Could you imagine celebrating life's biggest moments without special food? A birthday without cake or a Thanksgiving without turkey (meat or tofu) and trimmings? Most families couldn't either. Our family is taking part in another annual holiday tradition: the-overscheduled-kids-catching-meals-in-the-car season! I didn't even try to explain to mine why they can expect at least another solid week of meals-on-the-go and strictly scheduled holiday "fun." They know they signed up for some fun activities, but they don't understand how many hours of practices and classes and shuttling that involves. It's mostly good, and they really do have fun.
Lately, I consider my biggest responsibility the planning ahead, cooking and freezing of meals so we don't get stuck in a fast food rut just because we're busy. While I prefer to cook from scratch, I'm also realistic about the need for some convenience foods from the grocery store. I've read and written quite a lot about food labels, from a mom's perspective, in the past couple of years. I've told you about Clean Couponing. Yet, reading labels can still make my head spin. If I need to it to be fast and convenient, I still want food to be relatively good for my kids.
A clear label notifying me about transgenic or genetically modified foods would help me make a more informed choice as a parent. Right now, I basically have to choose USDA Organic foods at the grocery store if I want to know they're GMO-free, made with foods more like my Grandma would have fed her family. I'm even willing to pay a premium for USDA Organic foods or for foods already vetted for GMOs by a so-called healthy grocery store. All the while, I realize that many concerned parents feel they can't afford to buy any but the least expensive items at a typical grocery or discount store. So that leaves them entirely in the dark about what they're feeding their families. Do you know that although grocers are required to provide labels about sugars and fats and calories, they don't have to let us know whether the corn in our corn chips was genetically modified to contain a biological pesticide, at the cellular level, designed to burst open the stomach of an insect that eats it? I know, I know, if it wasn't safe the US government wouldn't allow it, right? That's the sticking point where government/lobbyist/big business dealings don't quite pass muster with my better-safe-than-sorry parenting style. Every parent has the right to make an informed choice; without GMO labeling, that's just not possible for every parent, at every price point, in every grocery store in America.
Learn more about the consumer movement at Just Label It and add your name to the over one million signatures of concerned people asking the Food and Drug Administration to listen.
ps - Did you notice Michael J. Fox in the latest video above from Just Label It?