FOOD 101: What’s The Deal With GMOs In Food
|
There’s a lot of press about avoiding GMOs, genetically modified (GM) organisms. You may have been eating genetically modified food for years without knowing it. The Environmental Working Group conservatively estimates that each American consumes about 190 pounds of GM foods every year. The U.S. regulatory system is set up to deal with GM-related problems only after they occur. GMOs refer to any living thing—animal or plant—that has had its genetic material altered in some way by science (it’s called biotechnology). This is different from selective breeding, a time-honored practice where crops or livestock are selectively bred by horticulturists to improve the variety (to withstand heat, for instance). Instead, GMOs are the result of manipulation in a laboratory whereby segments of DNA are spliced, rearranged or removed altogether. It can create what are called “Franken-foods”: fish genes can be spliced into fruit, for example. Some of this article is adapted from one written by Shelley Stonebrook for Care2.com. Here is the original article. |
|
|
|
THE GMOs IN YOUR LIFE From cereal and crackers to baking mixes, veggie burgers, milk and cheese, GMOs have been appearing, unannounced, in supermarkets—without much study into their long-term health effects on humans. Included on the list of top 20 genetically modified foods are bananas, corn, potatoes, rice, soy, squash, sugar beets and tomatoes. The leading GMO crops in America: beets, canola, corn, papaya, soy and zucchini are likely to be GMO.(Olive and safflower oils are moist likely to be non-GMO.) And now, the world’s first GMO animal—farmed salmon—is ready for market. It is now awaiting approval from the FDA, which concluded in December that the fish it would be as safe to eat as conventional salmon. Read the full article in the New York Times. |
||
 Who knew that zucchini was a major GMO crop? To avoid GMOs, shop at natural foods markets like Whole Foods, where even the non-organic produce is non-GMO. Photo courtesy Whole Foods Market. |
Here are four issues that can impact your family’s health: |
|
|
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?
|
||
