Here are 5 reasons why not to purchase bottled water

1. Bottled water is not any healthier or cleaner than tap water, although the industry may claim
2. One plastic bottle can take hundreds of years to decompose; therefore, loading up our landfills for years at a time (Greeniac24)
3. Expensive and costly compared to drinking tap water or filtered water from a reusable, biodegradable bottle
4. The production of one plastic bottle uses energy, omits toxins into the air, and uses more water to produce than actually put into the bottle for drinking
5. Plastic bottles contain a harmful substance called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, which is dangerous to human health (Greeniac24)

Here are 5 benefits of using a reusable water bottle

1. Better for our environment by reducing the amount of fossil fuels and toxins released into the air during production
2. Durable, stylish, and can help you decrease your carbon footprint (Greeniac24)
3. Tap water is more cost-efficient. Bottled water can cost up to 500 times the cost of tap water
4. Better for your health and the health of your family by using a BPA-free, lead-free reusable bottle
5. Convenient. Most public facilities have water fountains to fill up your water bottle

Most would think these facts are a no-brainer and the better choice is to have a reusable bottle, yet millions of bottles of water are purchased every day. We all have the choice to make a change for the environment, the economy, and our personal health; we just need to take that step forward and Ban the Bottle.

Ban the Bottle is an organization promoting the environment by advocating bans on one-time-use plastic water bottles. We believe that tap water tastes great and by eliminating plastic bottles in schools, offices and public areas, we can eliminate unneeded waste in landfills. We advocate the use of reusable bottles manufactured by companies like CamelBak and Nalgene.

In addition to banning plastic bottles, Ban the Bottle promotes initiatives aimed at improving hydration for children and adults. We believe that water is the central component to life and staying hydrated can improve performance, health and vitality.

The Newest Addition To Our Family “Tyler”

May 6th, 2012 was a joyous day in our family. My step-daughter Cindi gave birth to her second child “Tyler” and our 6th grandchild! What a wonderful new addition to our family. We are thrilled to have them staying with us until their new place is ready to move into. Being grandparents brings us such happiness and we love sharing in the daily care of this wonderful bundle of joy. Cindi is a great mother and is breast feeding, so I havent gotten a chance to “feed” him yet, but keep telling her that he should probly drink some water. (at least then I would have a chance to feed him).  Being in the water filter business, and knowing how important water is for life, I was certain that baby Tyler should be drinking water. I have faith that our Multipure filtered water would be completely safe for him to drink. However, Cindy said that the hospital staff told her she should only give the baby breast milk. Not knowing any better, I was still defiant and insisted that the baby “needs” water. After all, formula is mixed with water and water is necessary for life.  As we (me, hubby and Cindi) were mildly debating whether or not an infant needs to drink water, my husband Carl decided to go online to do the research. The following are exerpts that categorically state that babies in fact Do NOT need water.

Babycenter.com says: “In general, it’s not a good idea to give your baby water until he’s about 6 months old. Until then, he’ll get all the hydration he needs from breast milk or formula, even in hot weather. Giving a baby younger than 6 months old too much water can interfere with his body’s ability to absorb the nutrients in breast milk or formula. It can also cause his tummy to feel full, which curbs his desire to feed. (While small sips of water probably won’t hurt your baby, it’s best to check with his doctor beforehand during those first six months.)

In rare cases, a baby who drinks too much water can develop a condition known as water intoxication, which can cause seizures and even a coma. Water intoxication happens when too much water dilutes the concentration of sodium in the body, upsetting the electrolyte balance and causing tissues to swell”.

Another article we found on http://www.livestrong.com/article/ says:

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend introducing water into an infant’s diet at 6 months of age after consultation with the child’s pediatrician. Prior to 6 months of age, breast milk is the recommended source of hydration for babies, and when breastfeeding is not possible, infant formula should be given. Any water given to an infant by itself or in infant formula should be approved by a local health department.

