Genetically Modified Organisms are becoming more and more common, but do you really want to eat them? I’m not sure I do, but how do you know if you are getting something natural, unadulterated, or if that corn or your potatoes have been modified genetically? The fact is, unless our food items are labeled, we will never know.
The California GMO Referendum is slated to be on the ballot this November 6, giving Californians the right to vote for whether or not their foods are labeled.
So, what are GMO’s? They are genetically altered vegetables and meats. These food items have had their DNA altered in a laboratory by genes from other plants, animals, viruses, or bacteria, in order to produce foreign compounds in that food. An example of this is genetically altered corn, that makes the corn be able to produce pesticides in its own tissue. If a bug eats the corn plant, its stomach literally explodes. How do we know that when we humans eat that corn, we won’t have serious side effects in our stomach or intestines?
Label GMO’s website says this:
The issue of GM food safety was first discussed at a meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and biotech representatives in 1990. The “substantial equivalence” concept was proposed in early 1996. The adoption of the concept of substantial equivalence allowed permission to market and sell new foods without any safety or toxicology tests as long as they were not too different in chemical composition to foods already on the market. [FDA GRAS proposal] To decide if a modified product is substantially equivalent, the product is tested by the manufacturer for unexpected changes in a limited set of variables such as toxins, nutrients or allergens that are known to be present in the unmodified food. If these tests show no significant difference between the modified and unmodified products, then no further food safety testing is required.
The California Right To Know organization has more information on their website. Although I am not a citizen of California, I feel that this is an important referendum, Proposition 37, and could eventually affect every citizen of the United States. Please, encourage everyone you know who lives in California, to go to the polls on November 6, and vote YES for Proposition 37.