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Healthy Lifestyle

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100% Food Babe Can Be Chock Full of Misinformation

 

The Food Babe is, as per usual, attempting to strong arm a company through misinformation and fear mongering. This time she’s decided to target Lean Cuisine. Her problem is the GMOs in the Lean Cuisine meals.

That’s why when I saw the recent commercial for the new Lean Cuisine meals called “honestly good” with the words “100% all natural” slapped on the package, I had to investigate. These meals promise all whole foods with whole grains, but when you look at the ingredient list, they have ingredients from the top 4 genetically engineered crops (corn, canola, soy and sugar beets). How can they call this product natural? Are they truly sourcing natural ingredients that aren’t developed in a laboratory? Well, I wanted to find out, so I called the headquarters.

Let’s look at that statement on its face, before we dig into this further. Her worries are that GMOs are in the food. First, let’s take a shot at that little cliche. GMO is a process, not an ingredient. It’s a base technological process of selecting for specific traits, usually focused on aiding the farmer in growing the plant, done at the seed level. These seeds are then bred and produced by local seed breeders prior to distribution to the farmers. The farmers then grow the plants from the seeds, producing food. That food is then either sent to market, or sent to food manufacturing companies to process or create their products with.

Traditionally, this gene selection has been done by other, less precise methods, such as selective breeding or radiation. The technology of doing it at the level of the gene is far more focused than those methods, but the end result is the same. It doesn’t make the food any less natural, as the entire process of growing it is the same. This is a persistent lie by those who create fear around food from a privileged place of having the luxury to be afraid of what they eat.

Her next tactic is to attack the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA).

The customer service representative confirmed that there is a 70-80% likelihood that any and all Lean Cuisine products (including this Honestly Good line) contain GMOs and could not guarantee their product labeled 100% natural is free of GMOs. They also directed me to a website that was created by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) that is funded by Big Food, and Biotech companies like Monsanto. These are the same companies giving millions and millions of dollars to stop GMO labeling. This makes me wonder how many customer service representatives are instructed by their employers (BIG food companies) to spread this mass misinformation campaign to consumers. It’s absolutely atrocious.

The GMA represents a huge base of food manufacturing companies, many of which even produce “organic” foods. The reality of the situation is that the organic industry is a massive, multi-billion dollar industry that is desperately trying to increase market share, and most organic companies are owned by major corporations. Who wouldn’t fight against a large player in a market trying to legislate against their competitors to become even larger?

She then runs with this infographic.

Let’s take the claims one at a time.

GMOs kill bees

This is demonstrably false. Nothing about GMO farming has any affect on the bee population above what non-GMO farming does. Let’s look at a chart of bee toxicity from organic approved chemicals to illustrate.

So, this is a complete falsehood.

GMOs linked to cancer, allergies and autoimmune disorders in animal studies

There is nothing remotely true about this statement. In fact, there’s a massive body of evidence, over 2000 studies, many of which are independently funded and conducted, that show safety and efficacy of crops grown from genetically modified seeds.

GMOs destroy the environment with increased chemicals

This is also quite false. In reality, many seeds are modified so they require less chemicals to be sprayed, since they produce their own. This means that there are less pesticides in the air and less run off, making them far more environmentally safe. Also, add in those modified for drought resistance, and you have a technology custom made to combat the effects of climate change and the dwindling water tables on our food supply.

GMOs hurt farmers

What is this, Little Shop of Horrors? GMOs in no way hurt farmers. This long winded urbanite must think that farmers are somehow unintelligent or naive, because without a demand for a technology that makes farming large amounts of food much easier, they wouldn’t remain on the market. This comment in and of itself is an insult to anyone in the farming community, that this pundit with a website has decided that they don’t have the sense to not use a product that somehow harms them.

Beyond this, she makes a call to lawyers to go after Lean Cuisine, and continues who naturalistic fallacy that GMOs aren’t found in nature, which I’ve explained above. Later, she provides an update on Lean Cuisine’s response, and their no-show at a natural products expo.

What she’s doing here is spreading misinformation and fear to target a company, and then bragging about it. In my opinion, her ethics leave a lot to be desired.

rationalityunleashed.net

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