Hydration Before Six Months of Age

Prior to 6 months of age, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends giving a child breast milk exclusively. Breast milk contains the most nutrients possible for a baby’s proper growth. If the baby or mother is unable to breastfeed, infant formula is the next best source of liquid until the child reaches 6 months of age. Water or juice should not be given to a child under 6 months of age.

USDA Water Precautions

To ensure that that the water given to infants is safe, the USDA recommends that parents use water sources approved by their local health department and follow a routine of sterilization. To avoid traces of lead, parents should use cold water that has been run in the tap for 2 minutes. Water should be boiled for 1 to 2 minutes and then cooled. Before feeding water that has been boiled to an infant, parents must always test the temperature to ensure that it is adequately cool and will not burn the baby’s mouth or throat. Water should be sterilized both when given to infants by itself or when used in infant formula.

Water Intoxication:

Beyond concerns about absorption of nutrients, pediatricians do not recommend water for infants before 6 months of age because of the risk for water intoxication. In rare cases, water intoxication can occur when a child drinks too much water and his sodium concentration becomes imbalanced. This imbalance upsets the baby’s electrolytes, causing body tissues to swell and possibly leading to seizures or a coma. Water intoxication can also occur when a parent adds too much water to her child’s infant formula.

Water in Infant Formula

Water used in infant formula should be used in accordance with the directions on the formula’s container. The use of too little water can lead to dehydration and affect the child’s digestive and endocrine system. Too much water will interfere with the caloric content of the formula, which could hinder the child’s growth, or, in rare cases, cause water intoxication. Water should always be sanitized as suggested by USDA regulations.

Infant Water Needs

Once a baby is past 6 months of age, she should drink 2 to 4 oz. of water twice per day until she reaches 1 year of age. At 12 months of age, children should drink at least 4 oz. per day, based on the child’s thirst. Signs that an infant needs more water include fewer wet diapers, a sunken soft spot, a dry mouth and gums, a lack of tears when crying and constipation.”

So there you have it. I was wrong and am happy to know that our new grandson Tyler will be completely fine NOT drinking water.

Fluoridated tap water and toothpaste are oftentimes considered the main sources of fluoride exposure, but it turns out that common food items could also be largely contributing to your fluoride intake.
According to fluoride expert, Jeff Green, who has been actively protesting and studying the effects of fluoride on the body for other 15 years, one common food product contains up to 180 times more fluoride than your fluoridated tap water!
According to Green, the culprit is non-organic food, but not just one kind.
If you’re still eating conventionally-farmed food products, you may be unknowingly exposing yourself to extreme levels of fluoride. Green says this is made possible by fluoride going incognito within the food supply in a very concerning way:

‘Cryolite is actually sodium aluminum fluoride… This sodium aluminum fluoride is especially effective at killing bugs,’ Green says. ‘It’s also very sticky, so when they spray it, it’s more likely to stick on your produce, unless you’re… really working at trying to get it off of it.”

Fluoride-Based Pesticide Contaminating Food Staples
While Green states that a large number of non-organic produce items can contain shocking levels of this fluoride-based pesticide, iceberg lettuce may be one of the largest offenders. In fact, iceberg lettuce can now be laced with a startling 180 parts per million (ppm) of fluoride – 180 times higher than the ‘recommended’ water fluoridation level. This ‘health’ food could actually be corroding your body with heavy levels of fluoride. But what other seemingly-healthy produce items contain high amounts of fluoride?

• Citrus fruits are actually allowed to contain 95 ppm of sodium fluoride.
• Potatoes can have as much as 22 ppm on the outside, and 2 ppm inside.
• Raisins are allowed 55 ppm.

Fluoride has been linked to decreased IQ in children, and even the United States government is calling for lower levels of fluoride to be added to United States water supplies.
Perhaps the next big hurdle in the fight against fluoride will be within the food industry.

Source: http://www.activistpost.com/

Related:

States that MANDATE fluoride be added to your tap water!

