause cancer or tumors in animals. Yellow No. 5 can cause allergic reactions; most dyes are used in foods with minimal nutritional value. Dyes are found in fruit juices, soft drinks, drink mixes, candy, baked goods, maraschino cherries, gelatin desserts, and pet food. BHA and BHT: Some studies have indicated these additives can cause cancer, but this is not a proven fact. BHT has also been shown to reduce the risk of cancer. BHA and BHT are found in cereals, potato chips, chewing gum, and oils. Olestra: Olestra has been shown to cause stomach cramps, diarrhea, and loose stools. It inhibits the absorption of carotenoids and depletes fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. It is found in chips and crackers. Trans-fatty Acids (most commonly identified as hydrogenated oils): Trans-fatty acids have been shown to be a major contributor to heart disease. They are found in margarine, vegetable shortening, and many processed foods.
ALTERNATIVES
Here are some tips for avoiding unwanted additives in your diet. Eat food, the whole food, and nothing but the food. Avoid foods that come with labels and choose instead fresh, wholesome foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains. Ask about additives when dining. In restaurants, ask the server to find out if foods contain any additives that you wish to avoid. Read the labels. If you choose to eat processed foods, read labels carefully and avoid those foods containing questionable additives. Take the Food Additive Shopping Guide found on the next page when you go shopping to avoid dangerous additives. Also, if a food label reads like a high-school chemistry label, best not to buy that product. Talk with your grocer. Tell him or her of your desire for more additive-free foods. As consumers we do have power to make changes.
Endnotes
1 2 3
Kathy Schermerhorn, Food AdditivesIs there cause for concern? Veggie Life, Summer 2000, 62. Ibid. Ibid.
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Aisle 6: Additives
SAFE These appear to be safe, though a few people may be allergic to any sin gle additive. Alginate Alpha Tocopher ol (Vitamin E) Ascorbic Acid (V itamin C) Beta-Carotene Calcium Propion ate Calcium Stearo yl Lactylate Carrageenan Casein Citric Acid EDTA Erythorbic Acid Ferrous Glucon ate Fumaric Acid Gelatin Glycerine (Glyc erol) Gums (Arabic, Furcelleran, Gh atti, Guar, Karaya, Locust Bean, Xanthan) Lactic Acid Lactose Lecithin Modified Starch Mono- and Digly cerides Phosphates, Ph osphoric Acid Polysorbate 60, 65, 80 Potassium Sorb ate Propylene Glyc ol Alginate Sodium Ascorb ate Sodium Benzoa te Sodium Carbox ymethylcellulose (CMC) Sodium Caseina te Sodium Citrate Sodium Propion ate Sodium Stearoyl Fumarate Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate Sorbic Acid Sorbitan Monoste arate Starch Sucralose Thiamin Mononit rate Vanillin, Ethyl Va nillin CUT BACK These are not tox ic, but large am ounts may be unsafe or un healthy. Caffeine Corn Syrup Dextrose (Corn Sugar, Glucose) Fructose Syrup Glucose-Fructo se
e food additive gu ide, go to www.cspinet.o rg/reports/chem cuisine.htm

Invert Sugar Mannitol Partially Hydrog enated Vegetab le Oil Salatrim Salt (Sodium Ch loride) Sorbitol Sugar (Sucrose ) CAUTION These may pose a risk and need better tes ting. Articifial Colourin gs (Allura Red, Citrus Red 2) Aspartame (Nut raSweet) Brominated Vege table Oil (BVO) Butylated Hydrox yanisole (BHA) Butylated Hydrox ytoluene (BHT) Propyl Gallate Quinine CERTAIN PEOP LE SHOULD AVOID These cause all ergic or other reactions in some people. Artificial Colourin gs (Tartrazine) Artificial and Na tural Flavouring Aspartame (Nut raSweet) Caffeine Cochineal or Ca rmine Gums (Tragaca nth) Hydrolyzed Vege table Protein (HVP) Monosodium Gl utamate (MSG) Quinine Sulphites (Soldium Bisulphite, Sulphur Dioxide ) EVERYONE SH OULD AVOID These are unsa fe in the amounts consumed or ar e poorly tested.
Food Additive Shopping Guid For a complet e
Acesulfame K (Acesulfame Potassium) Artificial Colourin gs (Brilliant Blue FCF, Erythrosin e, Fast Green FCF, Indigotine, Sunset Yellow) Cyclamate Olestra (Olean) Saccharin Sodium Nitrate, Sodium Nitrite
Aisle 7
Corporate Control
AISLE 7: CORPORATE CONTROL CORPORATIONS CONTROL WHAT WE CONSUME

As youve strolled through the supermarket, youve passed shelves stocked full of different products. It may surprise you to learn that most of these products are owned by five or six corporate giants. What does this mean? Among other things, it means that you dont have as much choosing power as you once thought. Any corporation that controls a large proportion of our food holds a tight rein on the consumer population. Once again, the vast number of choices presented to you by the diversity of brand names and packaging is largely illusory. The section that follows brings to the fore some of the key corporations in the global food industry. Some corporations, however, such as Cargill, the worlds largest grain trader, are not identifiable by brand names. One can only imagine the true extent of corporate empires that dominate the food industry.
CORPORATE POWER
To demonstrate the economic power of corporations, consider some data from 1995: Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 were corporations and 49 were countries. The top 200 corporations combined sales were bigger than the combined economies of 182 countriesthat is, all but the top nine countries in the world. The top 200 corporations were net job destroyers. Their combined global employment was only 18.8 million, which at the time was about 0.3 per cent of the world population.1 Huge corporations not only undermine consumer choices, they are often responsible for or connected to social and environmental injustices that occur throughout the world. [G]lobal giants such as Phillip Morris, United Fruit, Pepsico, Cargill, Unilever and Nestl oversee vast portions of international agricultural production and trade. In fact, transnationals either directly or indirectly command 80 percent of the land around the world that is cultivated for export crops such as bananas, tobacco and cotton. Such agro-export development patterns regularly displace farmers producing food for local consumption, pushing them into situations where they must overexploit the environment to survive.2 Corporate power is becoming more and more concentrated, as the pace of mergers and buy-outs is quickening. In 1998, the value of global mergers and acquisitions reached a total of $2.4 trillion, a 50 per cent increase over 1997.3
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CORPORATE PROFILES
The following profiles are not meant to condemn specific companies. Rather, they are meant to illustrate some of the dangers of concentrating power into the hands of a few corporations when profit is the bottom line. While corporations often do participate in unethical practices, when they listen to consumer demands they can also use their immense power to benefit society.
It is not only the specific practices of individual companies that cause problems. The attitudes created by the current system of exploitation gives power and profits to the few, at the expense of people, animals and the environment. It is important to expose the unethical practices of specific companies as their behaviour is often indicative of the entire system. - McSpotlight 4 Lets take a look at some of the major corporations that supply our food.
CAN I OFFER YOU A CIGARETTE WITH YOUR KRAFT DINNER?
PHILIP MORRIS
120 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017 <www.philipmorris.com> 1999 Sales: $78.6 billion 1999 Employees: 137,0005 Philip Morris Companies Inc. is the worlds leading cigarette maker, owner of Kraft Foods, Inc. and Miller Brewing Company. In 1995, Philip Morris had the 69th largest economy in the world, with sales surpassing the GDP of Ireland.6 In June 2000, Philip Morris announced that it would also take over Nabisco Holdings Corporation, adding 18 brands to its current 55 brands.7 The takeover is expected to be completed in October 2000. INFACTs Tobacco Industry Campaign focuses on Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco (formerly owned by RJR Nabisco Holdings), and is boycotting them for their role in the breakdown of democratic principles, namely exerting undue influence over political decision making and putting public health at risk.8 Philip Morris was the highest contributor overall in the 1996 U.S. federal election cycle, and spent at least $12.4 million lobbying federal officials in the first six months of the election year on such things as the FDA tabacco regulations, tax deductions for advertising, cigarette taxes, the Clean Water Act and health care reform.9 Every year, 3 million people around the world die from tobacco-related illnesses. However, the tobacco industry has hidden evidence about the addictiveness of nicotine and has conspired at least since 1964 to hold off lawsuits and regulations. In 1997, the tobacco industry sued the FDA to prevent tobacco regulation. The judge in the case was a former tobacco lobbyist, and RJR Nabiscos lawyer was a former general counsel of the FDA.10
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Aisle 7: Corporate Control
Besides being under fire for its involvement with tobacco, Philip Morris has also been censured for licensing the manufacture of Kraft foods by South African companies during the years of sanctions due to Apartheid. In addition, Kraft General Foods has been criticized for its tests on cats in developing a stomach-friendly coffee.11 At the same time, Philip Morris claims to have a large focus on communities, and makes millions of dollars worth of contributions to areas such as hunger, domestic violence, the arts, fighting AIDS, environmental preservation, educational grants and humanitarian assistance mostly within the U.S.12 99 per cent of North Americans are Kraft Foods consumers.13
Philip Morris Brand Names

