Toxic Free NC Tip Du Jour: Sayin’ No to GMOs

they're in everything.

April, 29, 2010 , by Billie Karel

Toxic Free NC Tip Du Jour: Sayin’ No to GMOs

According to USDA, 91% of the soy and 85% of the corn grown in the USA in 2009 was genetically modified. Whoa. Other crops that are often genetically modified include canola and cotton (i.e. cottonseed). I don’t think the average person buying food really gets that. I mean, I don’t completely get it myself. And of course, unlike Europe the US doesn’t require that genetically modified foods be labeled as such, so how would we know?

These crops - soy, corn, canola and cottonseed - are the building blocks of the industrial food system. They’re fed to livestock (even the grazers that really oughtta be eating grass), and they’re processed to make a wide variety of ingredients that go into most foods under plastic at the grocery store. A lot of the crazy chemistry words on your ingredient labels are actually corn or soy products, and even some of the things that look simple enough (“sugar”) might not be what you think they are. Here’s a list of common ingredients made by processing “the big 4,” corn, soy, canola and cottonseed.

You know how I feel about pesticides, and how it’s my job to talk to people about using less of them? Well, I’m uncomfortable with genetically-modified foods for a lot of the same reasons. As with pesticides, I’m not a purist: I’m the first to admit that strategic use of these technologies in situations where the benefits outweigh the risks is a good thing. But, like pesticides, I think that scientists don’t really understand all the health and environmental risks of GMOs yet, and that the average person knows even less. Meanwhile, both things are already everywhere and in everything at the grocery store. Call me a Luddite, but that sounds like putting the cart before the horse to me.

There’s more to connect GMOs and pesticides. Most GMO seed is produced by the same companies that make pesticides….the same companies that try to bury scientific results that are unflattering to their products and sue farmers for gene pollution they really ought to be apologizing for. Needless to say, I do not trust them.

The fairytale of genetically modified crops is about the power of science and technology to feed the world’s hungry - crops genetically altered to be more nutritious, grow in salt water, or produce life-saving medications cheaply….wow! But the present reality is that 91% of the US-produced soy and 85% of the US-produced corn that we (and our livestock) are eating everyday is engineered for pesticides, not for nutrition or anything else. Most are engineered to be “herbicide-tolerant,” meaning they can withstand application of an herbicide (mostly RoundUp) directly to the plant. That means you can spray down a whole field with RoundUp or whatever herbicide the plants are engineered to withstand, and you’ll only kill weeds, not the crop. It sounds very convenient, but every other living thing in the soil is still normal, not “RoundUp Ready.” All the worms, bugs and soil microbes that are necessary for soil health can be seriously hurt by all that RoundUp. The results: yields for RoundUp Ready crops are no better than for conventional, and in some cases they’re worse, meanwhile much more RoundUp gets used: 200 million pounds in 2008, up from about half that in 2005. RoundUp has a reputation for being relatively low-toxicity among pesticides, but new research is coming out all the time to suggest that it’s more toxic than originally thought. Meanwhile, like the genetically engineered crops, that train has already left the station, and RoundUp is already used to the tune of over 200 million pounds a year!

So, what to do about your shopping list? There’s an extensive Non-GMO Shopping Guide that lists out food brands that don’t use GMOs, but it is rather long and I imagine it would be difficult for the average person to use on a daily basis. I’d recommend a quick and dirty version stemming from #1 and #3 of the guide’s “4 Simple Tips:”

**Buy Certified Organic. There’s no labeling requirement for genetically-modified foods, but there is a requirement that foods labeled “USDA Certified Organic” do not contain anything genetically modified. So that’s some reassurance! I think this is an especially important argument for buying your processed foods certified organic in addition to your produce - all the stuff that comes under plastic like crackers, cereal, peanut butter, veggie burgers, tofu, etc etc. Because, if it contains a soy, corn, canola or cottonseed product and it’s not certified organic, there’s a high likelihood that those ingredients are genetically modified.

**Avoid the Most At-Risk Ingredients: Soy, Corn, Canola and Cottonseed (and all the things made from them). That’s where this list of all the various ingredients made from those four main crops comes in very handy. That’s the one I’m printing and carrying around in my wallet!

Good luck, and eat well!!

PS: Some additional links if you want to read more on this issue:
Soil: not roundup ready - USDA downplays own scientist’s research on ill effects of Monsanto herbicide from Grist Magazine
A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health, from the International Journal of Biological Sciences
Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds, from the NY Times
Organic on a Budget, previous post by the same author on NewRaleigh.com

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