Monsanto's GM confidence trick - healthier GM foods

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GMW: Monsanto's GM confidence trick - " healthier GM foods "

 

" GM WATCH " <info

 

 

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:25:41 GMT

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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1.Monsanto's GM confidence trick - GM Watch

2.On the uptake of healthier GM foods - New Scientist

3.Will low-fat foods sway biotech sceptics? - New Scientist

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1.Monsanto's GM confidence trick

 

Is Monsanto's pulling a GM confidence trick with its supposedly

healthier low linolenic acid soya beans? It certainly looks like it!

 

According to an article in the current edition of New Scientist

magazine " the first GM products claiming to have direct benefits for

consumers

have arrived... Monsanto says that the new soybeans will make processed

foods and snacks healthier. When added to processed foods, oil from the

beans doesn't form trans-fatty acids, saturated fats... "

 

Sue Davies, chief policy adviser at the GM-sceptical Consumer

Association, is quoted as saying, " It's positive that they're starting

to look

at consumer benefits. " And in an editorial New Scientist opines,

" Finally, GM crop growers are offering sceptical consumers a real

reason to

buy - low fat foods... it is a major - and pleasant - surprise to find

that the agribiotech company Monsanto has created a crop specifically to

appeal to health-conscious westerners... the first commercial GM crop

designed for well-heeled consumers. " The editorial asks, " Could it

reverse anti-GM feelings in Europe? "

 

That's doubtless what this " GM crop " is designed to do but it's nothing

short of a confidence trick. The low linolenic acid trait in the

soybeans that Monsanto wants to market is actually... non-GM!!

 

As much was admitted in a recent REUTERS article about why Monsanto

wouldn't be pursuing GM wheat but would be pursuing low linolenic acid

soya instead. That article clearly says, the " company [Monsanto] instead

would plow its resources into a *conventionally bred* variety of

soybeans that will produce a cooking oil with a lower level of

cholesterol-producing trans fatty acids. " (emphasis added) The article

goes on to

quote Monsanto's Executive Vice President Jerry Steiner, " We saw what's

going on with food and trans fats, and we saw that resource we are

putting

in wheat is not nearly as valuable as putting it into the food and oil

side. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4996

 

So, if Monsanto has a valuable non-GM low linolenic acid soyabean how

on earth is it being marketed as the first of the company's GM crops

with consumer benefits? The answer seems to be that Monsanto has

deliberately turned it into a GM crop. The company has added a GM

trait that has

absolutely nothing to do with consumer benefits!

 

Monsanto is said to be making the conventionally bred low linolenic

acid soyabean available only in Roundup Ready soybean varieties,

genetically engineered to resist the company's Roundup herbicide. In

other

words, if you want to grow the healthier-oil soybeans, you *have to*

use the

GM variety, ie Monsanto is deliberately only making the non-GM trait

available to famers and consumers in a GM crop.

 

Such a sleight of hand by the company raises interesting questions

about Monsanto's oft repeated mantra of " choice " . Whenever GM moratoriums

or bans are threatened by governments, food companies or supermarkets,

up jumps Monsanto and its supporters to protest that this would deny

farmers and consumers choice. But if Monsanto is going to market this

non-GM trait only in a GM plant, then it is deliberately denying

choice to

farmers and consumers.

 

And if Monsanto is claiming - as seems to be the case from the articles

in New Scientist - the non-GM trait as a GM success story, then it is

perpetrating a fraud. Because the fact that the healthier-oil soybean

was generated without resorting to genetic engineering is, in reality,

yet another example of why we do not need the risks involved in this

technology.

 

Finally, there have also been reports that Iowa State University has

conventionally produced an even lower linolenic acid variety that would

be better than the Monsanto one.

http://www.notrans.iastate.edu/

http://www.zfsinc.com/refining.asp

 

If true, it would be interesting to know if the better variety is going

to be available (given that Monsanto and the other big companies now

own so many seed companies), and if not, why not?

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2.Editorial: On the uptake of healthier GM foods

New Scientist, issue 2491, 19 March 2005

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg18524913.500

 

Finally, GM crop growers are offering sceptical consumers a real reason

to buy - low fat foods.

Could it reverse anti-GM feelings in Europe?

 

ONE of the biggest hurdles in selling genetically modified crops to

sceptical consumers, especially in Europe, has been that there was

nothing

in it for them. All the traits commercialised so far, such as herbicide

resistance, benefit farmers. So it is a major - and pleasant - surprise

to find that the agribiotech company Monsanto has created a crop

specifically to appeal to health-conscious westerners. This is not

food for

poor people, like rice rich in vitamin A or potatoes packed with

protein, but the first commercial GM crop designed for well-heeled

consumers.

 

Monsanto's new variety of soya produces unusually low levels of

linolenic acid. When used in processed food, it should reduce the

amount of

saturated fat in the product, the company says (see " Will low-fat foods

sway biotech sceptics? " ). And this is just the start. Monsanto has plans

for a range of healthier crops, including soya that ...

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3.Will low-fat foods sway biotech sceptics?

Andy Coghlan

New Scientist, issue 2491, 19 March 2005

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524914.600 & feedId=health_rss20

 

A decade after genetically modified crops went on sale, the first GM

products claiming to have direct benefits for consumers have arrived

 

A DECADE after genetically modified crops went on sale, the first GM

products claiming to have direct benefits for consumers have arrived. The

products will be welcomed in the US, but may struggle to dent European

opposition to GM.

 

Monsanto, the biotech crop giant based in St Louis, Missouri, unveiled

plans for its Vistive range of GM soybeans on Tuesday in London. It

says Vistive soya is leading a second generation of GM crops that benefit

consumers and not just farmers. " It's positive that they're starting to

look at consumer benefits, " says Sue Davies, chief policy adviser at

the London-based consumer association, Which? " But because of the way the

first generation were introduced, European consumers will still be very

sceptical. "

 

Monsanto says that the new soybeans will make processed foods and

snacks healthier. When added to processed foods, oil from the beans

doesn't

form trans-fatty acids, saturated fats

 

 

 

 

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