Big Victory in Senate Affects Your Right to Know What’s In Your Food

Wait, don’t we already know what’s in our food based on mandatory food labels?  Not by a long shot.  Yesterday, we Americans experienced a huge victory when the U.S. Senate defeated the DARK act-Deny Americans the Right to Know. This devastating bill would have abolished states’ right to pass mandatory GMO labeling laws. This would have condemned consumers across the country to being in the “DARK” about whether the food they ate had genetically engineered ingredients in them.

Right now, many states have bills pending or passed to protect us by simply requiring food companies to put on the labels if its ingredients contain GMOs. However, the DARK act is a Federal bill created, not to protect us consumers, but really to protect big agri-business. Think about it, if GMOs weren’t bad for us, why would agri-business giants such as Monsanto, be fighting to keep them OFF the food labels.

What are GMO foods anyway and why do they matter? GMO stands for genetically modified organism and GE means genetically engineered. Modern usage of GMO actually refers to genetically engineered crops where, in a laboratory, the DNA from one organism is spliced into the genes of another organism, or even another species, to give it new or different traits. The resulting combinations are plants and animals that do not naturally exist in our environment.  For example, most GM crops grown today have been developed to resist certain insect pests.  They make them “Round-Up Ready” which means they already have harmful herbicides already in the seeds before they even go into the ground.

While this and other Genetic Engineering may seem to make sense on the farmers’ end producing higher yields and reduced maturation times, it can mean trouble for the consumers who get the transfer of resistance of antibiotics and allergens.  The problem is that genetically modified foods affect the human physiology.

For example, there is a reason why soy allergies have skyrocketed by 50% with most soy being genetically modified.  As a result, there are many who believe that the epidemic of allergies, asthma, skin problems, and chronic ailments are due to GM foods. There have been 19 studies with animals that link GMO with organ disruptions.

There is also a reason why in the European Union, if a GM product is .9 percent or more it must be labeled. In the US, labeling is amazingly not required.

The bio-chemical industry is fiercely going after two crops, corn and soy, because of their high demand for use throughout our processed goods and bio-fuel industries.Unfortunately, these 2 crops are in virtually all of our processed foods found in the “center portion” of the supermarket.  Therefore for Corn and Soy in particular, only buy USDA organic.

Try to shop the perimeter for one-ingredient food and buy organic when you can.  Also be sure to fight for your right to know what’s in the food you buy by demanding better food labels. Kudos to groups like Environmental Working Group (EWG.org) and FoodDemocracyNow.org that rallied American consumers to let their senators know that they want to know what’s in their food.

To learn more, visit ConsumersUnion.org/RightToKnow.

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