Genetically-Altered (Engineered) Food – Say What?

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Ok, so I was watching the CBS Evening News tonight and there was a story about how genetically-altered ingredients are not identified as such in the labels of products we buy at the store. It’s interesting that in Europe, Japan and Australia there are laws mandating this, but not here in the United States.

Why is that?

Do you think it has something to do with the fact that in a national survey over 50% of American’s indicated that they wouldn’t buy products that contained genetically engineered products in them? Maybe manufacturers are afraid we won’t buy their product if it has that on the label.

Ya think? It might make me think twice before I tossed that box into the basket.

So somehow “we” have decided that a law requiring food manufacturers to list bio-engineered ingredients is not needed here. Boy are we lucky. Boy are we smart!

Obviously Europe, Japan and Australia do not know what they are doing but we do. Ya think?

So why aren’t we listing these ingredients? Well guess what?

According to the CBS report, 75% of corn grown today in the U.S. has been genetically altered and nearly all of the soybean products have. In 2001, 68% percent of all soybeans grown in the U.S. were genetically-altered, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

So what does that mean to you and me?

If you are buying anything with soybeans (that includes all you tofu loving eaters) or any type of corn product in the list of ingredients (and this includes corn fructose syrup (one of the most common sweeteners now found in most of our fruit juices, canned fruit and soft drinks to name just a few), chances are pretty good that you are sucking down genetically-altered material.

Yummy.

So should we worry about this? Should we write to our local congressmen and senators requesting a law that requires manufacturers to identify genetically-altered ingredients on the labeling of our food products? Does anybody care?