All Kraft and Nabisco foods, in addition to the following: Beer Henry Winhards Jacob Leinenkugel Miller Milwaukees Best Molson Olde English Beverages Capri Sun Country Time Crystal Light Kool-Aid Quench Tang Cereals 100% Bran Alpha-Bits Fruit & Fibre Grape-Nuts Hillsborough Mills Honey Bunches of Oats Honeycomb Nutsn Crunch Pebbles Raisin Bran Shreddies Sugar-Crisp Cheeses Casino Cheez Whiz Cracker Barrel Darifarm Delissio Extra Cheddar De Luxe Imperial Party Snack Philadelphia Ptit Qubec RSVP Singles Velveeta Coffee Bourbon Caffe Mondiale Carte Noire Chase & Sanborn Dicksons Maxwell House Melrose Nabob Sanka Starbucks (U.S.) Swiss The Second Cup The Tea Condiments & Sauces A-1 (Nabisco) Bulls-Eye Claussen Grey Poupon (Nabisco) Miracle Whip Cookies & Crackers (Nabisco) Air Crisps Cheese Nips ChipsAhoy! Dads Flavor Crisps Fudgee-O Honey Maid Newtons Oreo Premium Plus Ritz SnackWells Teddy Grahams Triscuit Wheat Thins Desserts & Snacks Altoids Bakers Breath Savers (Nabisco) Callard & Bowser Certo Cool Whip Cote DOr Dream Whip Handi-Snacks Jell-O Life Savers (Nabisco) Magic Moments Minit Planters (Nabisco) Mozart Terrys Toblerone Whip N Chill Main/Side Dishes Kraft Dinner Minute Rice Shake N Bake Stove Top Meats Oscar Mayer Tobacco Benson & Hedges Marlboro Parliament Philip Morris Virginia Slims (18 brands in the U.S., 74 international brands)
NOTE: This list is not exhaustive. To find more complete lists of Philip Morris products, visit the following websites: www.philipmorris.com www.kraftfoods.com
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A FORMULA FOR MALNUTRITION
NESTL
Avenue Nestl55, CH-1800 Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland <www.nestle.com> 1999 Sales: $45.9 billion 1999 Employees: 230,92914 Nestl, the number one food company in the world, holds about 50 per cent of the worlds breast milk substitute market.15 Nestl being boycotted for its continued breaches of the 1981 World Health Organization Code (WHO) regulation on breast milk substitute marketing.16 Baby Milk Action, the UK group co-ordinating the Nestl boycott, claims that over 99 per cent of mothers are able to breastfeed.17 But mothers are often misled to think that formula is better for their babies. Without breast milk, babies do not benefit from the passive immunity passed on from a mothers milk. Therefore, formula-fed babies are at high risk for contracting serious diseases. This risk is compounded in developing countries, where many do not have access to clean water with which to make up the formula, and where poverty may lead mothers to over-dilute formula to make it go further. Bottle-Baby disease, a common condition in many parts of the world, causes diarrhea, vomiting, respiratory infections, malnutrition, dehydration and often death.18 Over the past two decades, Nestl has been criticized for encouraging bottle feeding by: giving away free samples of infant formula to hospitals, neglecting to collect payments for infant formula, putting out misleading promotional literature to mothers and health workers, which claim that malnourished mothers and mothers of twins or premature babies are unable to breastfeed, despite the claims of health organizations that there is no evidence to support these claims. In 1981, the WHO and UNICEF drew up the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes, but this is still a voluntary code of practice. Nestl and other companies agreed to follow the Code, and the Nestl boycott was called off in 1984, only to start again in 1988 due to repeated violations of the Code.19 Although Nestls website includes the disclaimer, Breast milk is best for babies. Before you decide to use infant formula consult your doctor or clinic for advice, as recently as early 2000, there have been reports of Nestl bribing doctors in developing countries to promote their products.20 Nestl has also been criticized for continuing to operate in countries with oppressive governments. LOreal, a cosmetics company 50 per cent owned by Nestl, is also under boycott for its product testing on animals.
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Nestl Brand Names

Beverages Carnation Caro Libbys Milo Nescau Nesquick Nestea Cereals Nestl Coffee Bonka Loumidis Nescaf Ricoffy Ricor Tasters Choice Zoegas Coffee Creamers Coffee-mate Cosmetics LOral Culinary Products (bouillon, soup, canned food, pasta, sauces) Buitoni Crosse & Blackwell Libbys Maggi Thomy Chocolate & Confectionary Aero After Eight Baby Ruth Baci Butterfinger Cailler Chokito Crunch Frigor Fun Dip Galak/Milkybar Gobstoppers KitKat Nerds Nestl Nuts Oh Henry! Oompas Pixy Stix Polo Quality Street Rolo Runts Smarties Tart N Tinys Turtles Yes Dairy Brenmarke Carnation Gloria Milkmaid/La Lechera Neslac Nespray Nido FoodServices Chef Davigel Santa Rica Frozen Foods Buitoni Maggi Stouffers Ice Cream Camy Dairy Farm Frisco Magnolia Nestl Parlour Infant Foods Carnation Crlac Guigoz Nan Nestl Nestum Mineral Water Arrowhead Blaue Quellen Buxton Calistoga Contrex Perrier Poland Spring Quzac San Pellegrino Santa Maria Valvert Vera Vittel Ophthalmological Products (Eye Care) Alcon Pet Care Alpo Fancy Feast Friskies Gourmet Mighty Dog Refrigerated Products Buitoni Nestl Vismara
NOTE: This list is not exhaustive. To find more complete lists of Nestl products, visit: www.nestle.com
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I CANT BELIEVE ITS STILL TESTING ON ANIMALS
UNILEVER
PO Box 68, Unilever House, Blackfriars, London EC4P 4BQ, UK <www.unilever.com> 1999 Sales: $43.6 billion 1999 Employees: 255,00021 Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch company and one of the worlds largest manufacturers of packaged goods. It is cutting down its brands to 400 from about 1,600, and is also buying Bestfoods and Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream.22 Both mergers are expected to be completed by the end of 2000. Unilever has been convicted several times for water pollution resulting from its many detergent, soap and other chemical subsidiaries. Also, while no country legally requires animal testing of cosmetics, toiletries or household cleaners, Unilever is still found on the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) list of companies that test on animals.23 Unilever and its subsidiaries have also been criticized for unfair treatment of workers, especially in southern countries, and for its operations in countries with oppressive governments, where human rights abuses continue to take place.
Unilever Brand Names