Paul Connett – Your Toxic Tap Water

(NaturalNews) To understand something as important and beautiful as pure water we need to understand consciousness because pure consciousness and pure water have many things in common. Though absolute, pure water does not exist outside of a laboratory except as a concept, pure consciousness is not a concept, but it is rarely experienced or perceived in its pure form.
“Ask yourself what the world’s most precious commodity is, and you might say gold; you might say diamonds. You’d be wrong on both counts. The answer is water. If by “most precious” we mean what’s most desired by most people, nothing comes close to water — fresh, clean water, that is.” – Michael McCarthy
Pure consciousness, what is that? It is much easier to say what it isn’t than what it is. If we sit down in meditation and relax until we do not feel our bodies, then slow our minds down till there are no more thoughts to think, and calm our hearts until there is no more emotion, no feeling, no hearing, and no images in our imagination, what do we have left? Nothing but our very own pure consciousness; pure awareness is what is left and this is the foundation of everything that we are.
Water and consciousness are both remarkable substances. Water for example, although we drink it, wash with it, fish and swim in it, and cook with it, we tend to overlook the special relationship it has with our lives. Without water, we would die within a week. Now consider pure consciousness, without it we die in a nano-second. We use it all the time for the most basic life processes, to think, imagine, feel, plan, touch, taste, see and hear with, yet we pay it no attention.
Pure consciousness is an idea that a physicist would be more comfortable with because the best comparison to it would be the black light of space. We normally look up into the nighttime sky and see the blackness of space in-between the stars thinking that space is absent of light. Such thoughts are foolish because in each square centimeter of black space is all the light of the universe. So intensely full of light is space that we cannot see it because it would burn our retina in an instant. Most of us are not familiar with the dynamics of our own consciousness nor do we bother to train ourselves in meditation to perceive the pure light within for it is an intensely dynamic space that is difficult to pin down. In that space we call pure consciousness, even one thought crashes us out of it, like being kicked out of heaven. But back we can go when we re-silence the mind, which we can do if we train ourselves to do it.
As it is with consciousness it is with water. Anything added makes it impure. One very small drop of mercury will destroy many gallons of pure water, polluting it terribly. The pure is highly vulnerable to the impure. This is the most basic similarity between water and consciousness as is the fact that both immediately take the shape of anything. The thought arises in consciousness and consciousness takes the exact shape of the thought. Water will fit into any vessel and it will accommodate any chemical, any poison, any heavy metal in its breast. Dirty water and dirty consciousness seem like cousins and they are. Those who would dirty our waters by adding poisons to the water like fluoride are dirty and indecent in their consciousness as well. And those who would sell us filtering equipment that does not remove this cancer-causing agent are playing a game that puts their commercial interests above their responsibility to protect our children and ourselves from harm.
We are water and we are consciousness and the purer we can keep both the better off we are. To ensure our families the best health possible we have to be dedicated. We have to invest our consciousness in subjects like water and learn to be wise about it. So many of us take our water for granted just as we take our consciousness for granted.
“Each year in the U.S., lead in drinking water contributes to 480,000 cases of learning disorders in children and 560,000 cases of hypertension in adult males.” – U.S. EPA
The cost of distancing ourselves from the purity of consciousness and the purity of water are astronomical. Only when we care about purity will we really contemplate on our absolute need for the purest water possible. When we do sit down and concentrate our consciousness on pure water we come to see it as a powerful medicine for prevention and treatment of disease.
“In 1994 and 1995, 45 million Americans drank water from water systems that fell short of SDWA standards.” – Environmental Protection Agency
Pure water is a most basic medicine though it can contain health and life giving substances like magnesium and calcium and still be considered pure, at least by the meaning we are putting out here. It is the same with pure consciousness as well. A person can be in touch with their pure consciousness and this does not mean that the person will never have a thought running through their brain.
The funny thing about pure water is that it can be full of impurities and still look pure. That’s why we can so easily deceive ourselves and drink life destroying water from our taps, wells, and yes even bottled water. And we find the same in human consciousness. A person can be all dressed up in lily white garments and say all the right words and behave most of the time correctly yet still hurt people. The pure water that we will be studying, achievable through various treatment/filtering approaches, is dynamic and is dependent on water inputted into our filtering systems and what we do to that water. As with consciousness, it is with water. We need to understand the impurities to reach understanding of the pure. When it comes to our approach to the best water possible we have to pay attention even to what we store the water in. Plastic, as we will see, is just the next disaster waiting to happen to our water, our lives and to the ecology of the entire planet. The chances of water remaining pure stored in some kinds of plastic are close to zero.
“35% of the reported gastrointestinal illnesses among tap water drinkers were water related and preventable.” – Center For Disease Control
Some scientists believe that for every outbreak of poisoning from water reported in the United States, another ten may be occurring. One such study found that as many as one in three gastrointestinal illnesses — often chalked up to “stomach flu” — are caused by drinking water contaminated with microorganisms. It was only ten years ago that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the EPA advised that people with weakened immune systems should consult with their doctors and consider boiling their drinking water to kill any cryptosporidium.
Detoxification is probably the single most important component to long-term health and this has become increasingly true each year, as environmental chemicals have built up all around us. Successful detoxification and chelation are totally dependent on an adequate intake of good water. Water is our body’s only means of flushing out toxins. The more water we drink, and the purer and more alkaline that water is, the more we allow our body to purify itself.
