Some opponents of GMO labeling claim that disclosing genetically modified ingredients will increase food prices. But every shopper knows food companies routinely change their labels to make new claims and highlight innovations.
The Safe and Affordable Food Labeling Act aims to address unnecessary impediments to feeding the world.
Whether Congress decides to block GMO labeling is about more than the right to know what we're buying and eating. It's also about consumer confusion.
Advocates of GMO labeling aren't seeking a warning label. We're simply asking for a factual, non-judgmental disclosure on the back of the package.
I think we use a lot of words and labels when trying to describe people: ones with autism, ones without autism. In general, I think that labeling people is a major issue, and people don't understand the power of language.
I'm not an optimist. I'm a realist. And my reality is that we live in a multifaceted, multicultural world. And maybe once we stop labeling ourselves, then maybe everyone else will.
When I was in the California legislature in the '80s, the organic growers, who were sort of the small hippie farmers in those days, brought it to my attention that there were no regulations on organic labeling. In essence, anybody could just grow a thing any way they wanted and put 'organic' on it.
I think people could justify labeling me if they saw a pattern in what I do, but right now that's impossible.
When you label so much of what happens to you as 'bad,' it reinforces the feeling that you are a powerless pawn at the mercy of outside forces over which you have no control. And - this is key - labeling something a bad thing almost guarantees that you'll experience it as such.
Can you actually go through life without labeling what happens to you as good or bad? Sure you can. You have to train yourself to do this. You have been conditioned to think of things as bad or good. You can de-condition yourself. It is neither easy nor fast but it is possible.
