Stonyfield Preached and I Was the Choir
Yesterday I went to lunch at the Soho House in West Hollywood. Hint, if you want me to leave my house to listen to you talk about dumb things get yourself a membership to Soho House and invite me there. I’ll never join because it’s impractical but I’ll show up at your whatever to eat good food, have great service and no attitude. I’ve never been to the NYC Soho House but the LA version is pleasingly down to Earth.
This luncheon was decidedly not down to Earth in the loveliest way. Everyone was looking their best and since 95% of the room was women we’d clearly all dressed for each other. There was hair everywhere, dresses, heels, bright colors (lipstick included), tons of vintage Chanel and warm smiles abounded. It wasn’t so much a collection of random women as it was a collection of concerned women walking the same path.
Once seated there were speakers. There’s a lady named Barbara from Right To Know that was clearly nervous but also impassioned and gave a talk about finding allergies in her youngest child who was dining on Eggos, Go-Squeeze and some other frankenfood. She did her research and became an activist. There’s a compelling Ted Talk she gave, I’ll try and find it for you just as soon as I figure out who everyone is. To be perfectly fair I was sitting in front of a white peach and burrata salad dressed with balsamic reduction. Although I felt miserable later (not part of Previlean) I wasn’t really looking up much. A girl’s gotta eat.
One speaker was riveting. Gary Hirshberg is the co-founder and CEO of Stonyfield. He gave a compelling talk about the dangers of GMOs but what was much more interesting was that his business was built on a combination of altruism and capitalism. By employing organic farmers he created wealth, by providing Americans with organic food he created health and wealth (it’s expensive to be sick) and the environments around his farmers’ lands were dramatically improved in a few short years.
Gary and Stonyfield are proof that doing good things is a sound business model.
I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about prop 37 and the import of it passing here in California. It’s a simple proposition that will cost almost nothing. All it asks is that packaged foods that contain GMOs are labeled as such. It’s similar to adding a calorie and sodium count. Eat all the crap you want, I don’t care (well, actually I do hope you’ll love your kids enough to give them real food) prop 37 simply asks that your food is labeled so you can make a decision about what you’re going to ingest.
I’d like to encourage my out of state friends to look at Prop 37 and offer it some cyber support, certainly you have facebook friends who are California voters and your influence just might matter more than you can imagine. If Coca Cola is forced to label their drinks as containing GMOs (corn is their big ingredient) in California do you think they’ll have separate bottling/cannning for the other 49 states? I don’t either.
It’s one line of ink. It’s easy.
Cotton is one of the big GMO crops and though I’ve been very mindful of the foods I feed my family I’ve not been mindful of the cotton we use. Recently Live Good sent me a swatch of the sateen they use in their bedding. It feels like heaven and I’m wondering why I don’t spend my money there? It’s no more expensive than anything at the department stores and buying organic cotton means a few tons less pesticides are being used.
Every time I buy something organic it supports an economy that supports my children’s futures.
Which brings me back to some of what Stonyfield Gary had spoken about… apparently some of the agent orange chemicals are now being sprayed on GMO crops… I’ll need to get confirmation on this one but we’ve got a whole lot to be worried about with modern industrial agriculture.
The luncheon was lovely and there were only two bloggers there, Leah and I. Leah always wants to take pictures and I really only want to take pictures when I’m ready to take pictures because although I adore my friends I don’t need 892734893 pictures of us and I’m a 42 year old woman who could use a little lipstick before you shove a camera in my face.
If you’ve ever tried saying no to Leah you’ll realize it’s a fruitless endeavor. So here we are she’s happy to be taking a picture I’m trying to be happy for her. Oh, and there’s a sunglasses story coming up soon.