Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Fiji Water

It has come to our attention that there are some serious issues regarding Fiji Water. In addition to the environmental concerns about bottled water in general, Anne Lenzer from Mother Jones Magazine, wrote an excellent article about Fiji Water in the September-October 2009 issue. She gives an in-depth description about Fiji Water as a company, past and present, their impact on the environment, and the political and economic conditions in Fiji. Go to www.motherjones.com/fijiwater and you can read the entire article. You can also read the response from Fiji Water to the article as well as the response from Mother Jones here: http://blog.fijigreen.com/2009/08/fiji-water-responds-to-mother-jones-article/.

As much as we might agree with the findings in the Mother Jones article, we feel it's important to share information and educate our members/shoppers about the issues raised and let you vote with your dollars. So at this time we aren't discontinuing carrying Fiji Water, but we won't feature it as we have been. Instead of a big case stack, you'll find it on the bottom shelf in the bottled water section.

If you have any questions or concerns, we would like to hear from you. You can contact Robin Enwright our Product Quality and Education Director at robin@coopportunity.com.

Bottom line - try not to buy bottled water. For your convenience, we carry a large selection of reusable water bottles for all your needs. They're available in stainless steel or BPA Free Plastic, with screw-on caps or sports caps and in different shapes and sizes, including lunch box bottles and kid's bottles. Our newest stainless steel bottle is from EcoUsable and features an "Ionic-Adsorption Micro-Filtration System" inside the bottle. According to the company, this filtration system "removes 99.99% of pollutants that may be found in drinking water for up to 100 gallons of great tasting filtered water." That's approximately 12 months of use. It's easy to break the bottled water habit with all these choices of reusable water bottles.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Food Safety Bill--A threat to small/organic farms--your voice is needed

From the Cornucopia Institute:
Action Alert

Senate Bill 510: FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

Tell the Senate committee not to threaten quality organic and local food production

Act now! Contact your senator Today!
Our food safety system is broken. Industrialized food production gives rise to serious food safety problems, and our government's ability to regulate corporate agribusiness must be strengthened -- without harming small-scale and organic family farmers.

Bills in Congress propose to give more authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate for food safety, inspect food processing facilities, and order mandatory recalls. The House passed its own food safety bill in July. The Senate's bill is in committee and scheduled for a mark-up (committee vote) today

Allowing the FDA to crack down on corporate food producers that threaten our citizenry's health is a step in the right direction -- as long as legislation contains protections for small-scale, organic and local food systems. Small farms could be forced out of business by increasing costs for record-keeping, testing and other measures they will not be able to comply with. These are our country's safest farms -- part of the solution, not part of the problem!

Now is the time to contact Senate committee members (especially if one is from your state) that will make changes to the bill on November 18. Our message is: Senate Bill 510 must contain protections for small-scale and organic family farms.

Please call as many committee members as you have time for!
Take Action Today – Call Senate Committee Members
See the list below for Senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Please call or fax their office, ask to speak with the aide in charge of food safety issues, and share the concerns of the small-scale and organic farming community with them.

List of Senate HELP Committee Members

Senator Phone
Democrats
Tom Harkin (IA) - 202-224-3254
Chris Dodd (CT) - 202-224-2823
Barbara Mikulski (MD) - 202-224-4654
Jeff Bingaman (NM) - 202-224-5521
Patty Murray (WA) - 202-224-2621
Jack Reed (RI) - 202-224-4642
Bernie Sanders (VT) - 202-224-5141
Sherrod Brown (OH) - 202-224-2315
Bob Casey (PA) - 202-224-6324
Kay Hagan (NC) - 202-224-6342
Jeff Merkley (OR) - 202-224-3753
Al Franken (MN) - 202-224-5641
Michael Bennet (CO) - 202-224-5852


Republicans
Mike Enzi (WY) - 202-224-3424
Judd Gregg (NH) - 202-224-3324
Lamar Alexander (TN) - 202-224-4944
Richard Burr (NC) - 202-224-3154
Johnny Isakson (GA) - 202-224-3643
Orrin Hatch (UT) - 202-224-5251
Pat Roberts (KS) - 202-224-4774
Tom Coburn (OK) - 202-224-5754
Lisa Murkowski (AK) - 202-224-6665

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Monday, November 2, 2009

Help the Center for Food Safety

If you're never heard of them before, the Center for Food Safety is an organization that works to protect public health and the environment by promoting organic and sustainable food production practices and lobbying against harmful technologies and companies.

They do a lot of good work and we as a co-op rely on them to alert us to issues and news. They are in the middle of their fall donation funds drive, and they have a short but interesting video of Vandana Shiva, an amazing speaker, on their donation page. Its worth checking out even if you don't wish to donate. Also if food safety is something you're interested in its worth signing up for their e-mail updates which is free.

Check it out (takes you to another website) https://secure.ga3.org/03/FFF_Shiva!

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