The truth of GMOs

Last Tuesday our group met with  one of the owners of Good Earth Al Baylaq. Good Earth is a grocery store like any other. It has fruits, vegetables, cereal, and crackers, but the one thing that isn't apparent is GMOs. Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are hard spot for the untrained eye. Most non-GMO products will proudly bear the butterfly label. The is a national label and is incorporated in the Good Earth store.

Good Earth is hard at work trying to take all of the GMOs out of their store. They has been able to convince many brands to go no-GMO by simply putting a GMO warning under the product. The sales of GMO labeled products plummet compared to the non-GMO products and the brand rushes to make it non-GMO.

What is the problem with GMOs, you may ask? Or, What even is a GMO? Well a GMO, as stated before, is a genetically modified organism. This means that the plant or animal in the product has been genetically engineered with DNA from bacteria, viruses or from other plants or animals. Almost all GMOs are engineered to withstand to application of herbicides or to produce insecticide. So you, as a consumer, are purchasing and eating foods that have been engineered to make insecticide.

Well if you think that this would cause health problems and more than 60 countries in the world agree you. Most developing nations do not consider GMOs to be safe. These countries include Australia, Japan, and all of the European Union, and in all there are serious restrictions or outright bans of the production and sale of GMOs. All these countries must have caught onto something that our government won't let us see. This something is the numerous studies showing the countless, life threatening harms of consuming GMO’s. In these studies animals are fed GMO products and within months they are either dead or seriously unhealthy.

In the U.S. no such bans or restrictions exist. In the U.S., the government has approved GMOs based on studies conducted by the same corporations that created them and profit from their sale. The general public would hope that the F.D.A. doesn’t approve products that cause health risks, right? Well, the F.D.A. has next to no testing for the safety of GMO’s. This is the most surprising piece of information that came out of the interview with Al. The FDA, the only people who are checking these foods, has little to no tests on the healthiness of GMO’s products.

The next question that came to my mind, is how do I stop eating GMO’s. The sad truth is that even though polls consistently show that a significant majority of Americans want to know if the food they’re purchasing contains GMOs, the powerful biotech lobby has succeeded in keeping this information from the public. In the absence of mandatory labeling, the Non-GMO Project was created to give consumers the informed choice they deserve. The easiest way that you can tell if a food is a GMO or not is if it has a non-GMO label. The scary truth is that the government doesn’t tell us about the harms of GMOs because that is how they make more profit.

- Earthscope Journalist Ethan Tucker