What's the deal with Moms Across America?

pixelfed.crimedad.work CrimeDad (@crimedad@pixelfed.crimedad.work)

These "Mom" organizations make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Why is my uncle messaging me to let me know that *Moms Across America* commissioned testing that found glyphosate and heavy metal contamination in Girl Scout cookies? I mean, he did just buy some from my kid (no refunds!) and ...

This evening my uncle messaged me to let me know that Moms Across America commissioned testing that found glyphosate and heavy metal contamination in Girl Scout cookies. To be fair, he did just buy some from my kid (no refunds!) and I understand the concern about food contamination, but something is off. What's the deal with Moms Across America? Why is their CEO a vaccine skeptic hoping to get hired by RFK Jr.? It seems like an organic food/anti-vax lobbying organization, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Is she just that effective as an individual mom influencer?

Edit: the screenshot isn't uploading correctly, so I changed it to a link to the Pixelfed post I originally made.

18 comments

I'm not saying any group with the word mom in its name is inherently bad, just usually bad.
- Yeah, fuck off MADD! Leave me abs my road sodas alone! /s

I don't care what is in them. If I die from eating thin mints then let it be.
- You know that you can make the filling easily right? Its just sweetened condensed milk, peppermint essence and an assload of icing sugar.
  A tip from someone who made way too much, start small and add small amounts of each until you get a feel for the ratios.
  
  Weekend plans secured, thanks bro

Anything starting with "Moms" is right wing astroturf, guaranteed.
- Does MADD count?
  
  I think the m is "mothers" so they're OK.
- Are moms okay?
  
  The ones that are ok are not starting reactionary political groups.

My bias makes me immediately think that anything they're claiming should be considered suspect.
Frankly, if an antivaxxer told me the sky was blue, I'd go outside to check.
This is a case where you should find a second or third source making the same claims, as well as a better source that says how much and specifically what was found in the cookies because it's entirely possible to have dangerous things in something but at levels that are not actually dangerous, and I see no specific units being claimed anywhere.
And I mean, glyphosphate is something we've sprayed on every inch of the globe at this point anyways and is on every single thing you're going to eat, so sure, it's bad, but it's only bad at certain concentrations. (It's Roundup)
- Here's MAA's article about the findings. It does include numbers, but offers no comparison to similar treats on the market. For contrast, this Consumer Reports article addresses lead contamination in Lunchables type products from several manufacturers and does a decent job explaining what their findings mean. The CR article references California's daily read consumption limit, which I think properly relevant for foods, but the MAA article references the EPA limit for lead in water. I can probably do the math to better understand MAA's findings, but I have a feeling that they're presenting them this way in order to make them seem more alarming.

I thought it was moms for liberty for a second, but after searching looks like they're some crazy antivax group. I found a 2019 interview (I dunno anything about that site but it has her just quoted at length) with the founder (Zen Honeycutt) and it seems like she's one of the "natural equals good" types of kook. She goes on about toxins and GMOs and such. I didn't read the whole thing but looks like she's moved from trying natural foods to help her kid's allergies to the antivax pipeline.
I'm not sure how much clout they have but after 5 mins reading up about them I wouldn't trust their word about the color of the sky.

I was under the impression that Girl Scout cookies are locally sourced, meaning that any contamination (if there really was any) would be a local issue, and not national. Unless, of course, one of the actual ingredients was lead, which to me seems ridiculously unlikely.
- 3 eggs
  4 cups whole grain flour
  8 tbsp butter, melted
  3 cups brown sugar
  1/8 tsp water
  2 tbsp baking soda
  1 bottle (8oz) vanilla
  3/4 tsp lead powder (organic!)
  A dash of mercury (to taste)
  Mix ingredients together well, roll into 1" balls, and place on a greased (ideally barium complex for best flavor) cookie sheet. Bake at 350° Freedom Units for 20 minutes, and allow to cool before selling.
- I'm not sure what locally sourced means. Girl Scout cookies come from a factory somewhere. I'll check the boxes when ours arrive, but I always assumed that Girl Scout cookies were just like any other processed junk food: probably containing trace amounts of various types of contamination, but unhealthy in the first place for their sugar content.
  I'm not trying to defend Girl Scout cookies or Girl Scouts of America. My suspicion is that this awareness campaign by MAA isn't really about the cookies. I think it might be a rouse to rope people into their anti-vax agenda.
  
  Sorry -- by locally sourced, I mean that they locate some sort of cookie maker in the area (state? region? county?) to produce the cookies for them. It isn't a single organization/location that creates the cookies, so contamination wouldn't be across all cookies distributed. At least, that's how I recall hearing it, long ago.

18 comments