Et tu Wendy’s?

Black Bean Sliders
Picture by Walkingfox

 

Just as I was beginning a post this morning about a new product that makes my heart sing, bam the door slammed shut on me.

You see in my mail today, was a nifty story about a new Black Bean Burger being introduced at a select number of Wendy’s in Ohio.

But, regretfully when I started reading it, there was also a side story, that pointed to a quite unhappy situation.

It would seem that the about to become newest favorite eatery, Wendy’s, is embroiled in a mess over wages, with ugly insults being hurled, indicating that they may have participated in what amounts to slave labor with their employees.

Now, if the idea of a Black Bean Burger is new to you, please let me share this, my best friend at UCLA was married to the Manager of one of their top Campus eating places and he delighted in letting me know each week when he made them, knowing full well that I hated meat and loved this culinary treat.

I never did learn all of the ingredients of this delicious, decadent burger, but had been a huge fan of Black Beans for many years, so never cared a whole lot about what he put into them.

Moving to Florida basically closed the door on all of my favorite California vegetarian eating places, as I soon learned that they were not high on anyone’s totem pole here.

So, not willing to eat the Morning Star veggie burgers made with soy beans that have been processed with Hexane, a known carcinogen and pretty much a toxin/pesticide, I had given up hope.

That was until a few months ago, when shockingly I found a new Black Bean Burger from a previously unknown Company, at our local Wal-Mart.

Bringing it home was a challenge, as Walkingfox is not huge on doing without meat.

Surprise, he liked them and has become a fan, of sorts.

But being out on a shopping or other trip and hoping to find one was not to be, at least not here.

So, you can imagine my delight this morning seeing/reading this story about Wendy’s.

Joy quickly turned to sorrow, after reading that they are having similar salary and wages problems  with their employees as Waffle House is.

Right now the delectable Black Bean Burgers are only being tested in Ohio, near Wendy’s Corporate offices, but it looks like that may change quickly judging from the public responses to them.

Now if they can only get their employee/wages issues fixed, Wendy’s may yet become a new place to eat on the run.

And, if they don’t, then, as with Waffle House, we will not be dining there any time soon either.

So, dear Wendy’s, please treat your employees right, pay them right and this may after all, be only a rhetorical question, et tu Wendy’s?

 

Places to learn more:

Amid Call for Boycott, Concerns Rise That Eating at Wendy’s Supports Slave Labor

Why Wendy’s Vegan Black Bean Burger Isn’t Masquerading as Meat

Low Wage Workers Fast Food Forward Campaign

Worker wages: Wendy’s vs. Wal-Mart vs. Costco

Wendy’s “The Final Fast Food Hold-out”

Wendy’s salaries

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No New Ideas Needed

A McDonald’s in Norway
Picture credit: Ken

 

It all started out innocently enough.

I was going through my email this morning and saw a new petition for McDonald’s.

This particular petition was about something that I personally have been nagging them about for years, or every single time that I went there, which by the way, in the past few years has been less and less.

I do not like meat or hamburgers and have repeatedly suggested to them that they might want to consider making some sort of meatless or veggie burger, as several of their competitors have already done.

Even better, to introduce a few Organic items!

Each and every time I was met with the same blank stare and ” ok, we will suggest it…”

In California, we who don’t like meat are not a minority, we are a strong group with many voices in high places, like the countless celebrities who also choose not to eat animals and love Organic Foods.

This petition was written by a woman in California who was asking a huge company, which at the present time is all over the news for its financial woes, to consider making a meatless burger.

The Company is cutting their Dollar meals, shuffling their vast menu, and has had a somewhat dismal showing for the past two years, many say.

They have had issues with China and meat and a variety of other embarrassing issues.

None has been very good for their image.

So, I was delighted to go and see this new petition and to absolutely sign it and support it.

However, when I got there, it seems that the desired numbers had already been reached.

Well, that’s very good news and there was also a letter from the author with suggestions for other things to do in support of the Petition and all the necessary details were included in it.

As I don’t do Twitter and wanted to go beyond just posting it on my FB page,  I  then, as suggested, called the company directly.

What happened next is the honest truth, you cannot make this stuff up.

I dialed the number, it rang and a pleasant computer asked me to make a choice of directions to be transferred to next.

I listened to all of the different choices and finally selected  ” suggest new ideas.”

This is the response, or answer that the computer gave me, I swear on my beloved Grandmother.

” I’m sorry, but McDonald’s does not accept any new ideas from anyone who does not work for the company.”

End quote!

Umm,  McDonald’s, I think I see the problem and why your sales and profits may be going down the proverbial drain.

