Dear Editor:
I’d like to comment on your Food Labelling article from April 13, 2018.
What you are missing in this article is an understanding that food labelling is for the PEOPLE who are eating the food... so they are fully aware of what they are purchasing for the intention of eating. It is Not for the industry that is packaging it...
People have the right to be informed as to exactly what is in the products they are being presented with to purchase, and they cannot make wise or informed decisions otherwise...
Labelling needs to be open, honest, and specific, about everything that goes into the food and/or the processing of that food.
If that means that industry needs to keep better records of every part of their food process, that should already be mandatory.
Everything that goes into or happens to a food product should be on the label, as well as where it was grown and processed, no matter how small the ingredient is in the mix of the whole product... I don’t want to put anything in my body that I don’t fully know where it came from, and what kind of handling and processing it has gone through, including the country for every ingredient and every part of the process...
Stop insinuating that food consumers don’t have the understanding, the education, the knowledge, or the brains to be informed enough to read a label and decide, for themselves, if they want to put a certain product in their body, or purchase a food that is not processed to their satisfaction. That may have been true 50 years ago, but it certainly is not now...
All food products need to be clearly labelled whether they contain GMO ingredients, toxic pesticides, organic or not, high sodium, trans fats, sugar content and type used etc. etc. etc.... everything that one should be able to know in order to make informed choices...
It is not industry’s right to keep things from us... it is our right to know what is in our foods, not their right to hide it from us, treating us as if they know, and we don’t what is good for us... we are not children... and it is very well known that they ARE deliberately deceptive, as a means to padding their bottom line...
If you believe that little information can be worse than no information, then the solution is NOT to include less information on the labels, but is to include MORE information on the labels. Anything else is simply the industry’s way of avoiding having to take responsibility for what they put in our foods...
Your articles are very often very short-sighted, and not very well informed, and your knowledge base needs to be greatly expanded, if you are going to be believed and respected for very much longer... people are waking up to the propoganda that industry has been using for years to hide the damage they are doing to our foods, which includes the industrial farming practises, as well as our industrial food processing.
This is the 21st Century now...
People have their eyes open, and they are becoming very aware that they are not being told the truth about what’s in their foods.
And when journalists, such as yourself, don’t bother to keep up with 21st Century information, and instead just keep towing the line for 20th Century industry propaganda, they are not helping... please dig a little deeper than industry-written, bottom-line-padding information, and open your eyes to the revolution that is happening towards regaining a healthy food system, and truthful information about where they come from and how they are processed before they get to our tables...
Crystal Wolf,
Rossburn MB
