WOOHOO!

So exciting, #GMO Labeling bill PASSES in #NJ! This is the first big step – GAME ON!!! #nongmo #justlabelit http://t.co/RdRX9vY4zT

— Dean's Nat Food Mrkt (@deans_market) June 17, 2013

No More GMOs.

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

And that is what we are going to do. We are taking a big step, an aggressive step, one that not too many stores are willing to take. We’re not waiting anymore for GMO labeling laws.

DEAN’S NATURAL FOOD MARKET NON-GMO POLICY ON NEW GROCERY PRODUCTS:  Effective March 18, 2013

Avoidance of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms):  While we do not claim to be GMO-free, we are taking decisive steps to move in that direction. Going forward, we will not accept any new Grocery item containing the top 5 most high-risk GMO crops (corn, soy, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa) into our stores unless they are organic and/or verified by the Non-GMO Project. This includes products containing ingredients such as fructose that are produced using corn or soy.

We strongly encourage any manufacturer that is making a GMO-free claim to have that claim certified by the Non-GMO Project. This service will benefit both the consumer and the manufacturer.

Yes, it’s true. We are not bringing any more grocery products into our stores containing corn, soy, alfalfa, sugar beets or canola unless they are organic and/or Non-GMO Project Verified. Period. It’s not going to be easy, but we are 100% committed. We’re going to be scrutinizing ingredients like crazy, looking for all those hidden sources of the High-risk 5. Corn starch? Sorry, can’t bring it in. Soy lecithin in those cookies, not organic or Non-GMO Project Verified? Sorry, can’t bring it in. This is the level of commitment we are going to bring to make sure that moving forward, we will provide the safest food choices for you and your family.

You may have a few questions about our non-GMO policy, so we’ve prepared a little FAQ.

You’re not taking in any new items containing GMOs, what about everything else in the store? Aren’t you knowingly selling us GMOs?

Few if any stores in the US and Canada are truly GMO free. We’re not there yet, but we are working hard to move in that direction. Going forward we will do our best to limit any products that contain GMOs and continue to find suitable organic/non-GMO replacements for items containing GMOs.

You can help us do this by choosing Non-GMO Project Verified and Organic products when you shop, and encouraging friends and family to do the same.  Look for the seal, check the Non-GMO Project’s iPhone app or product search page, or ask a staff-person for help.

What about other departments, such as Produce and Fresh Foods?

We have no GM produce, as all the produce we sell is organic. This same produce is what we use in our Fresh Foods department. We have taken great care to ensure that almost all ingredients in our kitchens are organic or Non-GMO Project Verified; we still continually seek out replacements for products which do not meet those standards.

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with us at info AT deansnaturalfoodmarket DOT com.

We would like to give a HUGE Thank You to the Non-GMO Project for their collaboration! Please visit them at http://www.nongmoproject.org for more info.

 

 

Did you sign up yet?

Only a few days left until the big event, a lecture from special guest speaker Courtney Pineau of the Non-GMO Project.   You can sign up by calling 732-842-8686 or hit us up at info@deansnaturalfoodmarket.com
While spreading the word about this event around Red Bank and Asbury Park, it  surprised me how many people had no idea what GMOs are and what they’re about. To try to explain them to a layperson in a short and sweet manner, well, it makes one sound like a crazy person. I sounded crazy. Flat-out nuts. And no one seemed too concerned when I explained it to them, they really didn’t seem to care.

In light of the scientific proof found in a newly-released study, people should really start caring.  Massive Tumors in Rats Fed GMOs in First Long-Term Study.

In a nutshell, any previous testing had been short-term, 90 days – there were no discernable results so the Big Ag companies deemed GMOs “safe.” But in a lifespan, 90 days is just a blip. This study was done over a period of 2 years. The rats developed large tumors, sustained multiple organ damage and died at a faster rate. Liver and kidneys were damaged as early as 4 months into the rat’s life. Safe indeed. If this is only the first long-term study, you can only imagine what else they will discover with further testing of this kind.
Find out more about GMOs and the Non-GMO Project at our Shrewsbury location this Sunday, Sept. 23 at 2pm. Actually, come at 1pm for Jessica Jarmer’s on-GMO food demo – tempeh sausage crumble on a butternut squash sauce over pasta – and stay afterwards for Abby Cahn-Anton’s food demo. Eat and learn.

