In a landslide vote, the Bulgarian Parliament has decided to protect children from unhealthy, genetically modified foods.

Companies can no longer advertise GMOs to children in Bulgaria.

 

In a just-passed amendment to the Food Act, prohibiting the promotion of unhealthy foods, including those containing GMOs, 102 Bulgarian MPs voted for the change to protect children with a law. Only 1 voted against the law, and 29 abstained from voting.

This means that food corporations can no longer target children in television or print ads to try to get their parents to purchase products containing genetically modified ingredients. Children area also not allowed to take part (act, or be presented in) commercials for GM foods.

Transport companies in Bulgaria will have to get special registration for transporting unhealthy food. The bill aims to protect public health by limiting and taxing unhealthy substances (including GMOs).

Conversely, we have food manufacturer’s in the United States who regularly pander GM foods to unsuspecting children. Take this highly targeted ad created by General Mills, for Lucky Charms cereal, which not only contains GM corn and soy, but also GM sugar cane:

GMO Inside states,

“Lucky Charms is a highly processed product with 10 grams of sugar per serving, a full-range of controversial artificial food colorings, and strongly reliant on corn based products that carry a high GMO risk.”

This is just one commercial for one of General Mill’s products.

Kellogg’s, Nestle, Pepsi-Co, Coca-Cola, J.M. Smucker’s, and numerous other food manufacturers which sell genetically modified food products also target children in many countries, every single day with internet and television ads.

In the U.S., there are arguably more genetically modified food products meant for kid’s consumption than non-GM products. Though there are only nine crops which are predominately genetically modified, that are grown in the U.S., hundreds of thousands of products contain GM soy, GM sugar, GM corn, and GM canola oil.

Moreover, many GM crops are raised to feed animals, which we then feed our children, unless parents are raising their children to be vegan and vegetarian. Animal studies show that animals fed foods containing high levels of genetically modified ingredients suffer many health conditions, and these are then passed on to our children.

However, for parents that want to avoid brands that haven’t been banned by our own Monsanto-infiltrated government agencies, you can check sites like eatlocalgrown.com, and foodbabe.com for suggestions.

Until we ban advertising that targets children to encourage them to eat genetically modified food products — parents, teachers, and communities will have to double down on educating children about their dangers.

Kidsrighttoknow.com has some straight-forward information that older children can understand, including answers to questions like:

What foods are GM?

• soy (94%), cotton (90%), canola (90%), sugar beets (95%), corn (88%), Hawaiian papaya (more than 50%), zucchini and yellow squash (over 24,000 acres)
• Products derived from the above, including oils from all four, soy protein, soy lecithin, cornstarch, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup
• Approximately 90% of all products on supermarket shelves contain GMO ingredients

There are also a handful of food chains, like Chipotle, who have announced they won’t be selling genetically modified food to children (or adults.)

Since we can’t rely on many governments to act as the Bulgarian PMs have to protect our children from unhealthy genetically modified food, we’ve got to take things into our own hands.

Otherwise, we might be waiting a very long time to see Monsanto (and the US FDA, along with other agencies) admit that their foods likely cause cancer, reproductive issues, and birth defects, just as we waited for the Marlboro Man to finally admit that smoking wasn’t good for us either.

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