All Unilever and Bestfoods Captain Birds Eye products, including: Findus 4 Salti in Padella Butter & Margarine Gortons Tenders Becel Popsicle Country Crock Ice Cream I Cant Believe Its Not Ben & Jerrys (in 2000) Butter Breyers Rama Magnum Cosmetics & Fragrances Solero Calvin Klein Household Cutex Cleaning Products Elizabeth Arden Cif House of Cerruti Domestos House of Valentino Sunlight Q-Tips Wisk Rimmel Culinary Products Calv Colmans Rag Deodorant and Aftershave Axe Degree Dove Lynx Rexona/Sure Suave Diet Foods Slim-Fast Frozen Foods Laundry Ala Comfort Omo Snuggle Sunlight Oral Care Close-Up Mentadent Signal Shampoo Cream Silk Dimension Finesse Helene Curtis Organics Pears Salon Selectives SunSilk ThermaSilk Timotei Soap Dove Lever 2000 Lux Ponds Vaseline Tea and Coffee Brisk Lipton Lyons Red Mountain Culinary Products Argo Bovril Knorr Maizena Desserts Alsa Ambrosia Dressings Best Foods Hellmanns Lesieur Oil Mazola Pasta Muellers
Spreads Under Bestfoods Label Karo (to merge with Unilever in Marmite late 2000) Santa Rosa Skippy Baked Goods Arnold Boboli Entenmanns NOTE: This list is not Freihofers exhaustive. To find more Oroweat complete lists of Unilever Sahara Pita products, visit: Thomas www.unilever.com www.bestfoods.com
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KILLER COSMETICS AND FAKE FAT
THE PROCTER & GAMBLE COMPANY

One Procter & Gamble Plaza, Cincinnati, OH 45202 1999 Sales: $38.1 billion 1999 Employees: 110,000 <www.pg.com>
Procter & Gamble is the number one maker of household products in the United States.24 The company has been criticized for unsafe environmental practices and for operating in oppressive regimes. P&G is being boycotted for its unnecessary testing on animals for cosmetics and other beauty care products.25 P&G has also taken a lot of heat for its development and marketing of olestra, a fat substitute used to make fat free snacks that taste just as good as the real thing. Olestra molecules are too large for the body to digest, so all the fat material leaves the body without being absorbed. However, it can cause severe abdominal cramping and diarrhea in some people. Also, it binds to fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) and carotenoids, dragging them out of the body. The U.S. FDA requires P&G to add the four vitamins to olestra, but does not require compensation for carotenoids. Olestra has not been yet approved for use in Canada.26
TAKING THE CHALLENGE Proctor & Gamble Brand Names

Beverages Sunny Delight Coffee & Tea Folgers Millstone Tender Leaf Tea Cosmetics Cover Girl Max Factor Oil of Olay Deodorants & Aftershave Old Spice Secret Sure Diapers Luvs Pampers Feminine Hygiene Always Tampax Fragrances Giorgio Beverly Hills Hugo Boss Hair Care Head & Shoulders Mediker Pantene Pro-V Pert Plus Physique Rejoy/Rejoice Vidal Sassoon Health Care Attends Chloraseptic DayQuil/NyQuil Living Better Metamucil Pepto-Bismol Sinex Vicks Cough/Cold Products Household Cleaning Products Biz Cascade Comet Dawn Fit (Fruit/Veggie Wash) Ivory Dish Joy Mr. Clean Spic and Span Swiffer Laundry Bold Bounce Cheer Downy Dreft Dryel Era Gain Ivory Snow Oxydol Tide Oils & Fat Substitutes Crisco Olean (Olestra) Oral Care Crest Toothpaste Fixodent Gleem Scope Pet Care Iams Snacks Pringles Soap & Skin Care Camay Clearasil Coast Ivory Noxzema Oil of Olay Safeguard Zest Soap Operas As the World Turns Guiding Light Spreads Jif Peanut Butter Tissues/Towels Bounty Charmin Puffs Royale Water Filtration PUR
NOTE: This list is not exhaustive. To find more complete lists of Proctor & Gamble products, visit: www.pg.com www.hoovers.com
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PEPSICO, INC.
700 Anderson Hill Rd., Purchase, NY 10577-1444 <www.pepsico.com> 1999 Sales: $20.4 billion 1999 Employees: 118,000
The worlds #2 soft-drink maker (behind Coca-Cola Company), PepsiCo also relies on its snacks and juices market to make it one of the largest food companies in the world. A decade ago, PepsiCo was strongly criticized for its operations in countries with oppressive regimes. However, due to public pressure and concerns about human rights abuses, PepsiCo pulled out of the military dictatorship of Burma in January 1997.
Pepsico Brand Names

