DO YOU WANT YOUR FOOD TO BE GENETICALLY MODIFIED?

Three months ago, I wouldn’t have had an answer. I wasn’t sure what effect genetic modifications might have on a person’s health, but now I know I want to know what I am eating. Like most of the people who are asked, I want to be able to choose. And there is a lot in the news recently about GMOs.

At present  the FDA says that foods labeled “Natural” are not to have any artificial or synthetic ingredients. One way to know a food does not have GMOs is if it is labeled as “Organic.”

Agriculture has taken an extra step to accelerate the changes in foods in order to increase productivity. It was not enough to simply cross-pollenate plants to modify them in a biological way, as people had done for hundreds of years.

According to Jo Robinson in Eating on the Wild Side, pg 81,Corn was one of the first genetically modified foods. Seeds that had been exposed to radiation in a nuclear bomb test were grown after 1946, and the corn produced was far more sweet than corn strains grown prior to the 1950s. Other mutant forms of corn were also added to the genetic pool to produce a corn that is ten times more sweet than that produced in the 1940s.

Almost all the corn in the US is descended from that and other strains of ultra sweet corn. Corn is a food that dozens of other products are made from, including corn syrup, corn starch, corn oil. It is found in nearly all pre-processed foods. Wheat, Soy, Dairy and other crops are widely genetically modified even in their simplest form.

Any crops grown for sale are likely to be genetically modified because the agricultural industry is motivated to produce more for greater profit. Often the nutritional benefit of foods we consume has been sacrificed in the process.

           

Meanwhile more information just today was reviewed on the Dr. Oz show about Genetically Modified Organisms. Dr. Oz claimed as much of 70 percent of our foods may be genetically modified. Some companies are willing to label ingredients that contain GMOs, but not many. The agricultural and Food industries have generally been opposed to labeling their products as having GMO ingredients. Since labels are changed about once a year anyway, cost is probably not the major reason for opposition of disclosure to customers. 

See More in the next blog about GMOs. 

©  by Ruth Zachary