Moms Across America— Setting a Gold Standard

Moms Across America’s new food and supplement certification will help consumers choose products from companies that are committed to the goals of the natural health movement. Action Alert!
Our friends at Moms Across America have launched an exciting project called the Gold Standard. This standard will allow consumers to support companies that have core beliefs focused on health, integrity, transparency, and sustainability. Help us support this noble effort.
Here’s a breakdown of the tiered Gold Star label:
To receive three Gold Stars a brand’s product must:

1. Provide total transparency, including “natural flavors,” and not include carrageenan, chlorine dioxide, synthetic food dyes or additives.
2. Be certified organic by the USDA or other certifier (or BIODYNAMIC).
3. Be glyphosate herbicide tested or certified Glyphosate Residue free.

To receive four Gold Stars a brand’s product must:

1. Meet all previous requirements.
2. Be Non-GMO Project Verified (including no synthetic biology) if the ingredients exist as GMO.
3. Heavy metal tested for 1.5x or more than the number of heavy metals in standard testing.
4. Tested for 2x more than the common pesticides and herbicides in current organic standards.

To receive five Gold Stars a brand’s product must:

1. Meet all previous requirements.
2. Support the transition to Regenerative Organic Agriculture or BIODYNAMIC either through ingredients or by donation of a portion of sales.
3. Use Fair Trade practices and pay Fair Labor wages.
4. Use Low to No Pollution Packaging-utilizing 100% recycled materials, bioplastics or glass, or have a mail-in recycling program.

There is a pressing need for such a label. Shopping at the supermarket, we’re confronted with a dizzying array of different labels, many of them meaning absolutely nothing, like “all natural” (which carries very little meaning), “cage-free” (this tells us chickens were raised without cages, but could mean that chickens were raised in crowded indoor spaces), or “free range” (all this tells us is that chickens had some unspecified amount of time outdoors, and could be as little as minutes each day).
As we’ve been saying for some time, even the organic label has been systematically undermined by corporate interests. Paramount to the spirit of organic agriculture is regenerating the soil, yet hydroponically grown fruits and vegetables—that is, produce grown without any soil—are permitted to use the USDA’s organic label. We’ve been told by organic farmers that most “organic” tomatoes and berries are grown hydroponically. Further, half of organic eggs and half of organic milk sold in the US come from concentrated animal feeding lots (CAFOs). This is all to say that it is becoming increasingly difficult to rely on the USDA’s organic standard to guarantee quality.
We need to help Moms Across America’s Gold Standard get off the ground.
Action Alert! Send your own petition to your favorite food companies and ask them to consider getting certified by Moms Across America’s Gold Standard program. Start Your Petition on PetitionHero.com.