All Pepsi, Tropicana and Frito-Lay foods, in addition to the following: Frito-Lay Brands Baken-ets Fried Pork Skins Cheetos Chesters Popcorn Cracker Jacks Doritos Fritos Funyons Grandmas Cookies Lays Muchos Rold Gold Pretzels Ruffles Sabritas Santitas Smartfood Smiths Sunchips 3Ds Tostitos Walkers Pepsi-Cola Brands All Sport Aquafina Water Frappuccino Coffee Drink FruitWorks Lipton (partnership with Unilever) Mirinda Mountain Dew Mug Root Beer Pepsi-Cola 7UP Slice Tropicana Brands Copella Dole Juices Fruvita Hitchcock Juice Bowl Looza Tropicana
NOTE: This list is not exhaustive. To find more complete lists of Pepsico products, visit: www.pepsico.com
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CEREAL WARS
Competing neck and neck for the top of the U.S. ready-to-eat cereal business, Kelloggs and General Mills control nearly two-thirds of the U.S. cereal market.27 Cereal has a high profit margin and a very low return for farmers. In 1999, while grain prices were low, Kelloggs and General Mills planned to raise cereal prices by 2.7 and 2.5 per cent respectively. U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan called for an investigation into the price increases, noting that [f]armers suffer big losses growing the grain, while cereal manufacturers reap big profits turning the same grain into breakfast cereal. The family farmer is being cheated out of a fair return. He added that the farmers share of the retail price for cereal was only 6.4 cents to the dollar, down 20 percent from 1995.28
KELLOGG COMPANY
One Kellogg Square, Battle Creek, MI 49016-3599 1999 Sales: $7.0 billion 1999 Employees: 15,051
Cereals All-Bran Apple Jacks Cocoa Krispies Complete Corn Flakes Corn Pops Cracklin Oat Bran Crispix Froot Loops Frosted Flakes
<www.kelloggs.com>
Healthy Choice Just Right Mini-Wheats Product 19 Raisin Bran Rice Krispies Smacks Smart Start Special K Snack Pak
Meat Alternatives/ Vegetarian Foods Loma Linda Morningstar Farms Natural Touch Worthington Other Products Corn Flake Crumbs Croutettes Stuffing Mix Eggo Waffles Nutri-Grain Pop-Tarts Rice Krispies Treats Snack Ums
GENERAL MILLS, INC.
1 General Mills Blvd., Minneapolis, MN 55426 <www.generalmills.com> 2000 Sales: $6.7 billion 1999 Employees: 10,660
Cereals Basic 4 Cheerios Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cocoa Puffs Cookie Crisp Fiber One French Toast Crunch Golden Grahams Honey Nut Clusters Kix Lucky Charms Oatmeal Crisp Rice Chex Sunrise Total Trix Wheaties Desserts Betty Crocker Mixes Flour & Baking Mixes Bisquick Gold Medal Robin Hood Main Meals & Side Dishes Betty Crocker Chicken Helper Farmhouse Hamburger Helper Lloyds Tuna Helper Snacks & Beverages Bugles Chex Mix Dunkaroos Fruit by the Foot Fruit Gushers Fruit Roll-Ups Golden Grahams Treats Nature Valley Pop Secret Colombo Yoplait
70
ALTERNATIVES
While avoiding corporations altogether would be an arduous task, it is possible to gradually decrease your dependence on the products of multinational corporations. Here are some suggestions to consider if you dont like feeding corporate concentration. Go Organic. There are a variety of packaged and canned organic foods on the market, including beans, pasta, chips, spreads and drinks. These offer healthy alternatives and are usually made by smaller companies who have to listen to consumer demands in order to succeed. Seek Out Local, Enviro-Friendly Products. If you look for them, you should be able to find all kinds of enviro-friendly products, including toothpaste, deodorant, detergent, shampoo, menstrual products and underwear! These products are often made with organic materials and generally are not tested on animals. Write a Letter. If you disagree with a corporations actions, write them a letter telling them you wont buy their products until theyve changed their practices. Join organizations that push for change in the corporate realm. Even though these corporations are huge, they still rely on your financial support, and eventually will have to listen to large populations of unhappy consumers. Join a food co-op. There is likely a food co-operative in your area. A co-operative is an independent association made up of people who want to achieve a common goal through a democratically controlled enterprise. All members of a co-op have a say in how the organization is run, so you are not reduced to being a nameless consumer. Buying your food from food co-ops usually means that you are supporting smaller, local enterprises and organic food businesses.
71
Endnotes
1 Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh, Corporate Empires Multinational Monitor 17 (December 1996): 26-7. 2 Joshua Karliner, The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1997), 17-18. 3 RAFI, The Gene Giants: Update on Consolidation in the Life Industry, RAFI Publications, 30 March 1999, <www.rafi.org/ web/publications.shtml> (25 July 2000). 4 McSpotlight, Proctor & Gamble in the McSpotlight, 4 March 2000, <www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/companies/proctor.html> (9 August 2000). 5 Hoovers, Philip Morris Companies Inc. Company Capsule, Hoovers Online, <www.hoovers.com> (2 August 2000). 6 Anderson and Cavanagh, Corporate Empires, 27. 7 Philip Morris Companies Inc., Philip Morris Acquires Nabisco for $55.0 Per Share In Cash And Plans For IPO Of Kraft, 25 June 2000, <www.philipmorris.com/whatsnew/nabisco.htm> (1 August 2000). 8 INFACT, INFACTs Tobacco Industry Campaign, <www.infact.org/helpstop.html> (2 August 2000); INFACT, INFACTs Hall of Shame Campaign, <www.infact.org/hos.html> (2 August 2000). 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 McSpotlight, Philip Morris in the McSpotlight, Beyond McDonalds, 24 March 1998, <www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/ companies/pmorris.html> (9 August 2000). 12 Philip Morris Companies Inc., Making a Difference in our Communities, Philip Morris Companies Inc. Home Page, <www.philipmorris.com/pmcares> (9 August 2000). 13 Kraft Foods, Company Profile, Kraft Foods Home Page, <www.kraftfoods.com/corporate/about/cp_index.html> (1 August, 2000). 14 Hoovers, Nestl S.A. Company Capsule, Hoovers Online, <www.hoovers.com> (2 August 2000). 15 Ibid; McSpotlight, Nestl in the McSpotlight, Beyond McDonalds, 22 June 2000, <www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/companies/ nestle.html> (9 August 2000). 16 McSpotlight, Nestl in the McSpotlight. 17 McSpotlight, McSpotlight on the Baby Milk Industry, Beyond McDonalds, <www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/nestle.html> (9 August 2000). 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 INFACT Canada, Nastie Nestl: Nestl Bribes Doctors in Pakistan, INFACT Newsletter, Winter 2000, 5. 21 Hoovers, Unilever Company Capsule, Hoovers Online, <www.hoovers.com> (2 August 2000).. 22 Ibid. 23 McSpotlight, The Chemical Industry in the McSpotlight, Beyond McDonalds, <www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/industries/ chemical.html> (11 August 2000); PETA, Consumer Products Companies That Test on Animals, Caring Consumer, <www.peta.com/liv/cc/cctest.html> (11 August 2000). 24 Hoovers, The Procter & Gamble Company Company Capsule, Hoovers Online, <www.hoovers.com> (9 August 2000).. 25 McSpotlight, Procter & Gamble in the McSpotlight. 26 Michael Jacobson and Leila Corcoran, Olestra: Snack Attack, Nutrition Action Healthletter, Canadian Edition, March 1998, 9-11. 27 Russell Mokhiber, The Cereal Trust, Multinational Monitor 20 (April 1999): 28. 28 Ibid.
72
APPENDIX 1: HOW TO LEAD A SUPERMARKET TOUR

Taking a group of people for a guided tour of a supermarket is one of the best ways to highlight the issues in this booklet. Anyone should be able to go on a tour, including students, seniors, neighbours, parents and religious community members. The two-hour Supermarket Tour is designed for small groups; a group of about eight people, including tour guides, works well. Larger groups can be disruptive in the supermarket, while smaller groups might miss out on beneficial group discussions. If you do have a large group, try splitting the group into two or more smaller groups.
FACILITATING A TOUR
You dont have to be an expert on all the issues in this booklet to lead a tour. As a tour guide or facilitator, your job is to raise questions for discussion and to direct the process of learning. Chances are the people going on the tour already know several different things about the food system, and everyone on the tour is there to exchange information and ideas.
The following are some suggestions for facilitating a tour:

