Shopping App Let’s You Boycott Monsanto and Others
A new free app called ‘Buycott’ allows you to use your Android or iPhone to analyze products and determine if you’re supporting Monsanto’s GMOs, Big Food companies who are damaging your health, or simply low quality products.
Have you ever wished you could own a parrot that sat on your shoulder and said, “squak! don’t buy that’ as you ambled through a grocery store or retail shop, purchasing something like toilet paper or a box of macaroni shells that would add to the financial coffers of companies like Monsanto, or billionaire industrialist David Koch?
While your local grocery store probably wouldn’t let you get much further than the pet food aisle, you can now download an App for your Android or iPhone that tells you exactly when you are about to purchase GMO corn or Dixie Cups, a product of one of the many subsidiary companies of Koch Industries, Georgia Pacific.
Think of the new App, championed by Darcy Burner, a former Microsoft programmer and congressional candidate, like an all-knowing friend who reminds you not to get that pair of yoga pants because Dupont Chemical (also a subsidiary of Koch) makes the lycra in them, or to choose that bag of carrots over this one, because there is no GMO in it. If you thought fair trade hang-tags were a way to keep a watchful eye on corporate greed and environmental negligence, then get a load of the app that just scans a barcode and tells you if its ‘safe’ or not.
In fact, the App will trace the product all the way back to its ‘parent’ company, so you know exactly who you are supporting with your purchases. For example, did you know McNeil Nutritionals is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, who has continued to put carcinogenic chemicals in their products for years?
Related: Top 10 GMOs to Avoid
Even better, you can scan your bag of chips and see if it was made by one of several dozen companies that gave millions of dollars to oppose mandatory labeling of GMO foods, and essentially, boycott them.
The app is similar to the many other initiatives currently mounting against Monsanto, as NaturalSociety Editor Anthony Gucciardi detailed a few days ago in his article ‘March Against Monsanto Is The Beginning of The End For Monsanto.’
Ivan Pardo, a 26-year old wiz kid is the freelance programmer who created the App. Thanks to inventions like Pardo’s, and the transparency his techno gadget offers, it will be harder for companies to hide behind their web of lies and convoluted oligarchy that allows just a few elite companies to rule the world with chemicals and illegal price-fixing schemes.
If everything is rigged in favor of just a few billionaire industrialists, then educating people about their purchases gives them the power to ‘vote’ with their dollar, and choose to purchase something else, instead. Such a simple way, to stick it to the companies who have been poisoning your food, dumping toxins in your air, water, and soil, and to support those who actually have the modicum of a moral compass when it comes to making a dollar (or several trillion) at the expense of millions of people’s health.
Let’s face it, remembering who the top 10 most unethical companies are when you are just trying to buy some dinner, or a new pair of pants shouldn’t mean you are inadvertently contributing to corporate greed and fraud. Fortunately, there’s an App for that, and it comes out in May, premiering on iTunes and the Google app store. Its free and its name is Buycott.
I cannot find the buycott app on google play is it only available in the states?
I live in the states and I can't find it either. 8
It is coming out in May – may not have released yet.
Do u know the date in may?
This is awesome. Can't wait to download it!
You will need a good WIFI or Cell signal to connect to servers and like most such devices I guess the servers got slammed when this came out so you could hit slow days?
I have also been unable to find fooducate
This is a great idea BUT, will they be tracking our buying habits?
I boycott Facebook as well. This app requires you to join Facebook to use it.
Crappy paradigm.
Just downloaded it. Make sure you are typing in buycott
I would not trust this new app, as it gives kelloggs a “b” grade hello!
This Buycott APP. is not available for Android phones. I checked on May18th 2013.
Darek makes many good points. It's obvious that someone / some entity can track everything we do on our phones and computers. Cash for local food at organic markets is the best way to go when possible. I was going to get the app and Android / Google is not showing it available, so maybe that's a sign.
Maybe next time wait for the app to be available before you post article.
Good point. Now the bastards have a head start on countering it!
The way things are with these phones it’s a good idea and a bad idea. If you don’t trust the food that’s produced by Monsanto, why the heck would you trust apple, android, Facebook, um fill in the corporate monster’s name here please……I want off this planet! Haha
You can be sure that these evil entities are already working on a way to make this app obsolete or at least deceptive the same way that buying products that are labeled 'natural' or 'organic' is now deceptive. Do you really think that they are going to let this happen? If it works by reading the barcode of a product, then they will simply modify the barcode.
Well said. I even have a problem with this site subscribing to these human profiling/tracking monsters.
Anthony Gucciardi, I believe your intentions are good, but perhaps you should put more thought into the consequences of some of your articles before publishing them. There are many valid comments about this 'buycott' app. It only feeds companies like Monsanto with more information that they need to use against us. There must be a way to beat this while remaining annonymous. What you do is a good thing, just don't let these corporate monsters use YOU for THEIR gain.
From what I read this article was written by Christina Sarich… I don't see Anthony's name anywhere on it, unless I'm overlooking it?
did you know this webpage is tracking you through 7 different affiliates
load firefox add on " do not track me" to see what they are and to block them
come on,what the hell are you afraid off!!!! this app needs to send a photo of the user giving the finger directly to Monsanto every time you use it!!!!we have power in numbers,so stand proud and use that power!!
It now offers to let you sign up with any name and email – except it doesn't work and just sits there stupidly, waiting for you to give in and login via Facebook.
I'm boycotting this crappy app!
It's about time Americans WOKE UP to the evil that Facebook is!! Can y'all not see that in order to boycott a devil company like Monsanto, you HAVE TO be a part of Facebook is beyond comprehension??? It's not rocket science, folks. They're all IN BED TOGETHER!! Facebook sucks!! I don't care what So & So's doing or what they like, OR DON'T like!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who Cares!!!!!!