Food Labels: GE-Free or GMO-Free

Food Label Tag GreenI wonder sometimes if the whole GMO issue is purposely convoluted to confuse people.

First, let’s start with what “GE” and “GMO” stand for: Genetically Engineered and Genetically Modified Organism, respectively. Clear as crystal? Read on…

Excerpt from Ecoholic

“The feds [Canadian] voted down a law that would have made genetic engineering (GE) labelling mandatory. The CFIA [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] says meat with this label has to be approved by them.”

Excerpts from Wikipedia

“A genetically modified organism (GMO) or genetically engineered organism (GEO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques.”

—————-

“To date the broadest application of GMO technology is patent-protected food crops which are resistant to commercial herbicides or are able to produce pesticidal proteins from within the plant, or stacked trait seeds, which do both. The largest share of the GMO crops planted globally are owned by Monsanto according to the company. In 2007, Monsanto’s trait technologies were planted on 246 million acres (1,000,000 km2) throughout the world, a growth of 13 percent from 2006.”

—————-

“According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), of the approximately 8.5 million farmers who grew biotech crops in 2005, some 90% were resource-poor farmers in developing countries. These include some 6.4 million farmers in the cotton-growing areas of China, an estimated 1 million small farmers in India, subsistence farmers in the Makhathini flats in KwaZulu Natal province in South Africa, more than 50,000 in the Philippines and in seven other developing countries where biotech crops were planted in 2005.”

—————-

“The use of GMOs has sparked significant controversy in many areas. Some groups or individuals see the generation and use of GMO as intolerable meddling with biological states or processes that have naturally evolved over long periods of time, while others are concerned about the limitations of modern science to fully comprehend all of the potential negative ramifications of genetic manipulation.

The safety of GMOs in the foodchain has been questioned, with concerns such as the possibilities that GMOs could introduce new allergens into foods, or contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance. Although scientists have assured consumers of the safety of these types of crops, consumption has been discouraged in many countries by food and environmental activist groups who protest GM crops, claiming they are unnatural and therefore unsafe. This has led to the adoption of laws and regulations that require safety testing of any new organism produced for human consumption.”