Although the tour can be led by one person, it is easier managed by two so that subjects can be divided. Also, while one person talks, the other can prepare for the next section of the Tour. Alternatively, if you are working as a group, you might divvy up the sections ahead of time and have each participant facilitate a different discussion or activity.
Preparing for a Tour

Become familiar with the material in this booklet. You may find that you need to update information based on significant current events. There is too much information in here for a single tour, so decide which themes youd like to stress. Covering all the subjects could leave participants overwhelmed. If they want to find out about certain topics in more detail, they can follow up later by reading The Supermarket Tour. Ask the supermarket manager for permission. Ask when is a good time to come in so as not to disrupt customers. Explain that you would like to take a group of people on a guided tour of the supermarket, that it is a small group, and that you will be careful to stay out of customers way as you walk through the store. Choose a store and visit it. Run through a dress rehearsal. Plan where you would like to stop during the tour. Estimate how long each section might take so you have a rough timeline.
APPENDIX 1
73
Prepare props, lists or handouts for any activities during the tour. It would be good to prepare a list of local alternatives, including shops where organic foods and products are sold, community shared agriculture, food co-ops, etc. Prepare to hand out copies of this at the end of the tour.
On the Tour
At the beginning of the tour, it is important to outline the objectives and themes of the tour. It is a good idea to have the participants introduce themselves and share what they would like to gain from the tour. Let participants know how long the tour will last. Encourage everyone to participate. Explain that you are a facilitator, not a lecturer, and affirm that everyone has much to contribute to this tour. Encourage participants to pick up products and examine labels. It may be a good idea to discuss alternatives at the end of each theme, rather than leaving this to the end. Participants may feel more empowered and optimistic if they are given time to think through alternatives throughout the tour. Dont worry if you dont have all the answers. Record any unanswered questions and ask for volunteers to research the answers and share them with the group at a later time. Leave the supermarket for the debriefing session.
Debriefing
Debriefing the tour is very important. There needs to be time for participants to share their impressions, ask further questions and give feedback. Ask participants to share their strongest impressions with the group. Dont feel that you have to comment on each response. Follow up on any questions. Some participants may feel that the problems are too large for one person to make a difference. Emphasize the importance of small changes. If the group works well together, you might suggest that the group work together for some common goal at a later date, such as inviting a speaker, giving tours to others or getting together to write letters. But dont push people into action if they are resistant.
APPENDIX 1
Ask people to consider what their visions for change are. They dont necessarily have to share this with the group if they are uncomfortable. Envisioning a goal is a much more positive motivator than dwelling on the negative aspects of the current system. Finally, evaluate the tour. Ask each participant to state one positive aspect of the tour, and one thing that could be improved. This will help you to improve your planning and presentation for any further tours.
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SAMPLE ACTIVITIES
While it may seem difficult in a supermarket, group activities are good ways to take breaks from information-intensive subjects. Activities often reinforce the information presented. Here are two activities that may be used during the course of the tour. Activities help to concretize the information being presented. At the end of each activity, be sure to leave time for a discussion on alternatives.
Making a Banana Split

This activity can be used in a discussion about produce and the effects of buying produce from developing countries. Materials: Banana cut-outs, pens. Have participants work singly or in pairs. Explain that you are using bananas as an example of a product exported by developing countries to better understand who earns what in the process of getting the banana to us. Quickly brainstorm: where do bananas come from? What steps are involved in the production and distribution of bananas? List peoples suggestions. Summarize them by listing the following types of categories: farmer and plantation worker; export, transportation & taxes; wholesaler (e.g. Chiquita, Dole); retailer (stores). Make sure everyone in the group has a basic idea of the role of each of these groups. Ask each participant (or pair) to split up the banana based on the share they think each group listed above should receive, based on costs and labour (e.g. if a banana costs one dollar, how many cents should go to the farm worker, the local store, etc.?) Have them explain their reasons behind their numbers. If possible, get the group to agree on how the banana should be split. Show the participants the actual breakdown of who receives what. (See Chapter 2; in general, out of every dollar, the worker/grower earns five cents, the costs of export, transportation and taxes amount to 44 cents, the wholesaler gets 17 cents and the retail store gets 34 cents.) Ask the group why they think the banana is cut the way it is. Why do the workers get so little? Who sets the prices? What can be done to change the situation so that workers and farmers receive a fairer share? You may want to remind the group that while the banana is only one example of the many products that come from developing countries, many other agricultural products (such as sugar, coffee and even manufactured products) have a similar breakdown. Even in Canada, wheat farmers are paid relatively little for their crops.
APPENDIX 1
Adapted from Workshop: What in the World is Fair Trade? Ten Days for Global Justice: Education and Action Guide, 1998.
75
Lets Go Shopping! A Window on Corporate Concentration

This is a good activity to let participants really see the control of corporations. Materials: Separate cue cards with the following shopping lists (do not let people know which company is associated with each list until the participants have reassembled).
Suggested Shopping Lists

List 1: Philip Morris Jell-O Cheez Whiz Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Maxwell House coffee Minute Rice Cool Whip Raisin Bran cereal Kool-Aid Philadelphia Cream Cheese Toblerone chocolate bar Bakers chocolate Miracle Whip List 3: Unilever Becel margarine Country Crock margarine Breyers Ice Cream Rag spaghetti sauce Lipton cup-a-soup Red Rose tea Sunlight dish soap Salon Selectives shampoo Close-Up toothpaste Dove soap Q-Tips Degree deodorant List 5: General Mills Cheerios cereal Lucky Charms cereal Golden Grahams cereal Total cereal Betty Crocker cake mix Robin Hood baking product Hamburger Helper Bugles snack Fruit Roll-Ups Yoplait yogurt Nature Valley bars Pop Secret popcorn
List 4:Procter & Gamble List 2: Nestl Folgers coffee Coffee-Mate Sunny Delight Nescaf coffee Pringles Smarties Crisco vegetable shortening Turtles Jif peanut butter Alpo dog food Old Spice aftershave Perrier water Oil of Olay soap Carnation baby formula Pampers diapers Parlour ice cream Tampax tampons Stouffers frozen entre Crest toothpaste Libbys canned beans Tide laundry detergent Opti-Free contact lens solution Mr. Clean Maggi bouillon
Give participants about 15 minutes to get as many of the products on their shopping lists as possible. Ask the group to reassemble near the ice cream section, so that no products melt during the tour. Participants can share with the others what items are on their list and in their shopping basket.
APPENDIX 1
Once you disclose which corporation manufactures the items on each list, you can provide relevant information about each corporation (see Chapter 7). Alternately, you can make up your own lists from the lists provided in the booklet. You can also make lists to illustrate other points, such as what food products contain Genetically Modified Organisms (see Appendix 3), or what foods contain certain pesticide residues.
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APPENDIX 2: GROCERY STORE PROFILES1

If possible, it is advisable to update this information from time to time, as it is always changing. To do so, look up the companys profile on a site like <www.hoovers.com>, or visit the companys website. Unless otherwise indicated, annual sales are in Canadian dollars.
CANADA SAFEWAY LIMITED

