Simple Little Trick To Tell If Your Food Is Genetically Modified
As reported by Maria Gallagher, in the June 26, 2002 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, by reading the PLU code, you can tell if the fruit was genetically modified, organically grown or produced with chemical fertilizers, fungicides, or herbicides.
Here’s what to look for. Look for the labels (stickers) stuck on your fruits and veggies:
* A four-digit number means it’s conventionally grown.
* A five-digit number beginning with 9 means it’s organic.
* A five-digit number beginning with 8 means it’s GM.
The numeric system was developed by the Produce Electronic Identification Board, an affiliate of the Produce Marketing Association, a Newark, Delaware-based trade group for the produce industry. As of October 2001, the board had assigned more than 1,200 PLUs for individual produce items.
Dr. Michael Wegmann's Thoughts:
Genetically modified (GM) foods are food items that have had their DNA changed through genetic engineering. What this does is create food that is better suited to withstand environmental forces such as drought and bugs. In the US, by 2006 89% of the planted area of soybeans, 83% of cotton, and 61% maize were genetically modified varieties.[1]
GM foods were first put on the market in the early 1990s. The first commercially grown genetically modified whole food crop was a tomato (called FlavrSavr), which was modified to ripen more slowly by Californian company Calgene.[2] The most common modified foods are derived from plants: soybean, corn, canola, and cotton seed oil.
Here is how some of these foods become GM. Let's take soybeans for example, my father-in-law is a large scale farmer in Iowa. The corn and beans he purchases have been soaked in RoundUp. RoundUp is a commercial weed killer. When the weeds grow they spray the entire field with RoundUp and the crops are resistant to the weed killer, and only the weeds die. The farmers know this is a problem, but here's the catch, they can only purchase RoundUp ready seeds.
The issue with GM food lies with a problem called Gene Transfer. This happens when genetic material from the crop can be found in the human.
Currently there are only a few dozen peer reviewed studies completed on the health effects of genetically modified foods. The results of many of these studies strongly challenges the industry and government standard of substantial equivalence. As of January 2009 there has only been one human feeding study conducted on genetically modified foods. The study involved seven human volunteers who had their small intestines removed. These volunteers were to eat GM Soy to see if the DNA of the GM soy transferred to the human gut bacteria.[3] Researchers identified that three of the seven volunteers had transgenes from GM soy transferred into their gut bacteria. "This transgene was stable inside the bacteria and appeared to produce herbicide-tolerant protein... In the only human feeding study ever conducted on GM crops, long standing assumptions that genes would not transfer to human gut bacteria were overturned.
It's a catch 22, clearly millions of people around the world would die if we didn't produce food on a large scale, but the side-effects are still largely unknown. I choose to avoid GM food as much as possible. The fact is if you live in America, the chances of you consuming GM is great.
[1] Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S. USDA ERS July 14, 2006
[2] Martineau, Belinda (2001). First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Foods. McGraw-Hill. pp. 269. ISBN 978-0071360562.
[3] Netherwood et al., "Assessing the survival of transgenic planic plant DNA in the human gastrointestinal tract," Nature Biotechnology 22 (2004):2.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Congrats on your new webpage. It’s awsome looking and very informative. I especially liked the info on GM foods.
Sooooo, sorry. I don’t get it. What happens when whatever it is you said is transfered to wherever you said it gets transfered? Cuz, apparently you saying something other than the obvious that when you eat something it is transferred from the plate your stomach…..
Thanks Sue, I appreciate your compliments, they mean a lot. I hope you find lots of great stuff on the site. We will be updating it frequently.
Hello Alisha, thanks for your comments. What the research is referring to is the transfer of genetic material (DNA) from the modified food to your body. This would occur via the intestines. The health affects of this process are not fully understood yet. We do know for a fact that disease occurs when there is a alteration to the genetic expression of cells.
Modifying food crops genetically entails the insertion of genes from one organism into another producing altered genetic material (DNA). This technology is being used in the United States to alter certain properties of food crops. By using these genetic modification techniques, plants such as soybeans, corn, or canola can be made more pest resistant. Tomatoes can also be modified to improve their shelf life – they won’t go soft as quickly.
Origins of GM Foods:
The Flavr Savr, a trademarked tomato, was the first GM food crop grown commercially by the Californian company Calgene. Calgene was allowed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release these tomatoes into the market in 1994 without any special labeling.
Ignorance Regarding GM Foods
According to a survey of the Food Policy Institute (FPI), fewer than half (48%) of Americans realized that GM foods were on the market, despite the prevalence of these foods on supermarket shelves. And a whopping 87% of Americans would not score a passing grade in understanding the science behind GM technology.
GM Foods and Human Health
Gene Transfer:
There would be a concern for human health if gene transfer from GM foods to human body cells occurred and caused human illness. Of a particular concern is transferring antibiotic resistance genes which are used to create GMOs. The FDA and WHO discourage engineering techniques which use antibiotic resistance genes in GM foods. Antibiotic resistance genes do not respond to conventional antibiotics and therefore could cause possible complications regarding human illness and treatment.
Outcrossing in a GM scenario refers to the movement of genes from GM plants into cultivated or wild species. It also refers to the mixing of crops derived from conventional seeds with those using GM crops. These influences may have an indirect effect on food safety and food security. A situation occurred regarding this scenario when traces of a type of corn which was only approved for livestock feed appeared in corn products deemed for human consumption in the US.
I’m still not sure I understand the whole “transfer” thing. It still seem obvious to that whatever you eat is always tranferred to your body. But I do find it concerning that some of these crops are modified to resist antiboitics.
Does this effect frozen fruits and veggies as well? How do we know about those?
I think what Dr. Wegmann is trying to say is that while the effects of ORGANIC foods on the human body are understood, the effects of GENETICALLY MODIFIED foods are not.
For instance, you know that if you eat an organically grown tomato, you can know for certain that there aren’t going to be any long term effects on your body. If you eat a GM tomato, however, there is currently insufficient data to support – without a doubt – that the GM tomato is as harmless as the organic one.
Since the GM foods have different DNA, it follows that the GM foods may have a different impact on your health than organically grown foods would.