Da-da's Open Letter to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods UPDATED

What do giant baby heads and hallucinations have to do with food? Read on, MacDuff. (Da-da loves Phineas and Ferb, btw.)

Those few within Da-da's Event Horizon know that Da-da loves Trader Joe's, and likes Whole Foods. He admires how much they care about providing safe, healthy food, which is not as easy as you'd think, as well as those who bring the end result to you, Mrs. J. Chong Rutherford of St. Ottery on the Catchpole. (We have a scope on you, now.) Just look at other food chains and how much they care about you -- and how happy their employees look -- and you'll perhaps begin to admire how hard TJ's and Whole Paycheck... er, Whole Foods works for you.

(Ok, YES, Da-da has been critical of Whole Fuds in the past. And YES, this resulted in the consumption of Jack Daniels and LIVE CRABS and the inevitable purchase of a minivan, but it's time we put that terrifying episode behind us, Mr. Potter, and work together for common huggage. Da-da will stop preambling and get to the point.

QUESTION: How many of Trader Joe's and Whole Food's products contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs)? Not just the branded food, but all the rest of it? Da-da would like to know. A lot of people would. Some countries have banned them -- GMOs, not people, though this is occasionally true, like in DC. In non-GMO countries, Da-da's guessing that GMO foods were banned for a good reason.

Here's one good reason Da-da's sure some have forgotten.

Da-da knows this is a difficult topic. Why? Because it look at that thing about our society places people over money, or animals over people, or people over other people, who are really all the same people but don't seem to understand this. Some people cling to this tactic (making them one of THOSE PEOPLE), despite the fact that they're only hurting themselves with this rambunctious behavior. Speaking of that, an NPR food reporter once bold-face-lied to Da-da about Monsanto NOT producing any GMO seedstock (back in 2007), lying not once but THREE TIMES, and refusing to support sustainability, which Da-da found unfortunate. However, things are usually a lot easier to understand when one just follows the money.

Monsanto is friendly!

Said money -- a metric crapload of it -- leads to Monsanto and ConAgra, who now have get-out-of-jail-free cards thanks to a paid-for U.S. Congress, and little in the way of criticism thanks to a paid-for corporate media. If you doubt this, prove Da-da wrong and he will sing your Hosannas of Truth to the Four Winds and give you $20 in unmarked bills (it's all Da-da's got, sorry; he spends all is money on FOOD, remember?).

Please note that Da-da is NOT an activist. Da-da is a DA-DA (hence the eponymous title) of two young boys, mostly; he is also YOUR Da-da, but you keep pushing him away. Also note that Da-da is a fourth-generation trained chef, AND he used to work for a scientific food certification company, so he knows a lot about ingredients and sourcing and what's organic and what's not and how many parts per billion of black centipede ice cream you can fry inside a live turkey before it starts hallucinating enough to not be able to drive a bulldozer through a strip mall without knocking over grampa's hyena. Da-da is also an unsung author and rather questionable blogger.

That said, Da-da's pretty sure a significant portion of the impacted population would WORSHIP Trader Joe's (not like we do already with the midnight bonfires and the naked dancing) and Whole Foods if they were to take a significant stand against GMOs by labeling all their food (which Hole Fuds currently says is impossible on their website, without a governmental Mandate From Heaven). Just label GMO foods and let the market decide what's possible and impossible. But before this can happen, some enlightened corporation (Oxymoron Alert) or autonomous collective somewhere in Somewhereville has to take a stand.

Da-da would suggest to you, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods -- one or the other or both -- to set a firm date for such a proviso in the future, say January 1, 2015 (not 2018, as Whole Foods has already proclaimed). That's far enough out for food folks to make plans. Then, on that date, all foodstufs provided to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods (and maybe other stores around the world) will label whether or not their products contain GMOs. While this won't make food 100% safe (that's impossible), it will send a clear, eye-opening message to those who clearly need an eye-opening message, and will of course take a major step toward making food safer, both for people and cute white laboratory rats, and to make those giant baby head and general hallucinations please stop.

We're all in this together. Void where prohibited.

Hey, Monsanto, ConAgra, Whole Foods... this is what our future kids are gonna look like if they eat GMO foods.
Btw, please stop using rats in the lab to test nasty things. Why not use politicians and banksters?

Note that Da-da continues to be VERY EXCITED about the new General Moods psycho-pharma-foods that we're consuming without compunction, knowledge or malice aforethought. Jeez, who talks like that?

[UPDATE: Da-da stands corrected. Trader Joe's did indeed make such an announcement, that Da-da missed while in the throes of his lunacy hearing. You can read it HERE. Still, a grand-standy public afformation would make us all feel a little better, as well as educate.]

[UPDATE 5/8/13: Da-da was at Whole Foods and saw that they've put "non-GMO" labels on the food shelves for select products. A good start.]

Yes, we know that, Roy, but it's ORGANIC. Not that icky GMO aquatic Brazilian centipede.