How can consumers know if they have eaten GM food?
Answer:
GM foods must be labelled in the European Union. Consumers in Europe who wish to avoid eating GM foods can do so simply by looking at food labels. If a food contains GM ingredients it will be labelled, ‘This food contains GMO’s’. Countries which require labelling of GM foods are all the 25 nations in the European Union, plus Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Russia.
GM foods in the USA and Canada do not have to be labelled. Consumers living in countries which do not require GM food to be labelled (like Iceland) have to use a bit of common sense if they wish to avoid eating them. One rule of thumb is to avoid eating foods imported from countries which do not label GM food. The two main GM food producing countries which do not label GM foods are the USA and Canada, and they produce GM food from ingredients made from GM soya, maize, oilseed rape (canola), and cotton. If the label of a food product imported from from one of these two countries shows that it contains soya, maize, canola or cotton, there is a high probability that it contains genetically modified ingredients, unless the product is certified organic.
A quick guide to identifying foods that may contain ingredients made from GM Soya, maize, oilseed rape, and cotton is:
1.
All four GM crops are processed into oils which appear in a wide range of products like, cooking oils, salad dressings, mayonnaise, margarine, fried foods, snack foods, crackers, cookies, chocolate, peanut butter, processed cheese, and ice cream.
2.
GM Maize (corn) appears in breakfast cereals, breads, cakes, taco chips, popcorn, and starch (used as thickener) in processed foods. It is used extensively to make food additives and vitamin supplements.
3.
GM Soya is found in infant formula, soya milk, soya cheese, ice cream, yogurt, tofu, and meat substitutes, and is used to make food additives.
(See website section CONSUMERS AND MARKETS for a more complete list of GM foods on the market.)
How can consumers who wish to avoid eating GM food protect their ‘freedom of choice’?
Answer:
The surest way to avoid eating any GM food is to eat organic food. The standards to which organic food is produced prohibit any use of genetically modified inputs. Livestock cannot be fed GM feed, nor can GM seeds be used to produce organic food crops. Organic products are certified according to international organic standards, organic farmers and producers are inspected by independent inspectors, and all organic products carry a certification symbol which guarantees consumers that the product is GM free.
Are there many GM food products on the market?
Answer:
There are not many GM food products on sale in Europe. A consumer report, conducted in July 2004 by Greenpeace, detailing the number of labelled GM foods found in supermarkets in Europe reported: 1 product with GM ingredients in Denmark (although this was later withdrawn), 2 in the UK and the Czech Republic, 3 in Belgium, 4 in Germany and none in Italy, Austria, Sweden and Greece. France had the highest number, 14, followed by the Netherlands which had 12. European consumers have their freedom of choice protected by EU laws that require all food containing GM ingredients over 0,9% to be labelled.
There are a great number of GM foods on sale in America and Canada. Countries, like Iceland, which do not require GM foods to be labelled are importing American and Canadian products which contain GM ingredients, and their populations are eating GM foods without knowing it. Consumers who want to avoid eating unlabelled and imported GM foods from these countries can evaluate the likelihood that the product contains GM ingredients by examining the label to see if it mentions ingredients, derivatives or additives made from soya, corn, cotton or oilseed rape (canola). To help with this assessment it is useful to know that 80% of soya, 70% of cotton, 60% of canola and 38% of corn grown in the USA are GM.
(For a list of unlabeled American GM-foods, see CONSUMERS AND MARKETS and the website www.truefoodnow.org/shoppersguide.)
GM animal feed has to be labelled but the products from animals (milk, eggs, meat) which have eaten GM feed do not have to labelled. Doesn´t this compromise consumer choice?
Answer: There is a loophole in European law that permits the meat, milk and eggs from animals which have been fed GM feed to be sold without GM labelling. While GM animal feed must be labelled, there is no requirement for the by-products of animals who have eaten GM feed to be labelled. There is a strong campaign in the UK now to close this loophole and most consumers in Europe want meat, milk and eggs from animals who have been fed GM feed to be labelled. (A report published in Sept. 2004 in the UK magazine, ‘Which?’, discovered that 68% of consumers want retailers and manufacturers to source non-GM animal feed.) Consumers who are concerned about this should contact the farmer or company which sells meat and other animal products to ask if the animals are given GM feed. Farmers who want to serve the growing majority of consumers who do not want to eat GM foods can protect the long term reputation of their meat produce by eliminating all GM feed from their animal production.
Do consumers benefit from GM food?
Answer:
GM foods are generally not cheaper than conventional foods, nor are they more nutritious. GM crops to date have been genetically modified mainly to provide benefits to farmers, not consumers. The lack of benefits from GM foods and the unknown environmental and health risks associated with GM foods are the reasons European consumers have rejected them. Consumer confidence in GM food will only be restored when governments tighten and enforce regulations which protect the environment and when independent, peer-reviewed health studies are carried out to examine the medium and long term effects of GM food on human health.
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