Nestle accused of carrying out 'food terrorism' in India ... Still pumping U.S. aquifers dry without a license

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 by: Daniel Barker
Tags: Nestle, food terrorism, water aquifers

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(NaturalNews) If you were asked to make a list of the most evil corporations in existence, which names would first come to mind?

Monsanto? Philip Morris? Union Carbide? Those are all great examples, but if you neglected to include Nestle, the list would remain incomplete.

Nestle has a long history of dirty dealings and putting profits before people's health. Their sordid past and current misdeeds make them one of the top contenders for the scummiest corporation prize.

Right now, the company is faced with a Rs 640 crore ($94.6 million) class action lawsuit filed by the Indian government for Nestle's "unfair trade practices, false labelling and misleading advertisements," as reported by Reuters and cited by Legally India.

This followed a ban in August against the company's Maggi instant noodle products, after they were found to contain high levels of lead and mono sodium glutamate.

The ban has since been overturned, but the lawsuit over what some are calling a case of "food terrorism," is still being pursued by India's Department of Consumer Affairs.

Business as usual

The lawsuit in India is just one of the latest examples of Nestle's standard operating procedure – ignoring public health and safety in pursuit of obscene profits.

As reported by ZME Science:

"Child labor, unethical promotion, manipulating uneducated mothers, pollution, price fixing and mislabeling – those are not words you want to see associated with your company. Nestle is the world's largest foodstuff company, and it has a history that would make even hardcore industrialists shiver."

The article details Nestle's sordid past and present greed-driven business practices – starting with their baby formula marketing scheme (launched in the early 20th century), that sickened untold numbers of infants in third-world countries:

"Most of the groups they were targeting (especially in Africa) didn't have access to clean water (many don't to this day), so it was necessary for them to boil the water. But due to low literacy rates, many mothers were not aware of this, so they mixed the formula with polluted water which put the children at great risks. Nestle seems to have knowingly ignored this, and encouraged mothers to use the formula even when they knew the risks."

The Nestle baby formula scam continues to this day, with the company still arguing that their formula is somehow better than breast milk. Several countries have joined an international movement to ban Nestle products.

Nestle's sins are too numerous to cover in one article, but the conclusion of the above-quoted ZME Science piece sums it up pretty well:

"Nestle has shown, time and time again, that they have little ethics and little interest in a real social responsibility. From promoting their formula to uneducated African mothers to lying about production dates, from using water without a permit to dealing with ruthless dictators, they have often went the extra mile to make an extra profit – even as the extra mile meant hurting people, directly or indirectly."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

It's not just poor people in underdeveloped countries who are affected by Nestle. Here in the United States, the company is engaged in draining aquifers without any regulation or oversight – and in regions which are suffering from historic drought.

Nestle is the world's biggest seller of bottled water. One of the places they get that water from is the San Bernardino National Forest in California. And not only have they been sourcing that water without a permit since 1988, they are not even legally obliged to reveal how much water they are draining from a state which is currently under mandatory water use restrictions due to a severe and unprecedented drought.

The company's attitude about the human right to have access to water was infamously summed up by Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, who said:

"There are two different opinions on the matter [of water]. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That's an extreme solution."

Nestle has certainly deserved its place among Monsanto and the others vying for the 'most evil corporation' award. Please remember that the next time you go to the grocery store; support the boycott of Nestle products!

Sources:

LegallyIndia.com

TimesOfIndia.IndiaTimes.com

DailyMail.co.uk

ZMEScience.com

SOTT.net