1020 64th Ave. NE, Calgary, AB T2E 7V8 (403) 730-3500 Banners: Food Barn, Food for Less, Lucerne Foods Ltd., Safeway Ownership: Safeway Inc. (U.S.A.) 100% Operations: BC, AB, SK, MB, ON Annual Sales: $3.2 billion (1998)
EMPIRE COMPANY LIMITED

115 King St., Stellarton, NS BOK 1S0 (902) 755-4440 Banners: Boni Choix, Calbeck, Foodland, Foodtown, IGA, Knechtel, Lofood, Price Chopper, Sobeys Ownership: Sobey family (Canada) 62% Operations: All Canadian provinces Annual Sales: $4.4 billion (1999) Empire tripled the size of its food operations after the December 1998 purchase of The Oshawa Group, which formerly had control over the Food City, IGA, Dutch Boy, Price Chopper, Food Town, Boni Choix and Knechtel banners.
THE GREAT ATLANTIC & PACIFIC COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED

5559 Dundas Street West, Etobicoke, ON M9B 1B9 (416) 239-7171 Banners: A&P, The Barn, Dominion, Farmer Jack, Food Basics, Food Emporium, Kohls, Miracle Food Mart, Sav-A-Centre, Super-Fresh, Ultra Mart, Waldbaums Ownership: Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc. (Germany) 100% (German retailer Tengelmann Group owns about 55% of A&P) Operations: ON Annual Sales: Canadian figures not available. The Great A&P Tea Companys sales amounted to $10.1 billion [USD] (2000).
APPENDIX 2
77
LOBLAW COMPANIES LIMITED

18th floor, 22 St. Clair Avenue East, Toronto, ON M4T 2S8 (416) 922-8500 Banners: Atlantic Grocers, Atlantic Superstore, Extra Foods, Fortinos, Loblaws Supermarkets, Lucky Dollar Foods, Mr. Grocer, National Grocers, no frills, OK! Economy, The Real Canadian Superstore, Save Easy, Shop Easy Foods, SuperValu, valu-mart, Westfair Foods, Your Independent Grocer, Zehrmart, Under Provigo: Atout Prix, Axep, LEconome, LIntermarch, Jovi, March Plus, Maxi, Proprio, Provi-Soir, Provigo, Red Rooster, Votre picier, Winks Ownership: George Weston Limited (Canada) 63% Operations: All provinces plus NT and YT Annual Sales: $12.9 billion (1999) Loblaw Companies Limited is the top food retailer in Canada, and strengthened its presence in Qubec by purchasing Provigo Inc. in 1998. Due to competition concerns identified by the Competition Bureau, Loblaws divested some of its newly purchased interests to Metro-Richelieu (including the Loeb trademark). Brand names exclusive to Loblaw retailers include: no name, Presidents Choice, EXACT, G-R-E-E-N and Too Good To Be True! George Weston Limited, the owner of Loblaw Companies, operates in two main divisions: Food Processing (fresh and frozen bakeries, biscuit and dairy operations, as well as fish processing), and Food Distribution (through Loblaw Companies). 1999 Sales for George Weston Limited amounted to $21 billion.
Metro Inc.
11011 Maurice-Duplessis Blvd., Montreal, QC H1C 1V6 (514) 643-1055 Banners: Ami, Boeuf Mrite, Brunet, Les 5 Saisons, Distagro, Econogros, Gem, Loeb, March Richelieu, Metro, Pcheries Atlantique, Super C Ownership: Individual store owners (Canada) 20%, Caisse de dpt et placement du Qubec (Canada) 13%. Operations: QC, ON Annual Sales: $2.7 billion (1999) Fomerly Metro-Richelieu, Metro Inc. operates mainly in Qubec. It also owns about 40 Loeb stores in Ontario.
APPENDIX 2
78
OVERWAITEA FOOD GROUP

P.O. Box 7200, Vancouver, BC V6B 4E4 (604) 888-1213, (604) 888-4500 Banners: Overwaitea, Save-On-Foods Ownership: Jim Pattison Group (Canada) 100% Operations: BC, AB Annual Sales: Not available. The Jim Pattison Groups other holdings include auto dealerships, a Swiss financial company, the second largest cannery in the country and the largest neon sign company in North America.
APPENDIX 2
Endnotes
1
Information for this section is taken from the following sources: a) Ranjani Achar, David Nitkin, Kay Otto, Paul Pellizzari, and EthicScan Canada, Shopping With a Conscience: The Informed Shoppers Guide to Retailers, Suppliers, and Service Providers in Canada (Toronto: John Wiley & Sons, 1996). b) Hoovers, Hoovers Online, <www.hoovers.com> (9 June 2000).
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APPENDIX 3: SAMPLE LETTERS

It is always better to write your own letter, but if youre stuck for what to say here are some sample letters to get you started.
Canola Council 400 - 167 Lombard Avenue Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 0T6 or Association Canadian Oilseed Processors 2150 - 360 Main Street Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 3Z3 January 15, 2002 To whom it may concern:
ola oil quality and versatility of can nsumer, I am happy with the tI As a co ver, I want you to know tha its Canadian origins. Howe and am proud of that these gineered food. I am aware t want to eat genetically en I will not be do no ent agencies. Nevertheless, are approved by governm ma products tified organic or comes fro re canola oil unless it is cer buying any mo exclude GMOs from and procedure in place to mpany with a clear policy co their products. . your response on this issue I look forward to receiving Yours truly,
APPENDIX 3
81
Mr. Galen Weston. Chairman Loblaws Companies Limited 18th floor, 22 St. Clair Avenue E. Toronto, Ontario M4T 2S8 January 15, 2002
Dear Mr. Weston, about genetically engineered food in I am writing to express my concerns Loblaws Companies supermarkets. r are as yet unpredictable. Among othe The long-term impacts of GE foods ate l to spread antibiotic resistance, propag things, these foods have the potentia ble impacts of GE ic reaction. Other predicta new weed species and create allergen workd contamination and increasing farm food production include increasing foo nology ecially considering so much of biotech ers exposure to toxic pesticides, esp t of pesticide-resistant plants. research is focused on the developmen ose between foods that do and do not I believe that I should be able to cho in up I am aware that GE foods are present contain GE products. Unfortunately, none of these in Canada. I also see that to 75 per cent of processed foods sold products are labelled. ins in the United Kingdom have Meanwhile, the major supermarket cha of phasing out GE foods. As Chairman listened to consumer demands and are s Choice and manufacturer of President Canadas largest chain of groceries a position to set the same example in and No Name brandsyou are in Canada. to from your supermarket shelves, and I ask you, therefore, to ban GE foods is achieved. clearly label GE foods until that goal ard to your response. Thank you for your time and I look forw Yours truly,
APPENDIX 3
82
The Honourable Anne McLellan (or successor) Minister of Health 21st Floor, Jeanne-Mance Building Tunneys Pasture Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0K9
January 15, 2002
Dear Minister, d in Canada. The long-term impacts of GE foo ds are as yet unpredictable. Among other things, these foods have the potential to spread antibiotic resistance, propag ate new weed species and create allergenic reactio n. Other predictable impacts of GE food production include increasing food contamina tion and increasing farm workers exposure to toxic pesticides, especially considering so much of biotechnology researc h is focused on the development of pesticide-resistan t plants. I believe that I should be able to cho ose between foods that do and do not contain GE products. Unfortunately, I am aware that GE foods are present in up to 75 per cent of processed foods sold in Canada . I also see that none of these pro ducts are labelled. I ask you, therefore, to urge corpor ations to label their products contain ing GE foods, and to reject any legislation that would disallow labelling of GE foods. Thank you for your time and I loo Yours truly, k forward to your response. I am writing to express my concer ns about genetically engineered foo
APPENDIX 3
83
APPENDIX 4: WHICH BRANDS CLAIM TO BE GE-FREE?

