Playing with Our Food

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http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=647 & journalID=66

Playing with Our Food

 

by Charles Margulis

 

 

Most Americans know little if anything about a massive food experiment already

underway in our nation’s fields and grocery stores. Already thousands of

products, including many of the best-known brand name foods found in millions of

households, contain ingredients from genetically engineered (GE) crops. Yet

since none of these products are labeled as “genetically engineered,” consumers

don’t even know about—and can not avoid—these genetic experiments in their

shopping cart.

 

Greenpeace is working to stop this massive food experiment, which poses

unknown risks to human health and the global environment. We oppose any release

of genetically engineered organisms, since these human-made life-forms can not

be controlled or contained once they are let loose into nature. The companies

producing genetically engineered crops today are among the worst polluters of

the 20th century. Their chemical experiments have left a legacy of contamination

that threatens nature and human health on a planetary scale. Now, with genetic

engineering, these companies are introducing a new form of pollution: biological

pollution, pollution that is a qualitatively different than any previous human

intrusion on nature.

 

With this technology, we face the specter of pollution that is alive, that

reproduces and moves through the environment. Doctors warn that genetically

engineered foods could pose immediate and long-term risks to our health, while

the biotech industry goes about contaminating the entire food supply with its

genetic experiments.

 

Your Right to Know

Many GE crops have been approved for commercial sale in the US, and consumers

are often confused about what foods in their stores might be gene- altered.

Though many crops are in development, just four crops—soy, corn, canola and

cotton—make up nearly all the genetically engineered crop acreage in the US.

There are virtually no fresh foods sold in supermarkets grown from gene-altered

seed (with the possible exception of papaya from Hawaii, where about half the

crop is GE).

 

Yet estimates routinely note that 60-70 percent of the foods in

supermarkets are made with gene-altered ingredients. This reflects the massive

amount of processed foods that include ingredients from soy and corn. A look at

processed food labels shows how ubiquitous ingredients like soy oil, lecithin,

soy protein and corn syrup, cornstarch and other corn and soy ingredients have

become. Canola and cottonseed oil are also widely used in processed foods.

Avoiding just these four foods requires eliminating virtually all processed

foods from our diets.

 

It is also important to know that just two gene-altered traits account for

almost all of the US acreage of GE crops. GE crops are being grown either for

insect resistance (including corn and cotton) or herbicide tolerance (including

soy, corn, cotton and canola). While industry repeatedly touts biotech foods

that will be more nutritious, better tasting, or healthier, neither of these

varieties has any such benefits.

 

Herbicide tolerant crops make up about 70 percent of the acreage of GE

crops in the US. These crops are engineered so toxic plant-killing pesticides

can be sprayed directly on the crop. Previously, farmers using such herbicides

had to carefully avoid the crop, which would also be killed by the chemical.

Now, GE herbicide tolerant varieties can be sprayed once, twice, even three

times a season, without harming the crop. While industry promotes genetic

engineering as reducing pesticide spraying, independent researchers have shown

that farmers who grow Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready”(RR) soy actually use two to

five times more chemicals than farmers who grow natural soy. In fact, when its

RR soy was in development, Monsanto successfully petitioned the Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) to raise the amount of its flagship chemical Roundup

allowed on soybeans. Overnight the agency raised the tolerance of Roundup on

this food from 6 ppm to 20 ppm.

 

The remaining biotech crop acreage in the US is in insect resistant crops.

Also called Bt crops, these plants pose a tremendous threat to organic farming.

Bt is a natural pest control, used in emergency situations by about half of

America’s organic farmers to control certain insects. The Bt sprays they use are

derived from natural soil bacteria, and farmers (both conventional and organic)

have used the sprays safely for over 30 years. Now the biotech industry has

engineered plants so that the plant produces an altered form of Bt. Unlike

natural Bt sprays, which naturally degrade in the environment in a matter of a

few days, genetically engineered Bt plants produce an altered toxin throughout

the entire growing season, at a very high dose. This scenario will surely lead

to insect resistance to Bt, probably in just a few years. When such resistance

develops, farmers who use pesticides and GE crops will simply move on to the

next toxin, but organic farmers will have no options. This threat to organic

farming led Greenpeace to bring together over 70 organic farmers and farming

organizations in a lawsuit challenging EPA’s registration of Bt crops.

 

Biotech industry proponents say that there is no evidence that GE foods

cause any harm. In fact, there is already evidence of environmental problems

from GE crops, and doctors around the world warn that these foods could harm

human health. Lab evidence that Bt corn could harm monarchs and other endangered

butterflies has been verified in the field. Despite a massive industry attempt

to debunk this research, the scientific debate is still raging. In Canada,

scientists have found that engineered canola has become a nearly uncontrollable

weed. One scientist there said the crop is a classic “superweed.” Other

scientific studies show that GE crops can cause insecticides to build up in

soils, cause food chain effects, transfer genes to wild relatives, and

contaminate natural crops.

 

For consumers, the prospects are even more worrisome. The New England

Journal of Medicine warned in 1996 that the Food and Drug Administration’s

(FDA’s) policy on GE food left consumers at risk from potential new food

allergies, yet the agency still has made no change (the policy has actually

never been finalized, leading a federal judge to rule that FDA has no rules

regarding GE foods). This is even more stunning after the StarLink incident, in

which a gene-altered corn that was never approved for human consumption

contaminated over 300 products sold in supermarkets and restaurants across the

country. Scientists repeatedly told the government that the corn could trigger

dangerous food allergies, and hundreds of consumers reported allergic reactions.

Even more recently, Britain’s leading scientific body, the Royal Society,

suggested that consumers should be tracked for potential allergic responses to

GE foods, noting that infants and children could be especially at risk. Of

course, since there is no labeling of GE foods in the US, such tracking here

would be virtually impossible.

 

The True Food Network: Action for Change

While the problems are daunting, we have seen amazing successes. When Greenpeace

tested Gerber baby food and found contamination from gene-altered soy and corn,

we were able to pressure the company to announce it would eliminate all GE

ingredients from its products. Gerber’s announcement forced Heinz, its main

competitor, to follow suit. Consumer pressure also lead McDonalds, Frito Lay and

McCain Foods (one of the world’s largest potato processors) to reject Bt

potatoes. Monsanto has since been forced to shut its Bt potato development

facility, and the crop is off the US market. The FDA has approved genetically

engineered rice and sugar beet, but the biotech industry has been forced to

shelve the crops, since farmers know consumers don’t want these GE foods. As

more and more Americans learn about GE foods, it becomes even harder for

industry to bring these genetic experiments into the market.

 

Yet the industry continues to fight labeling of GE food, so Greenpeace took

action, compiling the True Food Shopping List to support your right to know what

is in your food. Since the first launch of the List in October 2000, thousands

of consumers have joined our free True Food Network to take action against GE

food. The Network connects consumers across the country in a grassroots effort

to force food companies to stop using GE food. Last year, the Network won a

major victory when a year-long campaign against the supermarket chain Trader

Joe’s resulted in that company declaring it would eliminate GE foods from its

line of store brand products. Now the campaign is focusing on other

supermarkets, including the New England-based Shaw’s stores and the national

chain Safeway. In Europe, this kind of consumer action forced nearly the entire

food industry away from GE food. Together, we can do the same here.

 

To join the free True Food Network go to www.truefoodnow.org, or call Greenpeace

at 1-800-326-0959.

 

Charles Margulis is a genetic engineering specialist with Greenpeace. He is a

graduate of UC Berkeley and a long-time professional baker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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