Students across the nation are upset over policy dictates affecting their diet. Recently, students and teachers from a Kansas high school created a YouTube video parody protesting the recent lunch restrictions on school menus.

Now, University of California Los Angeles student Eiten Arom is concerned his diet options may be limited via a California proposition on November’s ballot; he would prefer a “pro-choice” approach to food:

On what will presumably be a sunny Southern California Tuesday this November, many UCLA students will march dutifully to cast their votes at the ballot box.

What some of those students might not realize is that they vote nearly every day, not at the ballot box but at the cash register.

One ballot measure on which Bruins will be voting is Proposition 37, which mandates that genetically modified foods in California be labeled as such. The measure represents a healthy awareness about our impact on the environment but it also supersedes the consumer by using legislation to tilt the market against genetically modified foods.

As it stands, sans legislation, there are shopping guides online to help consumers buy non-genetically modified foods. Certified organic products cannot contain any genetically engineered ingredients.

If they choose, consumers already have the power to vote at the register against genetic engineering.

So what do I mean by voting at the register?

When you swipe your credit card at the register, you are sending a signal to producers to make more of whatever it is you are buying. If you buy organic milk, you send a market signal to produce more organic products. The same goes for locally grown, fair trade and, of course, genetically modified products.

Arom argues that the free market is the appropriate vehicle for choice and change.

However, the legislation also bears costs that are both explicit – the cost of regulation – and implicit – the cost of labels and lost ad space. For that reason, the legislation is a value judgment against genetically modified products and serves to hamper the free market.

Ideally, such value judgments would be made at the cash register rather than at the ballot box.

Arom concludes:

As UCLA students gear up to cast their ballots in November, it is worth taking a second to think about the votes we cast with our greenbacks nearly every day.