Jim Hightower

Food fight, everyone – let's all join the fun!

Actually, this is neither fun nor a fight that America's consumers and organic food producers wanted to be in, but we've been forced into it by a cabal of corporate profiteers and their government enablers. For 20 years, they've plotted to hurl fields-full of "spoiled" food at us, including corn, soybeans, cereals, bread, and snacks.

These foods have been spoiled by corporate geneticists rejiggering the very DNA of our foodstuffs. They've taken genes from other species (including animals and bacteria) and artificially slipped the foreign material into nature's own healthy products. The industry asserts that these genetically engineered crops increase farm yields and make food cheaper, but in fact GE yields are down and grocery prices are up. The real purpose of DNA engineering has simply been to create plants that absorb more pesticides.

Excuse me, but if these tampered products are so great, why are the big food manufacturers who use them not bragging about that wonderful fact to shoppers? They should be running ads shouting: "Hey, we've got GEs in here!" Instead, they've conspired behind closed doors with lawmakers and regulators to keep consumers in the dark about any GE ingredients inside the products.

This brings us to the big food fight. A coalition of consumers, organic advocates, nutritionists, and others have successfully put the "Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food" initiative on California's November election ballot. It would require food from GE crops to be labeled as such. Spooked by the very thought of consumer disclosure, an array of corporate giants are now flooding money and lies into the state to defeat the people's fundamental right to know what's in their food. To join the fight for honesty, go to: www.caRightToKnow.org.