See you there!

Big Announcement: VIP from NGMOP

Hi everyone, GREAT news – we have confirmed guest speaker Courtney Pineau from the Non-GMO Project to come speak at our store, this is HUGE! All those Project verification logos you see on so many products in our stores (and all over the country!) – these are the people who put them there. Come learn about the Non-GMO Project from the source itself.

Dean’s Natural Food Market invites you to attend an in-store presentation from Courtney Pineau of the Non-GMO Project.

GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms, are organisms which have been genetically altered by inserting genes of one species into another species (also known as “genetically engineered”), creating combinations meant to be pest and herbicide-resistant, but possibly with health risks to consumers. GMO foods have not been proven to be safe for us to eat and may in fact be linked to many health issues such as food allergies, infertility, autism, digestive problems and others.

Over 50 countries worldwide have banned GMO crops. In the USA, GMO foods such as corn, sugar beets, soy, canola and zucchini have been present in our food supply since the early 1990s,have been present in our and do not yet require federally-mandated labeling.

The Non-GMO Project is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to develop and uphold a standardized definition of “non-GMO” for food and other products that are produced without genetic engineering. The Non-GMO Project is the only organization in North America offering independent verification of testing for products in the US and Canada. Products which have been verified by the Non-GMO Project as being free of GMOs can be identified by their verification logo on the packaging.

This free presentation starts at 2 pm on Sunday, September 23rd and will take place in our Shrewsbury location at 490 Broad St. (Rt. 35 N), Shrewsbury NJ. All ages are welcome to attend.

PROP 37: The GMO Game-Changer

Let me start out by saying, we don’t usually get political here on The Dish or on any other social media, you won’t see us endorsing political candidates in the upcoming elections, none of that. This issue, however…we’ve gotta talk about Prop 37.

Proposition 37 or the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act is a measure on the ballot in California this November which, if passed, would require food companies to label foods containing GMO (genetically-modified organism) ingredients. You see, as of now, the FDA doesn’t require GMO identification. They require nutrition content, allergens and ingredients, but not GMOs – so basically, we’ve all been eating GE (genetically-engineered) foods since the early 1990s and never knew it. Still don’t.

What’s the big deal, so what if we eat GMOs? We’ve been eating them since the 90s and we’re all fine! Are we? We’ve written about it before, and contrary to what the big biotech corporations of the world would have you think, they have not been proven to be safe. They haven’t proven to be safe at all. In fact, tests done all around the world are preeeeetty much strongly leaning towards the UNSAFE side of the yard. I mean, it’s just like ohhh, OVER 50 COUNTRIES NOW HAVE BANNED THEM. (India just joined this list this past week, yay!).

You may be thinking “Eh, it’s in California, it doesn’t affect me,” – but it can.

California is huge, gigantic. They are the first large state to get this close to passing a labeling law. If they pass it, every food manufacturer who wants to sell in the state of California is going to have to comply by updating their labeling to identify if the product contains genetically modified ingredients. This would mean an across-the-board change as these companies aren’t going to have “California only” packaging. We would all finally know what the heck we’re eating and be able to make our own informed choice as to whether or not we want to eat it.

There is a backlash: Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, and others are putting their big $$$cha-ching$$$ towards fighting this law from happening. Why? They’re spinning it a few ways. “It would be the equivalent to a skull and crossbones on the package and people won’t buy it,” “There’s no proof GMOs are harmful,” to my favorite, the scare tactic of “This will make the cost of your groceries skyrocket.” (I’d link to the opposition’s website to be fair, but it’s just so offensive, it makes this author literally angry.) Many companies you’d be surprised at are donating funds to defeat the law, too.

Regardless of if you think they’re safe or not, we all have a right to at least know and make our own choices. Hey, you might think GMOs being dangerous is a bunch of malarkey and that’s fine – then you can make the choice to eat them. Just as lots of us will make the choice to buy organic and support Non-GMO Project-verified products.

