Friday, July 11, 2008

What’s In Our Food?


Did you know that more than 80 percent of today’s soybean crop is genetically modified? This means its DNA was altered to increase production—and better withstand being sprayed with chemical weed killers such as Roundup. That’s not all. Almost 40 percent of all corn planted in the U.S. is genetically modified.

In part this gets back to the argument that “fresh is best,” and pre-packaged, convenience meals are a poor substitute for what we should consider “good nutrition.”

According to “experts,” if it comes in a can or a box and the label includes soybean oil or corn syrup as ingredients, the odds are that it contains Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs. On average, it’s not a stretch to point out that about 65 percent of all products in your local grocery store have DNA-altered ingredients. But you wouldn’t know it because food labels don’t list it. The FDA does not require disclosure of genetic engineering techniques on the food label.

“Labeling is the only way health professionals are going to be able to trace if there is a problem,” says Andy Kimbrell from the Center for Food Safety. “There is nothing, nothing substantially equivalent from a conventional crop to a GMO crop,” he says. “In every cell of these new GMO foods are bacterias we’ve never seen in food before; viruses, genetic constructs, and antibiotic bugs.” On the other hand, the FDA and bio-tech giants such as Monsanto, say there is no evidence that GMO’s are “anything but safe.”

And herein lies the debate.

But, don’t you have to wonder—are we part of a human trial we haven’t even signed up for?

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