Since almost all degenerative diseases are the result of toxins, water becomes and is the most basic and essential medicine we have to employ. Thus the quality of the water we drink is equally as important as the amount. If water already contains chlorine and other chemicals‚ it has less of an ability to carry toxins out of our body. If we consume water that contains traces of synthetic chemicals‚ then we force our liver and kidneys to be the filter. It makes much more sense, if we care about our health, to externalize the filtering of water with one of the three basic types of filtering systems widely available. Instead of ultimately damaging or destroying our liver and kidneys and destroying healthy cell environments we let the filters do the work for us. Money is well spent on filtering our water. Bottled water, on the other hand, is a poor and insecure substitute for the care we must individually put into our own water supplies. With an abundant intake of clean‚ healthy water we allow our body to perform all the healing processes that it is naturally capable of and this makes all the difference in the world with all the other medical or naturopathic treatments we employ.
When you bring things down to the very simple level of the pure it becomes crystal clear that healing is about bringing a person back to a relatively purer state. What it comes down to is this. What do you think would be better when you are sick and run down? What would you put down your throat, some poison or something pure in its ability to cleanse you of the impure? In reality there are many people who think a little poison will do the trick. Most of these people who believe this are of course doctors, dentists and nurses and hundreds of millions of people who worship at the allopathic alter and have no problem swallowing the toxic drugs and medicated water recommended to them.
“Unhealthy drinking water affects children in different ways than it does adults. There is cause for special concern for the health of children who do.” – Natural Resources Defense Council
Water is what we make it out to be; for we as a society pollute and treat it and we are the ones who can treat it again inside of our own homes. We can protect our family and drink pure healthy water but to do this we have to treat the water ourselves. Most people buy a cheap carbon filter and think they’re protected when they are not. If we are using tap water, no matter where in the world we live, it is safe to assume that every time we go to the faucet for a drink or take a shower we are taking toxins into our bodies. Point-of-use water treatments systems today (filtration, Reverse Osmosis, Distilled) are extremely viable and readily available means by which water of extremely high quality can be provided. In today’s world with water supplies being what they are, any good home based water treatment method is much better than no treatment at all. When we get into comparing one type of water processing system with another, disagreements break out about which is the best or healthiest water to drink.
“As to carbon filtered and reverse osmosis (RO) water, these are better solutions than tap water or mineral water, however they still fall far short of the standard set by distilled water.” – Dr. Ron Kennedy
If we consider that a good carbon filtration system can remove above 95 percent of all water impurities, we can consider them as a viable and convenient option. Yes reverse osmosis and distilled water will be purer and thus in need of some kind of re-mineralization treatment for optimal healthy water. Filters can be used with confidence as long as one does not push the life cycle of the carbon and one’s selection of filter takes out most of the fluoride, which many do not.
When it comes to water, we cannot afford to be lazy. We have to take a good look at what is in our local water supply and decide what we are going to do about it. We cannot allow our public water officials to pull a rug over our eyes. We cannot afford to fall back on crude beliefs and basic assumptions but have to examine all sides of the issue and look into the facts. It’s a fact that William K. Reilly, Administrator of the EPA under the first Bush Administration, classified drinking water contamination among the top four public health risks posed by environmental problems.
Why don’t we hear our present health and medical officials warning us about our water? Some experts estimate that 560,000 people become moderately to severely ill each year from consuming contaminated water. About 10,700 bladder and rectal cancers each year may be associated with Trihalomethanes (THMs) in the water and their chemical cousins. That translates into about thirty cancers per day and that estimate is from fifteen years ago or when there were literally billions of tons less of chemical poisons in the environment. All we hear from the CDC is their fears of the bird flu to justify even more vaccines with which to poison the public with.
When it comes to the concept of pure water, it is just accepted that nothing can compete with distilled water for purity but some RO systems do come quite close. But some doctors, despite the fact that distilled water has been used by spas around the world for serious detoxification programs, complain that going for 100 percent purity with water has its disadvantages. The worst option is to drink tap water with the second worst option being bottled water sold in plastic.
Dr. Masaru Emoto has demonstrated that the relationship between water and consciousness is not a joke. Dr. Emoto took samples of water from various sources, froze a few droplets, examined them under a dark field microscope and photographed them. He experimented first with water from a pure source in Japan. The picture revealed a beautiful crystalline form. He then did the same thing with water from a nearby-polluted river. The result was a muddy, smeared pattern with very little structure. He then asked a priest from a temple to offer a prayer to the polluted water sample and repeated the experiment out of curiosity. To his surprise, another beautiful crystalline structure appeared. The Crystalline structure produced by “Thank you” in Japanese and the crystalline structure produced by “You make me sick, I will kill you.” strikingly showed the difference in their final form.
To deal effectively with pure water, we in fact have to become the manager of our own water treatment plant. After all who are we going to trust? Those who put poisons like chloramines and fluoride into the water or ourselves? To take responsibility for our own water is an important act of love. Pure consciousness and purified water are bound together by love. It is the unloving among us that pollute our waters and the indecent who deliberately put poisons into the waters thinking they are doing us all a favor.
It is our obligation to strive for the purest water possible. Deciding what system is best for our needs is a very individual and personal process and there is no filtering system that is best for everyone. If we want pure water we have to put our devotion to it, our spirit, and some financial resources but we shall be surprised at how little a reasonably good system can cost. In a world with inequalities of wealth, we have to pause and consider what we can afford in time, energy and financial resources. Very few can afford the kind of systems that can handle every problem with water but for very little we can do some amazing things to the water we drink.
Note: Beware of the quick and uninformed opinion about water. There is tremendous disagreement here as everywhere. Everyone in the water business is going to try to sell you something. – Mark Sircus Ac., OMD
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/