You obviously do not listen, nor care what your customers think.

And you don’t want any ” new ideas “  from those who just happen to pay your salaries.

 

Has the King Left the Building?

Public Domain Burger King logo

 

I did not want to write about this, ever.

As of right now, I guess I’m still living in denial.

But there it was in my mail this morning, the ugly news that was crystal clear.

Burger King is leaving its home state of over 50 years here in Florida and moving everything to Canada to avoid taxes?

Say it isn’t so, I beg you BK.

Whenever we are out running errands and get hungry, BK is usually my first choice because they have one of my favorite fast food combos, an awesome Veggie Burger accompanied by scrumptious sweet potato fries.

But, if this deal, this merger, does, or has already happened, there goes any hope I might have of finding a Veggie Burger on the run.

We have a few Burger Fi’s starting up here now and they have a nearly Organic Veggie Burger, that is out of this world, but the nearest one is nearly 45 miles away in Winter Park.

Not really convenient when you want a quick Veggie Burger, is it?

So Burger King will now have to be scratched off of my personal quick food out list.

According to the story this morning, this merger announcement has really ……… off their loyal customers, big time.

Burger King was never on the List because they are a favorite place to eat and are a very popular, well-managed and run, not bad fast food place here in Florida.

BK originally started in 1953 in Jacksonville and is now headquartered in the Miami area.

This whole merger story is beginning to smell really stinky.

If this merger is consummated and does go through, these two Corporations will become the third largest food chain in the world.

Yikes, that’s a lot of power.

In the meantime, BK’s 34-year-old CEO Daniel Shwartz, earning a reported $700,000 plus bonuses, says not to worry, that their potential merging with Canada’s Tim Horton’s Donuts, will keep the two companies separate.

Not so fast, is what most of their long and loyal customers think about this.

This may or may not, have been a Corporate containment reaction to the recent ugly public responses, that seems to have caught them off guard with the overwhelming public criticism of their proposed merger.

Some of the hundreds of public comments that have been made, are downright vicious.

Our own Florida Senator Bill Nelson is outright livid about this whole idea, knowing exactly how much Florida has to lose if it happens and said that if it does happen, he wants every single one of their restaurants removed from every Military Base in the United States.

Ouch!

Don’t mess with people and their burgers, even if it’s only a Veggie Burger.

So, Burger King, what’s it going to be, have you really left the building?

 

Places to learn more:

Burger King – Wikipedia

Looks Like The ‘Burger King’s’ Subjects Are Royally Pissed Off

Burger King Heads North Of The Border

Here’s Why Warren Buffett Is Investing $3 Billion in the Burger King-Tim Hortons Deal

Burger King’s Tim Hortons Offer Is Part Of A Huge Cost-Cutting Plan

Is Burger King moving to Canada?

Burger King’s Tax Inversion and Canada’s Favorable Corporate Tax Rates

How companies shrink their taxes by leaving U.S.

Burger King-Tim Hortons Cross-Border Merger Much More Than Tax Inversion

Burger King Is Run by Children

 

New Blog~

If you think that Organic and GMO foods are not a high stakes industry, please do take a look at this picture.

Credit: Compiled by Stephanie Ladwig-Cooper

 

If you might have wondered where I have been, this is where:

http://organicopinion.wordpress.com/

It was the result of a bad shopping excursion that was the very last straw.

Hope you enjoy it!

 

Power to the Hawaiian People

Lyon Arboretum, Oahu, Hawaii,
Picture credit:  Daderot

 

As there was not the overwhelming expected response to the posting about Monsanto, I felt no great need to rush on to the next name on   The List,  which is Bayer.

But then in my email this morning,  came the impetus to do it right now.

This story is but one of countless examples of the reasons why our Planet has reached such a critical tipping point.

This is a twisted tale of money, lobbyists, pesticides and toxins, seeds, GMO’s,  politicians and of course, the usual  Mega Corporations,  and squeezed in between them,  are the outraged residents of the  Aloha State, who have just passed a  NO GMO’s  law that will start in August of this year.

Bayer and its  “comrades in crime”  have pushed one of the most beautiful, natural Islands of the Pacific, Hawaii  to be exact,  to the edge and now the Hawaiians are pushing back, hard.

The players in this story are the besieged people of the Hawaiian Islands and in the opposite corner, Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dow Chemical, DuPont Pioneer, etc., or as they are not so lovingly called, the BIG SIX.

Let the blood bath begin.

How many of you truly believe that the common people of Hawaii can outspend these Mega Groups, with their endless professional lobbyists, staunch political backers and millionaire donaters with their never empty check books?