Greenpeace Canadas Green List of GMO-Free Food December 2000
The following information was taken from a shoppers guide that is part of the True Food Campaign to promote GMO-free foods(foods free of genetically modified organisms) and GMOfree sustainable agriculture in Canada.The True Food Network members are an active force to bring an end to the genetic experiment on our food and work towards an ecologically based agricultural system in Canada. Greenpeace compiled the Guide primarily from direct communications with food producers. In some cases, they received company policy statements from consumers who passed them on to Greenpeace. In addition to written statements, they spoke to many company representatives to clarify or assess their position. Greenpeace has strived to present the most accurate and current data possible, but this list is by no means exhaustive. Contact Greenpeace for new information and your own updates (mail us at true.food@greenpeacecanada.org or call 1-800-320-7183).
Meat & Dairy

In Canada, Bovine Growth Hormone(BGH), or GM milk, has not been approved, as it has been in the USA. At the present time there are no genetically engineered meats or dairy products in Canada. However, animals are fed grains, such as corn and soy, which may contain GMOs.
Fish
All fish are in the Green category. Genetically engineered fish have not been commericalized in Canada, although applications are before the federal government.
Produce
At this time very little GM food makes its way into produce sections - most is used in packaged and processed foods.Certified organically grown produce excludes the use of genetically engineered seeds. Fresh produce is one of the best ways to avoid GMOs.
Wheat
APPENDIX 4
GE Wheat is not in our food supply at the present time, however there were 72 field trials of GM wheat in Canada during 2000. Wheat is one of Canadas most valuable agricultural export crops. Many countries in the world do not want to buy genetically engineered crops or seeds from Canada. If GM wheat goes to market Canada stands to lose major markets and contaminate conventional and organic wheat fields. In addition to market loss, GM wheat poses environmental hazards and human health risks like all GM crops.
85
The Green List

About the list below: these are products containing soy, corn, canola or potatoes or their derivatives (soy lecithin, corn syrup, corn starch, corn fructose) and guaranteed to be free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). They are verified by written declaration either by letter, by electronic publication on a company web site, or by virtue of being certified organic (because in Canada and the United States organic certification standards exclude GMO). To be on the green list the product must not contain any genetically engineered ingredients, nor be derived from GM ingredients.
Baby Foods
Gerber All varieties Heinz All varieties Earths Best Dry cereal Whole Mixed Grain Earths Best (jars) Pasta Dinner Vegetable & Beef Corn & Butternut Squash Summer Vegetable Spinach & Potatoes Potato & Green Bean Earths Best Juniors Spring Vegetable w/Pasta Spaghetti & Cheese Vegetable Souffle Tender Chicken & Stars Vegetable Beef Pilaf Country Potato & Vegetable Chunk Orchard Fruit Earths Best for Teething Original Biscuits Wheat Free Biscuits Gerber Dry Cereal Mixed Cereal for Baby Gerber jars Potato Creamed Corn Macaroni Tomato Beef Vegetable Chicken Vanilla Custard Gerber Graduates Turkey Stew with Rice Vegetable Stew with Beef Pasta Shells with Cheese Cheese Ravioli with Tomato Sauce Chicken & Broccoli with Cheese Healthy Times jars Harvest Time Vegetable Country Vegetable Veggie Stew
Healthy Times teething cookies Original Teddy Puffs For Toddlers Apple Cinnamon Teddy Puffs For Toddlers Vanilla Hugga Bear Cookies Cinnamon Hugga Bear Cookies Vanilla Arrowroot Maple Arrowroot Tretzels Original Tretzels Organic Peanut Butter Natures One Toddler Infant Formula
So Good Soy Milk So Nice Soy Milk VitaSoy Soy Milk
Breads
Country Fresh Whole grain certified organic breads
Cereals
Arrowhead Mills Maple Buckwheat Flakes Nature Os Puffed Corn Multigrain Flakes Shredded Wheat EnviroKidz Amazon Frosted Flakes Gorilla Munch Koala Crisp Orangutan-Os Health Valley Cranberry Crunch Raisin Bran Flakes Fiber 7 Flakes Fiber 7 Multigrain Honey Fiber 7 Multigrain Golden Flax Oat Bran Flakes Banana Gone Nuts Lifestream Smart Bran Wildberry Muesli Multigrain Honey Puffs 8 Grain Natures Path Corn Flakes Honeyd Corn Flakes Honeyd Raisin Bran Multigrain & Raisin Multigrain Oatbran Flakes
Baking Goods
Bobs Red Mill 10 Grain Pancake & Waffle No Oil 10 Grain Pancake/Waffle Buckwheat Pancake & Waffle Buttermilk Pancake & Waffle Cornmeal Pancake & Waffle Buttermilk Biscuit Cornbread Muffin Date Nut Bran Muffin Oat Bran & Date Nut Muffin Oat Bran & Nuts Cookie Raisin Bran Muffin Spice Apple Bran Muffin Wheat Free Biscuit Cornmeal
Beverages
Eden Soy Milk Original Chocolate Carob Rice & Soy Blend Green Cuisine Super Soy Milk Liberte Organic Soy Milk Muir Glen Tomato Juice 100% Vegetable Juice
APPENDIX 4
86
Shredded Oaty Bites Millet Rice Oatbran Flakes Apple Cinnamon Granola Ginger Zing Granola Organic Soy Plus Granola Raspberry Heritage Granola Natures Path Corn Waffles
5 Bean Vegetarian Lentil & Carrot Split Pea & Carrot Tomato Potato Leek Vegetable Black Bean Minestrone Soup in a Cup Mixes Muir Glen Tomatoes Condiments Whole, Peeled Amano Diced Soy Sauce Stewed Annies Naturals Ground Peeled Barbeque Sauce Tomato Sauce Smoky Maple Barbecue Sauce Muir Glen Sauces Braggs Chunky Tomato & Herb Mineral Bouillion Cabernet Marinara Hain Green Olive Canola Mayonnaise Mushroom Marinara Eggless Mayonnaise Balsamic Roasted Onion Muir Glen Garlic Vegetable Tomato Ketchup Pizza Sauce Grill Chef Barbecue Sauces -all Roasted Red Pepper San J Tomato Basil Soy Sauce (organic varieties only) Italian Herb Westbrae Sun-dried Tomato Natural Ketchup Shariannes Unsweetened Organic Soups
Canned Goods
Amys Kitchen Soups Cream of Tomato Cream of Mushroom Black Bean Lentil Minestrone Vegetable Barley Cascadian Farms All Jams/Spreads Hain Soups Chicken Noodle Minestrone Split Pea Wild Rice Creamy Mushroom Mushroom Barley Vegetarian Lentil Health Valley Soups Chicken Noodle Tomato Vegetable 14 Garden Vegetable Corn & Vegetable Minestrone
Frozen Foods
Amys Kitchen Pizzas Cheese Mushroom & Olive Pesto & Tomato Broccoli Roasted Vegetable Spinach Veggie Combo Soy Cheese
Packaged Foods
Balance Bars Crunchy Peanut Energy Bar Nut Berry Chocolate Crisp Honey Almond Barbaras Bakery Wheatiness Crackers Sesame Wheatiness Crackers Casbah Gyros Mix Wheat Pilaf Down to Earth Cookies
Cinnamon Graham Twists Chocolate Graham Twists Ener-G Foods Hol Grain Snack Thins Hol Grain Onion & Garlic Fantastic Foods Hummus Pesto Hummus Chicken Flavour Rice Pilaf Coucous Whole Wheat Coucous Hain Rich Crackers Sesame Wheat Crackers Hain Cookies Honey Grahams Vanilla Grahams Chocolate Animal Grahams Hain Kidz Animal Crackers Chocolate Animal Crackers Health Valley Cookies Oatmeal Raisin Graham Amaranth Graham Oat Rice Bran Health Valley Granola Bars Blueberry Raspberry Apple Raisin Marshmallow 8 Grain Sesame Lifestream Breakfast Bars Buckwheat Wildberry Mesa Sunrise Soy Plus Lundberg Family Farm Garlic Pesto Brown Rice Spanish Fiesta Brown Rice Vegetarian Chicken Risotto: Tomato Basil Risotto: Italian Herb Risotto: Garlic Primavera Risotto: Creamy Parmesan Lundberg Rice Cakes Apple Cinnamon Multigrain Popcorn Plumm Good All Rice Cake Varieties Westbrae Natural Soup Old World Split Pea Louisiana Bean
APPENDIX 4
87
Mediterranean Lentil Santa Fe Vegetable Milano Minestrone Garden Vegetable Corn Chowder French Onion Creamy Mushroom
Salad Dressings & Oils