The key to preventing cocktails from becoming calorie bombs is to take care when selecting the base for the drink. Juices (even unsweetened ones), sodas, anything with a syrup in it, and most liqueurs all pack tons of sugar.

The best option for a satisfying light drink is to start with seltzer water or still water. Be aware that club soda is not the same thing. While club soda doesn’t have calories, it does have sodium. Once you have a clean water base, you can start adding flavorings to it.

We’ve created three cocktails worthy of your Cinco de Mayo celebration that won’t necessitate a half marathon to burn off the calories. We use real fruit, distilled spirits and a touch of agave nectar to keep things fresh and light. If you like, add a touch of salt around the rim of your glass for a classic margarita feel. Do this by running a lime wedge around the rim, then overturning the glass and dipping it in a plate of coarse salt.

SPARKLING RASPBERRY MARGARITA

Start to finish: 10 minutes

Servings: 1

1/2 orange, cut into pieces

1 lime, cut into pieces

1/4 cup fresh raspberries

1 teaspoon agave nectar

1 ounce silver or white tequila

Seltzer water

Fill a cocktail glass with ice. In a cocktail shaker, muddle the orange, lime, raspberries and agave nectar with the tequila until the fruit is very pulpy and juicy. This should take about 5 minutes. Strain into the ice and top with seltzer water.

Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 130 calories; 0 calories from fat (0 percent of total calories); 0 g fat (0 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 17 g carbohydrate; 1 g protein; 3 g fiber; 0 mg sodium.

SUPER CITRUS ‘RITA

Start to finish: 10 minutes

Servings: 1

Kosher salt

Juice of 1/2 ruby red grapefruit

Juice of 1/2 orange

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 ounce reposado tequila

Salt the rim of a cocktail glass and fill with ice. In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine the grapefruit juice, orange juice, lemon juice, lime juice and tequila. Shake vigorously, then strain into the glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 130 calories; 0 calories from fat (0 percent of total calories); 0 g fat (0 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 17 g carbohydrate; 1 g protein; 0 g fiber; 480 mg sodium.

CUCUMBER COOLER

Start to finish: 10 minutes

Servings: 1

1 cup peeled, seeded and diced cucumber

1 ounce silver or white tequila

Juice of 1 lime

1 teaspoon agave syrup

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves

1 cup ice

In a blender, combine the cucumber, tequila, lime juice, agave and mint leaves. Blend until completely pureed. Add the ice and blend until the ice is finely chopped. Pour into a tall glass and garnish with mint and a lime wedge.

Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 110 calories; 0 calories from fat (0 percent of total calories); 0 g fat (0 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 12 g carbohydrate; 1 g protein; 1 g fiber; 5 mg sodium.

ENJOY!

Source: http://www.pnj.com/

Write a 250-word Letter to the Editor Telling Why Your Favorite Wetland or Small Stream Deserves Protection under the Clean Water Act.

National Wildlife Federation and River Network

Additional Rules:

ELIGIBILITY: OFFERED ONLY TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES (“U.S.”) VOID IN PUERTO RICO AND WHERE PROHIBITED. Employees, officers and directors of the Companies and the immediate family members (spouses and parents, children and siblings and their spouses, regardless of where they live) or members of the same households (whether related or not) of such employees, officers and directors are not eligible. The Companies reserve the right to verify, in their sole judgment, winner eligibility. This Contest is governed by the laws of the United States. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. By entering you agree to these Official Rules and the decisions of the Companies, which are final and binding in all respects.

The Companies assume no responsibility for lost, late, misdirected, illegible or mutilated entries or for any computer, online, telephone, cable, network, electronic or Internet hardware or software malfunctions, failures, connections, availability, garbled or jumbled transmissions, service provider, Internet, web site, or other accessibility or availability issues, traffic congestion, or unauthorized human intervention, or any technical malfunctions that may occur. Entrants shall be the authorized account holder of the email address submitted at the time of entry. “Authorized account holder” is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an email address by an Internet access provider, online service provider, or other organization (e.g., business, educational institution, etc.) that is responsible for assigning email addresses for the domain name associated with the submitted email address.

DEADLINE:  The final date for submitting the writing is Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 1 p.m. Pacific Time.

Reposted with permission from EcoWatch.org

Elizabeth Klein from University of Cincinnati was announced as the winner of our I Heart Tap Water video contest with her stop-motion animation video. Klein’s video and other finalist videos fulfilled the following requirements: a declaration of love for tap water, some discussion about bottled water consumption, and why the student‚ college or university should break the bottled water habit.

The Winning Videos

Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainably produced. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping the global commons — our shared resources — under public control. Stay informed. Visit:  http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

On April 23, Nestlé announced it had purchased Pfizer’s infant nutrition unit, which will strengthen their ability to sell infant formula in emerging markets, particularly in Asia. The move is not surprising, since 85 percent of Pfizer’s infant nutrition revenues came from developing countries, where Nestlé is also looking to expand its sales of bottled water.

How do we know this? Nestlé has declared both its Pure Life brand of bottled water and infant formula as “Popularly Positioned Products” (PPP) that target “less affluent consumers in emerging markets”. Two weeks ago, we mentioned Nestlé’s report outlining this strategy in this blog. For some reason, the report is no longer available on Nestlé’s site without the requisite log-in information. But we’ve reposted the document here.

