Saturday, August 25, 2012

Did Kashi Lie?

When a grocer in Rhode Island pulled his boxes of Kashi cereal because they were advertised as "natural" which he thought was misleading, in that they contained genetically engineered ingredients or GMOs, Kashi responded:
"While it's likely that some of our foods contain GMOs, the main reason for that is because in North America, well over 80 percent of many crops, including soybeans, are grown using GMOs. Factors outside our control such as pollen drift from nearby crops, and current practices in agricultural storage, handling and shipping have led to an environment where GMOS are not sufficiently controlled."
However, Will Fantle, the Cornucopia Institute's Research Director, said:
"We purchased a readily available box of Kashi’s GoLean® cereal from a Whole Foods store. We then sent a sample to an accredited national lab for testing, finding that the soy in the natural cereal was 100% GMO."
Cornucopia said:
"The Kashi video suggested, disingenuously, that any genetically engineered contamination in their food was from incidental sources rather than crops intentionally grown from GMO seed.
...
"This is classic public relations spin and crisis communications work, where corporations use misinformation to try to cover their tracks,” said Rebekah Wilce, of the Center for Media and Democracy/PRWatch."
Kashi is owned by the Kellogg Company, "which has contributed $632,000 to defeat Proposition 37," a ballot initiative in California's upcoming election that seeks to have genetically engineered foods labeled.

Kashi should either have said nothing, or have proudly proclaimed that their products contain the modern marvel of biotechnology.
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2 comments:

Angela and Melinda said...

Wonderful bit of research on this!

RB said...

When it comes to food, the term "natural" is meaningless. Having said that, I agree with the Rhode Island grocer that GMO food is not natural.

To the great extent that GMO has penetrated out food supply, I can feel for Kashi that its hard to produce a GMO free food or absolutely avoid having to use GMO ingredients. However, they should be upfront about this and not try to weasel word or lie their way around the issue.

Bix, I also agree with you that if the food industry thinks GMO food is so good, they proclaim the "modern marvel of biotechnology." The industry needs to make their case to the public and be proud to show the GMO label. By fighting labeling, one must think they have something to hide.