On Wednesday, Representative Mike Pompeo introduced a new bill called the “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act.”
Essentially, this legislation seeks to nullify state efforts to require labeling of genetically modified foods.
Quite frankly, I’m not a fan of the government getting involved in this stuff. It’s not the federal government’s responsibility to dictate to private companies what they must and must not print on their labels. Of course, that’s exactly what they do.
In fact, back in February, we got word that the FDA was proposing changes to the nutrition facts on labels. The changes include the following:
- Require information about the amount of “added sugars” in a food product. Based on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans determination that calorie intake from added sugar is too high in the U.S. population and should be reduced. The FDA proposes to include “added sugars” on the label to help consumers know how much sugar has been added to the product.
- Updating serving size requirements to reflect the amounts people currently eat. What and how much people eat and drink has changed since the serving sizes were first put into place in 1994. By law, serving sizes must be based on the portion consumers actually eat, rather than the amount they “should” be eating.
- Present calorie and nutrition information for the whole package of certain food products that could be consumed in one sitting or in multiple sittings.
- Refresh the format to emphasize certain elements, such as calories, serving sizes and Percent Daily Value, which are important in addressing current public health problems like obesity and heart disease.
I’m not sure if the folks over at the FDA actually believe that by making these changes, Americans are going to magically become healthier. As far as I’m concerned, this is just another fruitless attempt to integrate government dictates on private businesses.
Conveniently Omitted
Of course, the fact that GMO labeling is not listed in these changes is quite telling.
While most polls indicate that the majority of Americans would like foods containing GMOs to be labeled, the FDA made no mention of GMO labeling in its press release. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the Deputy Commissioner of the FDA, Michael Taylor, once worked for the leader in GMOs – Monsanto.
Although this should come as no surprise. Hell, the entire United States government – from the White House to the State Department to the Supreme Court – is infected with Monsanto shills.
Check it out. . .
And Congressman Pompeo’s bill is yet one more favor being done for the GMO industry.
Pompeo has stated that GMOs are safe and equally healthy compared to non-GMO foods. And if anyone should know, it would be another worthless bureaucrat who’s landed nearly a quarter of a million dollars from Koch Industries. Which, by the way, is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (which backs Pompeo’s bill), and donated more than $7 million to fight a ballot initiative to label GMO foods in Washington State. Oh, and Monsanto was the largest donor to that campaign, too.
Not only is there a serious conflict of interests here (which is essentially how Washington works now), but Pompeo’s bill is in direct violation of states’ constitutional rights to pass their own laws to protect public health. He has broken his oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and should therefore be fired immediately.
