Contaminated Ben & Jerry's ice cream, genetic engineering, sodium in pasta sauce

KIND snack bars at the Costco Wholesale Business Center on South River Street in Hackensack are displayed in boxes declaring they are made without "genetically engineered ingredients."

But when I bought Dannon's Oikos Yogurt at the ShopRite in Paramus, I learned from the label when I got home, below, that it is "partially produced with genetic engineering."

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The Organic Consumers Association has launched a campaign to get Ben & Jerry's to go organic after breaking the news about Roundup weedkiller contamination in the company's ice cream.

Roundup or glyphosate, a weedkiller made by Monsanto, is "probably carcinogenic to humans," according to the World Health Organization.

The association, a non-profit advocacy group for organic agriculture based in Minnesota, says Vermont's dairy farmers feed their cows GMO [genetically modified] corn treated with glyphosate, and pollute the state's waterways.

Ben & Jerry's also sources dairy in western states -- all from non-organic industrial dairy farms.

Mostly Roundup

In 2016, the most heavily used pesticide polluting Vermont's waterways was Monsanto's Roundup or glyphosate -- 62,458 pounds, according to the Organic Consumers Association.

Ben & Jerry's said that by 2020, it would aim to eliminate "glyphosate-contaminated ingredients from its supply chain," presumably by not sourcing ingredients from suppliers that use glyphosate "to dry out" crops before harvest.

Ben & Jerry's, now owned by Unilever, also pledged to introduce organic ice cream in 2018, amounting to 6 percent of the brand's total ice cream production in the U.S. 

Less sodium

A half-cup of Shop Rite's Wholesome Pantry Organic Pasta Sauce contains only 8% of the recommended maximum daily intake of sodium -- compared to 18% for Victoria brand sauces and 20% for the Botticelli brand from Italy -- and no added sugar.

I bought four 24-ounce jars of Wholesome Pantry Basil and Tomato or Roasted Garlic, on sale for 99 cents each today, at the ShopRite on Passaic Street in Rochelle Park.

I usually buy a 1-pound tub of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring at Costco Wholesale every week, but the "use by date" is even harder to read than before.