Have you heard of these? A Canadian company in British Columbia (the province just north of Washington state) has created a genetically modified apple that doesn’t brown.
It’s up for approval by the FDA to be sold in the US as soon as 2014.1
The issue I have with this apple is, what happens in your stomach?
Apples turn brown because they oxidize, and that’s part of the process you use to digest it. What’s going to happen if they can’t oxidize in your stomach? Does anyone know? I can’t find any long-term studies in humans indicating whether or not you’ll be able to safely digest these non-browning apples… I don’t know of any that have been made public.
One study I have found from the Allergy Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in India, shows that people definitely have allergies to altered proteins in apples that are modified to resist disease.2
Long term studies on animals fed other GM foods like soy and maize describe the animals developing severe stomach inflammation, distorted uteri, and worse.3
And if you’re a farmer and you grow these apples you’ll probably have to sign a non-disclosure agreement saying you won’t try to find out whether or not they’re healthy or safe. Just like Monsanto and the other producers of GMOs make other farmers sign.
I know I don’t want to eat a frankenapple. Sure, maybe they don’t go bad, which is great for the seller… plastic apples don’t go bad either, but you don’t want to be eating the things.
But I may not have a choice, and neither might you.
Giant agricultural conglomerates like Monsanto are helping to put these untested mutations on your dinner table. And because of their political lobbying and secretive policies, your government has allowed them to hide the presence of GMOs in your food.
Right now, the European Union, Japan, China, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand require GMO foods to be labeled. But Connecticut and Maine are the only two states that require GMO labels on food.
Big Agra is still lobbying to make it illegal to differentiate between their GMO foods and the real thing. Monsanto and Kraft spent $46 million dollars to defeat the California GMO label law. But almost everyone else in the U.S. wants the labels. 4
- A New York Times poll from this year found that 93 percent of people want GMO ingredients labeled.
- An earlier Washington Post poll found 94 percent of people want the labels.
- Consumers Union says 80 to 95% of people want GMO ingredients labeled.
Right now, for the most part, labeling is voluntary. But there are a few things you can look for to help you avoid GMO foods like the franken-apple.
First, “GMO free” claims are not legal or even scientifically possible right now because the testing isn’t good enough to be 100% sure.
Second, there are two labels you should know about.
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- One is the label at right:
That means a product has gone through testing by the Non-GMO Project. It’s the same standard as the European Union, where any product containing more than 0.9% GMO must be labeled.
In fact, the USDA has even endorsed the non-GMO project’s label. Sellers that want to can use the label on meat and some egg products so you know if the animal was fed genetically engineered crops like soy, corn and alfalfa.
- Another label to watch for is the “100% organic” label.
That’s NOT the “USDA Organic” label… that doesn’t mean what you think it does.
Did you know organic is a federally certified term? It can mean different things, though.
A label of “organic” can mean up to five percent non-organic ingredients. These could be GMOs. And you might see the “USDA Organic” logo on the package even though the food is not non-GMO.
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But “100% Certified Organic” is supposed to mean that those products have met strict requirements, one of which is that anything 100 percent organic can contain no genetically modified ingredients.5
However, you might see the USDA organic label on both of these packages because it’s allowed. Look for a “100% organic” label instead. They come in many forms but here’s one example to the right:
To find non-GMO products, you can use the Non-GMO Sourcebook at nongmosourcebook.com. It even tells you how and where to get non-GMO seeds.
I like The Institute for Responsible Technology’s site nongmoshoppingguide.com. You can also visit non-gmoreport.com. Just click on “resources” on the left-hand menu. You’ll see links to companies, and even test kits. There’s also the European Union’s GM Watch at gmwatch.eu.
1. “Petition for Determination of Nonregulated Status: Arctic Apple (Malus x domestica) Events GD743 and GS784.” United States Department of Agriculture – Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. www.aphis.usda.gov. Retrieved Nov 18, 2013.
2. Sharma P, Singh A, Singh B, Gaur S, Arora N. “Allergenicity assessment of osmotin, a pathogenesis-related protein, used for transgenic crops.” J Agric Food Chem. 2011 Sep 28;59(18):9990-5.
3. Carman J, et. al. “A long-term toxicology study on pigs fed a combined genetically modified (GM) soy and GM maize diet.” Journal of Organic Systems, 2013;8(1).
4. “Absolute majority of Americans want GMO food to be labeled.” RT network. www.rt.com. Dec. 2, 2013. Retrieved Dec 2, 2013.
5. “Use of the term ‘organic.'” Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Current as of Nov 29, 2013;205.102.