Karma Roundtable

I agree, GMO identification is one dimension of food - but important since it is hidden and requires some legwork to track down ingredient sources. It's nice to know that when buying at Karma, I don't have to think about GMO ingredients.

For other dimensions of food, I would love to see objective measures, such as distance traveled. For example, the organic pasta at Karma mostly comes from Italy, but I would bet the wheat comes from Canada, which means two trans-atlantic crossings. It makes me wonder if the conventional made-in-Canada pasta is a better use of resources. (And surely there must be some Canadian-made pasta!)

I would also like to stop seeing the special treatment of "Luneberg" products. (Rice, etc.) It should simply say USA (or California) since that is where they are located. I don't see why this brand gets to "hide" their origin with their name.

Is the food committee interested in expanding their scope to cover more food issues?

From the worms! on Tue 21-Oct-2008 12:10 PM

I think considering the origin of the ingredients as well as the location of production is a good point.

I would definetly be interested in knowing as much about the food I'm eating as I can. The issues you mentioned are definetly worth considering.

But first off I'd be really excited to see everything in the bulk sections got labelled. While mosts things are identified, there is always a couple things of mysterious origins.

Luneberg? Ha, I glanced at that today and totally assumed it said Luxembourg as thought to myself: They grow rice in Luxembourg? ...Of course now I'm thinking: They grow rice in California?

From ebodyknows on Sun 14-Dec-2008 2:12 PM

Thanks for your comments, everyone. As the current chair of the Food Issues Committee (FIC), it’s great to hear from the membership and see what people are thinking about what we’re doing. It’s also good to hear from the membership in case we need to clear up any misunderstandings about what we’re doing, as seems to be the case here.

The FIC’s activities revolve around the Karma Product Policy (ratified at the 2002 Annual General Meeting) which outlines a long list of priorities that Karma members share (these include political and economic considerations, environmental considerations, ethical considerations and health considerations – see http://www.karmacoop.org/committees/foodissuesdocs/ProductPolicyOctober2002.pdf for details).

In other words, the FIC’s mandate and activities do not revolve only around GMOs (although that is one concern the policy guides us to consider) but around a whole host of other concerns including those you have mentioned here (like local, processed, etc.).

What may have led to the confusion is that, since these issues are so complex and difficult to unpack (and in some cases very time consuming to do anything about), the FIC in some cases needs to tackle them one at a time. That is why we are currently focusing on the task of getting GMOs out of the store. This is not our only priority and is only one of the projects we have undertaken. Our next task will be to see if we can ramp up the number of local products in the store, while still considering the other concerns outlined in the policy such as chemicals/organic, animal welfare, fair treatment of workers, etc.

Hope this clears things up!
Michelle Szabo
FIC Chair

From mszabo on Sat 31-Jan-2009 8:01 AM

Recent public scares around food safety, especially processed meat and peanut butter products, are a wakeup call. They reinforce the need for Karma to have as much control as possible over the content of the foods we carry. The work of the food issues committee is more important than ever, and is really "the heart and soul" of what Karma is all about.

From Islander on Mon 2-Feb-2009 11:02 AM