Just call her Farmer Garner.
Jennifer Garner told me last night that she tries to keep her family healthy by growing their own food.
While Garner and her hubby, Ben Affleck, don't have a full-fledged farm, Garner said, "We talk about our food. We grow food. We talk about what goes into it and how hard it is. They plant it, they water it. We take pictures next to it."
She added with a laugh, "I'm a geek."
I caught up with the Danny Collins star at Cliff's Edge restaurant in Los Angeles' Silver Lake neighborhood during an event for Just Label It, an organization fighting for food companies to label their products containing GMOs.
(The concern is that genetically modified crops are engineered to be herbicide resistant, which means farmers use more herbicides to kill off weeds. And then when the weeds become resistant, more toxic—and some scientist believe cancer-causing—herbicides are dumped onto the crops.)
It was Gisele Bündchen who first told Garner about Just Label It.
"My friend Gisele and I are fed up with being kept in the dark about GMO and non-GMO labeling," Garner said. "I got involved because she said, 'Do you know what's happening?' She's a firecracker. She said, 'You have to educate yourself.'"
Bündchen flew to Los Angeles from her native Brazil (where she just walked her last runway) for the event. "This is a very important cause to me as an individual, as a parent and as a mother," the supermodel said. "I am here tonight because I believe we have the right to know what's in our food.
"Food sustains our bodies, minds and souls, and as a mother, I feel it is my responsibility to know what I am feeding my family," she said. "We need transparency in our food industry."
Just Label It is fighting for federal legislation to mandate labeling of GMO foods. The group recently launched its Conceal or Reveal campaign, a grassroots initiative for consumers to contact companies using GMOs to urge them to start labeling their food.