Yesterday, our executive director, Wenonah Hauter, released this statement in response to Nestlé’s purchase of Pfizer’s infant nutrition unit:

This renewed focus on growing the market for its infant formula products is troubling given the corporation’s track record of using dubious practices to market infant formula in developing countries, where it is often prepared in unhygienic conditions with unsafe water….Surely, it is no coincidence that many mothers will prepare the formula with bottled water—which will no doubt benefit Nestlé’s emerging market strategy.

Selling bottled water to poor people, and pushing infant formula on poor but otherwise healthy mothers who may not have access to safe drinking water is doing what Nestlé does best: undermining public health in the name of profit.

For more on Nestlé’s plan to market bottled water in developing nations to offset the drop-off in sales from developed countries, read our report, Hanging on for Pure Life.

Today a grassroots corps of volunteer petition gatherers arrived at County Clerks’ offices in all 58 counties in California. They delivered almost a million petitions signed by registered voters along with this message:

Millions against Monsanto are taking back our democracy and restoring our fundamental right to know what’s in our food.

This is the first step in putting the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on the ballot in November. Now it’s time for the next step: ramping up the campaign so that millions of fired-up voters in California will turn out in record numbers on November 6 to pass this initiative.

To make this happen, a broad coalition of food, farm, health, public interest, and environmental groups all over the country, joined by leading organic food companies, are delivering this same message today: Let’s drop the money bomb on Monsanto.

Please help these groups raise $1 million dollars by May 26th for the California Right to Know GMO Labeling Campaign. You can donate online, by phone, or by mail.

After decades of allowing corporations like Monsanto to buy off our politicians and regulatory agencies, to intimidate everyone from small farmers and state legislators to the Governor of Vermont – to poison our food and our planet – it’s time to say “No more.”

It’s time to tell Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Bullies that we demand the right to know whether our food has been genetically engineered. It’s time for the 99% of us to tell our elected officials that if they won’t protect us from CEOs and corporations – the 1% that are destroying our health, our food, and our planet – we will bypass them. We will organize ballot initiatives and write our own laws. And then vote them into law.

It’s time to drop the money bomb on Monsanto.

Monsanto, Big biotech and Food Inc., are desperate to defeat the California Right to Know Ballot Initiative. They will spend millions on a campaign based on lies and intimidation. They’ll try to convince voters that GMOs aren’t dangerous, and that labeling them will make food more expensive. They’re counting on us to cower in the face of their massive spending and TV ads, and their threat to sue any state that dares to stand up to them.

What they aren’t counting on is you – and millions like you across the country – who know what’s at stake in California. Millions who know that if this law passes in the state with the eighth largest economy in the world, it’s only a matter of time before we win the battle everywhere.

Monsanto isn’t counting on millions of people like you who know that GMOs in our food have been linked to a host of health issues, including kidney and liver damage, infertility, auto-immune disorders, allergies, accelerated aging and birth defects.

It doesn’t matter what political party you belong to, or which candidates you support. The right to know issue belongs to all of us. It’s about our food, our health, and our environment. We are all in this together. That’s why together, we are going to raise $1 million in the next few weeks to help pass this law, and shift the balance of power back to the grassroots, the 99%.

Please donate today – online, by phone, or drop a check in the mail. Every dollar that you contribute will go directly into the California Right to Know ballot initiative and other state GMO labeling campaigns, including a legal defense fund to defend states that pass GMO labeling laws from Monsanto lawsuits.

We can do this. It’s time. Let’s drop the money bomb on Monsanto and take back our food supply. Thank you!

For an Organic Future,

Ronnie Cummins Director, Organic Consumers Association and Organic Consumers Fund
P.S. All money raised for this campaign will go through the Organic Consumers Fund, a 501(c)4 allied organization of the Organic ConsumersAssociation, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action. Donations are not tax-deductible.

Please forward this publication to family and friends, place it on web sites, print it, duplicate it and post it freely. Knowledge is power!  Organic Consumers Association