Please Vote Yes on 37 (label genetically engineered foods!)

OK, OK.  I know we're probably all sick of the political talk at this point.  I am.

Anyone who knows me personally will tell you that I don't talk politics.  I just don't.  I know in my gut where I stand and I don't believe in wasting precious energy to debate my positions.  It is great that in our country we are entitled to our own opinions and have the right to vote upon them.  

That being said, me posting something political on this blog, or publicly stating any political opinion at all, is way out of the ordinary.

So here goes....I hope you vote today.  I hope you did your research and will vote or have voted on every single initiative, measure, proposition and office that you can vote on.  If you are living in California, I seriously hope you vote Yes on 37.  In my opinion, there is something inherently wrong when giant manufacturers are willing to put up such a heavy fight against labeling foods that contain GMO's (genetically modified organisms).

My love of food and strong belief that we should try and eat as much locally grown and organic food as possible is why I'm sharing this post.  The following was written by a good friend of ours.  I believe he says it the best, so please read and vote YES ON 37!!  (P.S.  Thanks for writing my blog post for me today Mr. Bestie!)

I've been in the food business for over 20 years, specifically the natural products industry. I've seen plenty of shenanigans in my career, but nothing as bad as what the opponents are pulling on CA Prop 37.
So to lay it out, first why would the likes of Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Cargil and BASF pull together millions to fight this bill?

Why would Coke and Pepsi join forces and spend more than $3m combined on keeping the public in the dark?
If GMO's are so great, then why don't these companies put "made with GMO's" on their labels?  Why doesn't Sprite have Lebron and Kobe pimp it out? Why doesn't Tony the Tiger say they're great? Why doesn't Snap, Crackle and Pop sing about how fantastic GMO's are? 
Because there not!
I know plenty of small family farmers, not the actors that are in the no on 37 commercials, but real farmers, that actually save their tomato seeds to plant the following year, real farmers that can't afford to spray more round up, real farmers that prefer growing a variety of tomatoes, rather than the largest tomato with more water than flavor.

So here are a few tidbits that the 47 million dollar "no on 37" campaign hasn't addressed:

-GMO's - are inventions, they are patented, so therefore you have to pay for them each year. Yes, this means that farmers that are purchasing GMO tomatoe seeds cannot save seeds from their tomatoes and re plant them next year. They have been modified to not re-germinate.
-The Most common GMO seed is "RR". This means round up ready. They have modified these seeds to withstand huge doses of Round Up. And yes, this is from the same company that makes round up. So now they can sell big agri-farms seeds that are immune to Round up, followed up with crop dusters of Round up, and well Bakersfield can you say holy asthma attack!
-Cost of the Bill... This will not drastically increase the cost of your grocery bill! Companies have plenty of time to find new "non GMO" ingredients, or if they are stupid enough and they want to continue selling GMO products they have plenty of time to sell through existing packaging and change their labels to include "May contain GMO's". 

This prop may not mean much to you, or you may have been scared by the attack ads that it's going to run up your food bill. But the hard reality is if your truly concerned with the supposed extra cost, look up how much chemotherapy is costing nowadays. Ask your kids if they want to use an Asthma inhaler for the rest of their life, ask the water plant how much extra they spend to clean the chemicals out of our water, or go ask a farmer what they think of paying royalties for seed.

If you took the time to read my post, then you know me well enough to trust me more than Monsanto, Dow, Kraft or Coke. Vote YES on 37!!!