{"id":265,"date":"2010-04-07T09:58:25","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T09:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=265"},"modified":"2012-09-07T10:03:15","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T10:03:15","slug":"bistro-group-of-restaurants-i-love-my-rice-gmo-free-all-natural-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/bistro-group-of-restaurants-i-love-my-rice-gmo-free-all-natural-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bistro Group of Restaurants\u2019 I Love My Rice GMO-Free: All Natural"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lisa Ronquillo, marketing manager of the Bistro Group of Restaurants (BGR) is candid. \u201c(BGR\u2019s) environmental efforts are not yet as extensive as (those of) big companies,\u201d she says to Media G8way Corp.<\/em> (MGC), \u201cbut we are approaching this stage by stage, in whatever ways we can.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

And a stage that they found they can be most effective at is in partnering with environmental advocate group Greenpeace International in serving only GMO (or genetically-modified organisms) free rice, with the I Love My Rice GMO-Free campaign.<\/p>\n

ON GMO<\/strong><\/p>\n

With GMOs, the DNA of living organism, including plants and animals, are altered through genetic engineering techniques for them to acquire traits that they did not naturally have \u2013 rice plants, for example, can be genetically modified to improve their nutritional value, make them resistant to pests, and lengthen their shelf life, among others.<\/p>\n

But Greenpeace says GMOs pose risks to the health of those using them, and of the environment because \u201cgenetic manipulation is an imprecise and risky process. Aside from the fact that the resulting genetically modified organisms would never occur in the natural world, the new organism created is a living experiment \u2013 its long term effects on the environment, on soil, and on biodiversity, are unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

BIGGER PLANS<\/strong><\/p>\n

BGR isn\u2019t stopping with the I Love My Rice GMO-Free campaign, however, as it already has moves to \u201ceducate our employees through seminars and \u2018green talks\u2019 (conducted from) time to time for increased awareness and application (of going green) in their personal lives. It is more of a responsibility to the employees and to our customers to help create a green behaviour,\u201d Ronquillo says.<\/p>\n

And then there are the \u201csmall efforts\u201d to green the business, from using biodegradable bathroom and kitchen tissues in all BGR restaurants; using \u201cHALO\u201d sugar substitute, an organic product, as an ingredient; and the move to make packaging biodegradable.
\n\u201c(BGR has yet to) really measure cost benefits, (but) companies should consider turning green because this is a problem that concerns the universe, and each and every person (and the company he\/she works for) has the network, the power to influence (ecological preservation) in a bigger scale,\u201d Ronquillo says.<\/p>\n

BGR operates international casual dining restaurant brands, including TGI Friday\u2019s, Italianni\u2019s, Fish & Co., and, recently, its local concept Flapjacks. It has a total of 29 restaurants nationwide. \u2013 With R.E.E. Mancesa<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Know about Bistro Group of Restaurants’ decision to serve only GMO (or genetically-modified organisms) free rice, with the I Love My Rice GMO-Free campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,14,11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destinations","category-dining-out","category-industry-profiles","category-nutrition","category-spa-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}