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®>e ^ c r tla n h (Observer__________________ October 17.2012
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New Prices
Effective
May 1,2010
«
Martin
Cleaning
Service
Carpet & Upholstery
Cleaning
Residential &
Commercial Services
|
Minimum Service CHG.
$45.00
A small distance/travel charge
may be applied
CARPET CLEANING
2 Cleaning Areas or
more $30.00 Each Area
Pre-Spray Traffic Areas
(Includes: I sm all H allw ay)
1 Cleaning Area (only)
$40.00
Includes Pre-Spray Traffic Area
(Hallway Extra)
Stairs (12-16 stairs - With
O ther Services): $25.00
What Are the Food Giants Hiding?
Area/Oriental Rugs:
$25.00 Minimum
Area/Oriental Rugs (Wool):
$40.00 Minimum
The fight over
genetically
modified foods
Heavily Soiled Area:
by
Additional $10.00 each area
(Requiring Extensive Pre-Spraying)
UPHOLSTERY
CLEANING
Sofa: $69.00
Loveseat: $49.00
Sectional: $ 109 - $ 139
Chair or Recliner:
$25 - $49
Throw Pillows (With
Other Services): $5.00
^9
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J ill R ichardson
I'm going to sell you something
to eat, but I won't tell you what's in
it. Trust me, the ingredients are per
fectly safe — but I absolutely op
pose telling you what you're eating.
I also won't let independent scien
tists study the ingredients. And I'm
making a bundle of money by sell
ing these unlabeled products. But
trust me, they are safe. Go ahead,
take a bite.
Does that sound ridiculous?
Well, chances are, your pantry is
full of products made by companies
that are spending millions in Califor
nia to avoid telling consumers what's
in their food.
On Election Day, Californians will
vote on Proposition 37, a measure to
require mandatory labeling of foods
containing genetically engineered
ingredients. Coca Cola, PepsiCo,
General Mills, Kellogg, and Nestle
have each kicked in more than half
a million bucks to defeat the mea
sure. And even if Californians win
the right to know what's in their
food, the rest of the country may
remain in the dark.
Genetically engineered crops are
plants that have had genes from other
species inserted into their DN A. Real
examples include tomatoes endowed
with genes from a fish or com with
genes from a type of bacteria. Most of
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the packaged foods we buy already
contain these ingredients, because
most of our com and soy is geneti
cally engineered.
Check the shelves of your local
supermarket and you'll have a hard
time finding a product with no high
fructose com syrup, soybean oil, or
other com- or soy-based ingredi
ent. The food industry, which pro
hibits studies of these crops by
independent scientists, assures us
that they are safe.
If they were safe and beneficial as
the industry claims, you'd think the
biotech and food industry would
want to brag about them. You'd ex
pect to see boxes of granola bars
labeled "Now with genetically engi
neered com!" Perhaps you'd see
commercials for breakfast cereals
with cartoon tigers telling kids to
ask their parents for Genetically
Engineered Crunch.
Instead, these newfangled crops
quietly slipped onto supermarket
shelves in the mid-1990s without
any warning. Most Americans still
have no inkling that our food has
changed.
Now, when faced with the pros
pect of actually telling their custom
ers what's on their plates, Big Food
is fighting tooth and nail and spend
ing millions to keep us in the dark.
What on Earth are they hiding, if the
products they sell us are as great as
they say?
Think about it: Practically every
major food manufacturer in America
is afraid that you wouldn't buy their
products if you knew what was in
them. I don't care if a food's secret
ingredient is antioxidants or anti
freeze, carrots or carcinogens —
consumers have a right to know
what they're eating. Period.
If a company knows that its cus
tomers would not buy its products
if only they knew what was in them,
then it has a duty to either change
the ingredients or label the ingredi
ents and let its customers decide.
We make food choices for any
number of reasons: taste, price, eth
ics, religion, even fad diets or celeb
rity endorsements. When it comes
to your right to know about what's
in your food, it doesn't matter if
you've got a good reason or a bad
reason for making a particular choice.
I think many fad diets are utterly
insane, and even some members of
my family shake their head at what
I eat. And that's fine.
I have a right to know what's in
my food. So do you. That will leave
us free to choose what we eat.
Proposition 37 em braces the
beauty of the free market: Let us
know what's in our food and let us
decide what to eat. If avoiding ge
netically engineered ingredients
and produce means a food costs
more, we can all decide whether
that's worth it. But corporations
should not be able to make that
decision on our behalf without so
much as letting us know.
OtherWords guest columnist Jill
Richardson is the author o f Recipe
fo r America: Why Our Food System
Is Broken and What We Can Do to
Fix It.