Chefs rally nationwide to support GMO labeling, Proposition 37

Chefs rally nationwide to support GMO labeling, Proposition 37


(NaturalNews) As the groundswell of support among the general public
continues to grow for Proposition 37, the effort to require labeling of
genetically modified foods in California, a group of food experts has
joined the ranks of backers: Chefs.

More than 700 chefs and
professional foodies, "from prominent names like David Bouley to
up-and-comers like the chef Bryant Terry of Oakland," have lent their
voice to supporters of the measure, saying - as all of us who support
the effort have said - it is time the public learned all there is to
know regarding GM foods.

To the chefs and foodies, it's not just
the right thing to do, it's about protecting the integrity of the foods
they prepare and we eat.

"We're talking about the provenance of
food, and there's nothing more important to chefs like me," Alice
Waters, the founder of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., and legendary
proponent of locally grown foods, told The New York Times. "We need to know where our food comes from and how it's produced, who produces it. That's the bedrock of what we do."

Enlisting chefs to support Prop 37

Waters
said from the outset she believed she needed to do nothing more than
simply vote "yes" for Prop 37 when she heads to her polling place Nov.
6. But after a visit from Carlo Petrini, founder of the slow food
movement, she was convinced she needed to do more to ensure its passage.

"He
had come to talk about Slow Food and the change in leadership, but the
first thing he started talking about was Prop 37," Waters told the
paper, in reference to the nonprofit Petrini founded in 1989 to nurture
the movement. "He talked about Europe looking to the vote in California
and how we needed to take this on, and I decided then that I needed to
do whatever I could. I needed to get active."

So, following Petrini's visit, Waters said she sent out an e-mail late in evening on Oct. 19, a Friday, asking fellow chefs
she knew all around the country to give their support to the Prop 37
campaign as well. By the following Monday, she had enlisted 100 chefs,
with 200 more quickly signing on once the word got out about what she
was doing via Twitter and other social media networks.

Bouley became the 516th chef to sign onto the cause, said the Times.

"Whether
it's calorie labeling in chain restaurants or chefs putting on their
menus what farm they bought the lamb from, people want to know more
about their food and
where it comes from," Peter Hoffman, chef and founder of the now-closed
Savoy, a farm-to-table pioneer in SoHo, and the Back 40 restaurants,
told the paper. "So this isn't about whether GMO is right or wrong, it's
about transparency. And when someone opposes transparency, what does it
tell you?"

Exactly.

Hoffman also noted that avoiding GM
foods is getting more difficult. For example, he said he recently
discovered that most white vinegar sold in supermarkets comes from corn
and is most likely genetically modified (since most corn is).

'We don't support that'

Dan
Barber, executive chef and owner of the Blue Hill restaurants, said he
dabbles in a little genetic engineering with his partners at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture,
a nonprofit farm and education center at Pocantico Hills, N.Y. that
supplies some of the ingredients he uses in dishes at his restaurants.

Some
of the foods are currently being featured on his restaurant menus, like
a new proprietary variety of squash that was grown at his farm center
by cross-breeding conventional squashes.

"That sometimes results in some outrage from customers initially until we explain what we're doing," Barber told the Times.

But
there's a difference, he says, between what he and his partners are
doing and what the gigantic agribusiness companies - most of which have
poured tens of millions of dollars into ensuring Prop 37's defeat - are
doing.

"They are inserting genes at will, sometimes from
completely different species, and creating things in a lab that would
never occur in nature," said Barber, adding: "We don't support that."

Source:-
http://www.naturalnews.com/037755_chefs_GMO_labeling_Proposition_37.html