It does not look good for the  ” people.”

This is all very personal to me,  having experienced this Garden of Eden personally several times, and being left with priceless memories of a truly perfect paradise.

The miles of never-ending fields of mouth-watering pineapples,  the crystal clear waterfalls, surrounded by a dizzying array of wild fruits trees, the abundance of pure, safe food everywhere that the eye can see, this truly is a place of miraculous beauty, and it is being held hostage, or put up for  sale right now,  by  the ” biggest bullies on the block.”

Thinking of what “ BIG AG ” is trying to do here, makes me see red.

What the people of Hawaii are attempting  to do is fight back,  albeit, perhaps in vain.

They are trying to force these BIG AG BULLIES  to identify what food  is modified and we DO have that right, all of us.

This is not the first dirty, legal  battle for these Mega Corporations, they have a lot on the line in Hawaii,  because you can be sure that the rest of the country is watching and right now,  a very frightening thought comes to mind:
so goes Hawaii, so goes the rest of the USA, maybe even the world!

This GMO Train Wreck has left the station, next stop, your dinner plate.

Stay tuned America, the entire source of your future food supply,  may be a modified genetic organism, a GMO and you may not know it, or be able to stop it.

How does that taste?

Here’s to the Power of the People, those Passionate Polynesians, the Hawaiian people!

 

Places to learn more:

The first story below, from those great people at Alter Net,  is truly  awesome, as  it names names
and shows who got how much and why.

Hawaii Is Ground Zero

Hawaiians fight back against GMO experiments

Biotech Trade Group Brings Muscle to Hawaii County GMO Fight

Opposition crops up to GMO foods in Hawaii

The BIG SIX

What the Fork

 

Monsanto, the Mega Monster

Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant
Picture credit: Janine Moraes  http://www.agenciabrasil.gov.br

 

As promised,   Monsanto  will be the first Corporation to be addressed here.

How do we begin to list all of the irreparable harm, the ” without warrant “  danger, the insidious pain, that this ” biggest bully on the block, “  Company has inflicted on millions all over the Globe?

Monsanto produces herbicides/pesticides, countless varieties of  seeds, and oh yes, GMO’s enough to feed the entire world.

By the way, their CEO Hugh Grant, not the actor,
has been quoted as saying that he eats  ONLY Organic food~

That should speak volumes!

My personally most despised product of theirs, is the herbicide/pesticide Roundup,  which I consider to be the singular most dangerous home/lawn product used in this Country.

It is applied liberally, to the eventual demise of all, including it is suggested, even the user, to yards and lawns everywhere in America.

It has, in my opinion, been the guilty party, the one thing most responsible for the nearly complete decimation of most of Florida’s amphibians, like our green treefrogs and lizards,  that once were so numerous, there were just too many to count, and now are teetering on the edge of extinction.

A question: How many now using Roundup,  know of the dangers that they place themselves in by this simple act?

Roundup, An Herbicide, Could Be Linked To Parkinson’s, Cancer And Other Health Issues, Study Shows

Was just sent this horrific story about Roundup that must be included here:

More About Glyphosate (RoundUp)

This is  only one of the many pesticides, or herbicides, that this company mass produces and sends around the world, knowing full well, the deleterious  effects, the tremendous toxicity, that they have been linked to for many years now.

Next, GMO’s and Monsanto.

This  is an awesome study of their attempt to rule the world:

Monsanto’s Dirty Dozen

More examples of Monsanto’s ugly war on safe and healthy  food:

Monsanto’s manipulative tactics revealed after claiming GM soybeans are ‘substantially equivalent’ to non-GMOs

Monsanto would like nothing better than to be the primary source, or better yet, the only source for our world’s food supply:

How Monsanto and Biotech Companies Use Propaganda on Our Children

Even more history of the Company we love to hate:

Top 10 Facts YOU Should Know About Monsanto

This Mega Company is making history for the overwhelming ugliness it has created towards it, they  now have so many enemies that these groups have united forces and even have their own rallies and marches against them:

March Against Monsanto

A perhaps vital tidbit for some of you, do you know what the main ingredient in nearly 100% of all of the mayonnaise made in America is?

It is soy beans.

Guess what is used on nearly 100 % of all soy bean plants grown in America?

Herbicides!

And you cannot cook it, or clean it,  out of,  or off of the food.

So, how much mayonnaise do you use?

We use a lot and I know that it is, thanks to Monsanto,  nearly pure pesticides.

Have another sandwich!

This page could go on for an eternity, but let me leave you with this final thought.

The next time that you eat anything, ask yourself this,  ” would the CEO of Monsanto eat this? “

Probably not!