On Jan. 31, organic and natural foods giant Whole Foods Market (WFM) once again attacked the Organic Consumers Association, the nation's leading watchdog on organic standards, as being too "hard-line" for insisting that retailers like WFM stop selling, or at least start labeling, billions of dollars worth of so-called "natural" foods in their stores - foods that are laced with unlabeled, hazardous genetically engineered (GE) ingredients. WFM's most recent attack on OCA predictably backfired, throwing gasoline on the fiery debate surrounding my previous essay "The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto." In that essay, written in January 2011, I criticized WFM and several other well-known organic companies for their foolish (now hopefully repudiated) stance of espousing "co-existence" with the USDA and Monsanto, in exchange for minimal federal regulation of genetically engineered crops.

1. Crown Capital Eco
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Natural Awareness
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2. Whole Fraud: Exposing the Myth of So-
Called Natural Foods
 On Jan. 31, organic and natural foods giant
Whole Foods Market (WFM) once again
attacked the Organic Consumers Association,
the nation's leading watchdog on organic
standards, as being too "hard-line" for insisting
that retailers like WFM stop selling, or at least
start labeling, billions of dollars worth of so-
called "natural" foods in their stores - foods
that are laced with unlabeled, hazardous
genetically engineered (GE) ingredients.

3. WFM's most recent attack on
OCA predictably backfired,
throwing gasoline on the fiery
debate surrounding my previous
essay "The Organic Elite
Surrenders to Monsanto." In
that essay, written in January
2011, I criticized WFM and
several other well-known
organic companies for their
foolish (now hopefully
repudiated) stance of espousing
"co-existence" with the USDA
and Monsanto, in exchange for
minimal federal regulation of
genetically engineered crops.

4.  In subsequent articles, OCA has called for an
end to "organic infighting" and for the
organic industry, farmers, and consumers to
join forces and pass laws or state ballot
initiatives (like the current campaign in
California) that would require mandatory
labels on products containing genetically
engineered ingredients, as well as to make
it illegal to label or market GE-tainted
foods as "natural" or "all natural."

5.  Anger is now running so high against Monsanto
and the USDA, as well as anyone appearing to
tolerate "co-existence" with either group, that
rumors are fast spreading that Monsanto has
bought out, or plans to buy out, WFM. That
rumor is untrue. However, it has focused
attention once again on the critical issue of food
labeling. WFM, and all of us in the organic
community, must put an end to labeling fraud in
the "natural" products sector, by passing laws
that will require brands and supermarkets to
clearly label all genetically engineered
ingredients on their products.

6. Growing awareness has created a
strong organic movement
 Millions of health-minded Americans, especially
parents of young children, now understand that
cheap, non-organic, genetically engineered, industrial
food is hazardous. Not only does chemical- and
energy-intensive factory farming destroy the
environment, impoverish rural communities, exploit
farm workers, inflict unnecessary cruelty on farm
animals, and contaminate the water supply, but the
end product itself is inevitably contaminated.

7.  Routinely contained in nearly every bite or
swallow of non-organic industrial food are
genetically engineered ingredients, pesticides,
antibiotics and other animal drug residues,
pathogens, feces, hormone-disrupting
chemicals, toxic sludge, slaughterhouse waste,
chemical additives and preservatives,
irradiation-derived radiolytic chemical by-
products, and a host of other hazardous
allergens and toxins.

8.  If common sense weren't enough, scientists
warn us that a public health Doomsday Clock is
ticking. Big Biotech and Big Ag are the root
cause of 80 million cases of food poisoning
every year in the US, as well as an epidemic of
allergies, reproductive disorders, food-related
cancers, heart attacks, and obesity. Within a
decade, these diet- and environment-related
diseases - heavily subsidized under our Big
Pharma/chemical/genetically-engineered/factory
farm system - will likely bankrupt Medicare and
the entire U.S. health care system.

9.  Likewise, millions of green-minded consumers
understand that industrial agriculture poses a
terminal threat to the environment and climate
stability. A highly conscious and passionate
segment of the population is beginning to
understand that converting to non-chemical, non-
genetically engineered, energy-efficient, carbon-
sequestering organic farming practices, and
drastically reducing food miles by relocalizing
the food chain, are essential preconditions for
stabilizing our out-of-control climate and
preparing our families and communities for future
energy and resource shortages.

10.  Millions of us - consumers, farmers, activists - now
realize that unless we act quickly, global warming
and climate chaos will soon severely disrupt
industrial agriculture and long-distance food
transportation, leading to massive crop failures, food
shortages, famine, war, and pestilence. Even more
alarming, accelerating levels of greenhouse gases
(especially from cars, coal, cattle, and related
rainforest and wetlands destruction) will soon push
global warming to a tipping point that will melt the
polar icecaps and possibly unleash a cataclysmic
discharge of climate-destabilizing methane, now
sequestered in the fragile arctic tundra.

11.  Thanks to this growing consumer awareness - and four
decades of hard work - the organic community has built
up a $30-billion "certified organic" food and products
sector that prohibits the use of genetic engineering. The
rapidly expanding organic/natural products sector -
organic (4% of total retail sales) and natural (8%) - now
constitutes more than 12% of total retail grocery sales,
with an annual growth rate of 10-15%. Even taking into
account what appears to be a permanent economic
recession and a lower rate of growth than that seen over
the past 20 years, the organic and natural market will
likely constitute 31-56% of grocery sales in 2020.

12.  This consumer-driven movement, under
relentless attack by the biotech and Big Food
lobby, and with little or no help from
government, has managed to create a healthy and
sustainable alternative to America's disastrous,
chemical- and energy-intensive system of
industrial agriculture. Millions of organic
consumers are now demanding food and other
products that are certified organic and non-GE, as
well as locally or regionally produced, and
minimally processed and packaged.