One of the largest privately owned Corporations, the Mars family is reclusive and worth tens of Billions. I'll have to find my purple dragon carrots elsewhere, as I won't support Mars Inc. and their appalling chocolate trade, exploitation of southern hemisphere farmers and the pushing of the nanofood front. They have pioneered nanotechnology in packaging and sensors:
"Nanotechnology will dramatically extend food shelf life. Mars Inc. already has a patent on an invisible, edible, nano wrapper which will envelope foods, preventing gas and moisture exchange. ‘Smart’ packaging (containing nano-sensors and anti-microbial activators) is being developed that will be capable of detecting food spoilage and releasing nano-anti-microbes to extend food shelf life, enabling supermarkets to keep food for even greater periods before its sale. Nano-sensors, embedded into food products as tiny chips that were invisible to the human eye, would also act as electronic barcodes. They would emit a signal that would allow food, including fresh food, to be tracked from paddock to factory to supermarket and beyond." see Nano foe
They also have patents on nano material additives for food flavour enhancement and preservation.
"Mars Inc. US Patent US5741505 nanoscale inorganic coatings: Inorganic nano-coating applied directly to a food product to provide moisture or oxygen barrier to
improve shelf life and/or flavour impact. Coating materials include permitted additives silicon dioxide (E551), magnesium oxide (MgO, E530) and titanium
dioxide (E171). Applications include hard sugar confectionery, ready-to-eat cereals, biscuits, crisps" see
Note: these metalic nanomaterials are used for sensors as well as antimicrobials and studies have shown that they are toxic.
7 comments:
Yeah, and seed of change are also making a huge advertising push promoting packaged foods. The thing that really pisses me off about Seed of Change is that fact that I have such a hard time keeping them and the emminently awesome Seed Savers Exchange straight.
Thank you once again my friend. I was aware of Seeds of Change being owned by Mars but was not yet aware of the issues that you have brought forth. I know, kinda dumb not to look into it, I guess sometimes there are so many things going on pertaining to the issues that you and I are interested in that I miss out on some things. As such, I will not now be purchasing from seeds of change at any time again in the future. Thank you my friend.
They certainly don't advertise their association/encumberance to Mars Inc. Alan. So many things are like that these days...takes a fair bit of digging to know what and from where we are buying..One has to be so diligent to have a "right livelihood".
I didn't know Seeds of Change had a packaged food line...I wonder if they are using the same packaging technology as their parent company?
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange has a great OP catalog. There is hardly a safe place to buy seeds anymore... Wild Garden Seeds is good too. It only takes a glance, the more eye candy, the less I want to purchase from the company.
The good companies are selling out faster than I can get all my seed saving up to snuff!
how sad, just found this out yesterday in the New Adbusters. Why did they do it, sell out like that!!!???!! Now I know why there are these new microwaveable "Seeds of Change" foods showing up on local shelves. Ok, so working on saving my own seed and recently found Southern Seed Exchange also. Hopefuly they won't sell out.
Seed Savers Exchange sold out, too. They didn't sell to a major corporation, but they are now involved with Monsanto in storing their seeds in Norway. You can google it.
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