Annies Natural Dressings Balsamic Ceasar French Cilantro & Lime Green Goddess Garlic Parmesan Tofu Low Fat Honey Mustard Sesame Peanut Tofu Shitake & Sesame Thousand Island Nasoya Garden Herb Creamy Dill Creamy Italian Sesame Garlic Thousand Island Spectrum Naturals Canola Oil, organic Canola Mayonnaise Lite Canola Mayonnaise
Red Corn Garden Grains Hain Mini Rice Cakes Ranch Honey Nut Apple Cinnamon Hain Popped Mini Cakes Original Caramel Butter Mild Cheddar Kettle Potato Chips Regular Lightly Salted Baked Mesquite Barbeque Honey Barbeque Sea Salt & Vinegar NY Cheddar & Herb Yogurt & Green Onion Que Pasa Organic Tortilla Chips Rapunzel Organic Chocolate
Solgar IsoSoy Protein Mix Sunrise Soy Organic certified Tofu Unisoya Organic certified Tofu O.C.I.A. White Wave Tofu - All varieties Five Grain Tempeh Soy Tempeh Soy Rice Tempeh Wild Rice Tempeh Yves Veggie Cuisine Garden Vegetable Patties Black Bean & Mushroom Burgers Veggie Wieners Veggie Chili Dogs Hot Spicy Jumbo Veggie Dogs Tofu Weiners Veggie Breakfast Links
Tofu & Soy Products

Amys Kitchen All American Burger California Veggie Burger Chicago Veggie Burger Texas Veggie Burger GeniSoy Vanilla Protein ShakeMix Lightlife Lightburger Veggie Burger Tamari Tempeh Burger Lemon Grilles Tempeh Burger Barbecue Grilles Tempeh Burger Tempeh - All varieties Smart Deli Slices Lean Links Gimme Lean Sausage Gimme Lean Beef Seitan - All varieties Tofu Pups Smart Dogs Mori-Nu Silken Tofu - All varieties Light Tofu - All varieties So Soy+ Soy Vegetarian meals Soyganic Extra Firm Tofu
Snack Foods & Sweets

Bearitos Blue Tortilla Chips Reduced Fat Tortilla Chips White Tortilla Chips Yellow Tortilla Chips Cheese Crunchies Lite Cheddar Puffs Baked Cheddar Puffs Buttery Popcorn White Cheddar Popcorn Microwave Popcorn No Salt No Oil Popcorn Cloud Nine Organic Chocolate bars Garden of Eatin Corn Chips Sesame Blues Black Bean Little Soy Blues Red Hot Blues
APPENDIX 4
88

WPIRG TheSupermarketTour

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WPIRG TheSupermarketTour

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The Supermarket Tour

NEW & D IMPROVE

The Supermarket Tour

NEW & D IMPROVE

Printed in Canada in 2001, 2002

Aisle 1: The Food system ....................................................................... 8

Aisle 2: Produce .................................................................................. 16

Aisle 3: Biodiversity ............................................................................. 30

Aisle 4: Biotechnology .......................................................................... 34

Aisle 5: The Meat Market .................................................................... 48

Aisle 6: Additives ................................................................................ 58

Aisle 7: Corporate Control ..................................................................62

Appendix 1: How To Lead a Supermarket Tour ................................. 73

The Food System

AISLE 1: THE FOOD SYSTEM GOING TO MARKET

OUTSIDE THE STORE ENTRANCE

The Supermarket Tour

Weve Come a Long Way

Aisle 1: The Food System

INSIDE THE SUPERMARKET ENTRANCE

The Supermarket Tour

Aisle 1: The Food System

The Supermarket Tour

Advertising & Packaging

Aisle 1: The Food System

The Supermarket Tour

AISLE 2: PRODUCE POISON & POVERTY

WHY WORRY ABOUT PESTICIDES?

The Supermarket Tour

An Apple a Day May Not Keep the Doctor Away

The Supermarket Tour

BANANAS: A CLOSER LOOK AT TOXIC TRADE

Deforestation, loss of biodiversity

The Supermarket Tour

Heavy pesticide use

Toxic wastes and contamination

ERE... BANNED H RE? ABOUT THE ...WHAT

The Supermarket Tour

The Supermarket Tour

The Supermarket Tour

BIODIVERSITY: HOW MUCH WE HAVE LOST

The Supermarket Tour

WHY WERE LOSING IT

The Supermarket Tour

Can you find the frankenfood?

AISLE 4: BIOTECHNOLOGY CAN YOU FIND THE FRANKENFOOD?

BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GENETIC ENGINEERING 101

The Supermarket Tour

WHY DO WE NEED GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS?

The Green Revolution

The Supermarket Tour

WHY ARE PEOPLE CONCERNED ABOUT GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS?

2) No Decrease in Pesticide Use

3) Creation of GE Super-Weeds and Super-Pests

The Supermarket Tour

7) Declining Food Quality

8) Genetic Pollution and Bio-Invasions

10) Northern Profit at the Expense of Southern Farmers

11) Ethical Problems

12) Consumers are Denied the Right to Choose

The Supermarket Tour

David and Goliath Fight Over Seeds