You may not live in California, but it doesn’t matter. Helping to educate, plant the seeds and possible persuade some on-the-fence voters to choose “Yes” can make a difference. Spread the word, make people see and most of all, support the companies who support Prop 37 – http://www.carighttoknow.org/endorsements

Try Going Without

If you follow us on Facebook, you may have seen us mention a project called “A Patented Life.” We think it’s pretty important and would love for you to know a little more about it.

A Patented Life: Sowing the Seeds of Human Rights is a documentary-style project started by Jessica, one of our favorite Juice Bar employees and her friend Mary. They have embarked on a mission to go Monsanto-free for 6 weeks and to document all of it along the way. But what does “Monsanto-free” mean?

Monsanto, as many of you know, is a globally-powerful agricultural biotech company who “dabbles” in GMOs (Genetically-modified organisms.) Their reach goes so much further than any of us know, their seeds being grown and the product reaching our tables, cotton for our clothing, ingredients in our body care – everything. We wrote a little about GMOs a while back for Non-GMO Day, you can read that here.

Jess and Mary have vowed to go 6 weeks without eating or using anything that came from Monsanto and is GMO. It’s a lot harder than you’d think! Mary told us just how hard it is finding not just food, but simple things like shampoo, which contains glycerine derived from GM soy (“It’s in EVERYTHING!” she says.) She downloaded the Non-GMO Project GMO Shopping Guide App to help her – you should try it too, you’ll be surprised at how many of your favorite products are not “clean.”

So far, Jess and Mary told us they’re making a lot of their food at home and bring it with them because when you’re out and about and hungry, what are you going to do – not like you can just stop anywhere and find an organic, non-GMO quick bite to eat (unless you come to Dean’s, of course! ::shamelessplug::).

Jess and Mary invite you to join them and try going without Monsanto too, click here to read the “rules.” All of us here at Dean’s Natural Food Market fully support A Patented Life and wish them the best of luck – hope you do too!

Fish-tomato, Tomato-fish?

Here’s a crazy story.

Way back when, there were these scientists who worked for a big biotech company. They had a challenge: these darned tomatoes, they just don’t survive a frost. Yes, they knew that tomato plants dying off in the winter was Mother Nature’s plan for them but they were all “Hey! We’re smarter than Mother Nature!” and they set off to “fix” this “problem.”

“How can we make these tomatoes last through the cold…hmmm…”

“Hey, here’s an idea. My wife made Arctic Flounder last night, really good, you know, with the lemon and caper sauce? Anyhoo, they live in subzero temperatures – whaddya say we inject the genes of this fish into the tomatoes to see if the DNA merges and the tomato becomes super-mato, able to live through a snowstorm???

“Let’s do it!”

Not even kidding. This is GMO.

GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms, are plants, animals, etc., that have been created by injecting DNA from one species into another species in a lab, creating combinations meant to be pest and herbicide-resistant, but possibly with terrible health risks to consumers. GMO foods have not been proven to be safe for us to eat and in fact, may be linked to many health issues such as food allergies, infertility, autism, digestive problems and many others. Additionally, the altered foreign genes can become part of OUR genes just by us eating them. All in all – it’s a bad, bad scene.

Thankfully, the fish-tomato tomato-fish never made it to our plates (whew!) but plenty of other Frankenstein food experiments have. Things like corn, think about how much corn you eat in various forms: tortilla chips, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable oil, baked good. Or sugar beets, used for their sugars and not required to say so on a list of ingredients containing the word “sugar.” It’s scary. Europe banned all of the GMO crops long ago already, they weren’t even going to take a chance.

Today is Non-GMO Day, which has grown into Non-GMO Month. Be aware. Buy organic. And make your voice heard, send a message to the FDA to at least label GMO foods so we can make a choice whether or not we want to eat them. Most of all, support the companies making strides to keep us healthy by only dealing with non-GMO ingredients.

Linkles: My favorite FrankenTomatoFish story, “Spider genes were inserted into goat DNA, in hopes that the goat milk would contain spider web protein for use in bulletproof vests.” 

“How to avoid Genetically Modified Food”  Good tips.

JUST SAY NO!