64 countries, including China and the entirety of the European Union, label the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in their food items, except the United States… until now.
After the state of Vermont “passed legislation requiring mandatory labeling” two years ago, household-name companies such as General Mills are now submitting to the mandate of GMO labels nationwide, according to a segment on NPR,
Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined GMO ingredients as well as ingredients derived from GMO plants (e.g. soy lecithin, cornstarch, and vegetable oils) to be of “nutritional quality” and safe, the general American public appears to strongly disagree.
In fact, according to a recent Boston Globe article by Michael Hansen, “upwards of 90 percent of consumers want foods produced using genetically modified organisms to be labeled as such ... a recent Consumer Reports survey placed the number at 92 percent.”
However, there are some that argue for the lack of necessity in creating such a label in the States.
Really? When is transparency ever not a good idea? Especially when it comes to what we, as consumers and as human beings, rely on as our source of energy?
Hansen later references a report by “the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer [that] unanimously concluded that glyphosate, previously thought by pesticide regulators to be largely benign [as] ‘probably carcinogenic to humans.’”
The same Boston Globe article notes that as of last year “glyphosate use increased from roughly 20 million pounds to 280 million pounds, making it by far the most widely-used pesticide in US agriculture.”
To reiterate the importance of labeling GMO ingredients, I think it’s safe to ask who wouldn’t want to know if their food contained items such as corn, soy or canola which had been drenched in weed killers before potentially being even further chemically altered as binding agents in chocolate or cooking oil for potato chips?
However, the argument for GMOs is also a challenging one to fully overcome: in a world where the human population has already reached 7.4 billion and growing, “some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth,” an accurate statistic provided by the United Nation’s World Food Programme website detailing statistics on hunger.
Relying on the natural, otherwise “organic” process of harvesting, means succumbing to the unpredictability of nature – storms, frosts, drought – all of which are far more common today due to the impending calamity of global climate change.
Still, I equally can’t dismiss the importance of GMO pellucidity.
Labeling is not a legal requirement, yet, however. Currently, four major food companies, in addition to General Mills, have announced their voluntary decision to label GMOs nationwide as opposed to just Vermont alone: Campbell's, Kellogg's, Mars and ConAgra Foods.
As highlighted by an Environmental Working Group (EWG) press release, “in the last four years, major food and chemical corporations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fight GMO labeling at the state and federal level, including more than $100 million to defeat state ballot initiatives.”
This news arrives with good timing. Only a week ago, March 23, the U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed to enable Monsanto farmers to plant GMO corn “tolerate of the weed killers … without government oversight, a step likely to expand the use of these chemical herbicides,” as noted by EWG’s Shannon Van Hoesen.
Due to the FDA and USDA’s lackadaisical approach to chemical restrictions and general awareness about food, people are left to fend for themselves. Luckily, thanks to Vermont, the U.S. Senate voted 48-49 against advancing the Deny Americans the Right to Know Act, which happened to be big corporation’s last chance to grasp at straws against the new procedures.
Vermont’s two-year battle for labels can now be deemed a huge success.
If these labels are the first step in phasing out dangerous ingredients, especially those deriving from a Monsanto scheme, then I’m all in.
As a final note: your body has the #RightToKnow what’s in the food you're purchasing in order to make better, healthier and safer consumption decisions.
