did you know
what you don't know
could hurt you
by Rachel Mayan
You wake up on a lazy Saturday morning,
cozy and warm in your cotton sheets. You
make a steaming cup of hot tea, add a
little milk and sugar. You scramble some
eggs and toss in some fresh zucchini and
squash. A bird sings outside your window.
An unexpected surprise, but welcome
nonetheless. But what if I told you everything you'd consumed, and even those
sheets you'd cozied up in, were likely
genetically modified organisms?
An unexpected surprise, perhaps, but
just how welcome is it?
In the United States, genetically modified organisms, or
GMOs, are becoming more prevalent than ever. GMOs
are organisms whose DNA has been scientifically
and directly modified by humans in an effort to
change the organism’s behavior.
Worldwide, we as humans have made
crops like corn and soy that are resistant
to herbicide; apples that don’t brown for
up to two weeks after slicing; and cows
that produce more milk than ever. We’ve
boosted profit and crop yield for smallscale farmers in countries like India with
cotton that acts as its own pesticide. We’ve
even taken a green fluorescent protein (GFP)
from jellyfish and inserted into to mammals to
track things like brain cell activity as the GFP glows.
HESITATION
With benefits like alleviating world hunger on the line,
it’s hard to argue for hesitation when welcoming GMOs
as part of our lives. But I ask that you think back to the
advent of artificial trans fats into our foods.
In the 1980s, the food industry realized man-made
trans fats could provide an easier, cheaper, better-tasting,
and, for all they knew, healthy alternative to saturated
animal fats. They were swiftly introduced into fast food,
cereal, you name it. The trans fat industry skyrocketed.
Fast forward to today, and food manufacturers have two
years to remove all artificial trans fat from their products
because it definitively increases the risk of heart disease.
So, we enacted a widespread adoption of a manmade product into our foods without being fully aware of
its effects. Huh.
REGULATION
Being fully aware of the effects of GMOs – and being
fully aware of their presence in our food – is from where
much of the GMO concern stems. GMO foods entered
the market in the 1990s. All products and ingredients are
subject to testing before entrance, and many GMOs have
been approved by the FDA and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. But GMOs in the U.S. never required
labeling. And when 64 countries around the
world, according to Non-GMO Project,
already require the labeling of genetically
modified foods and many have laws regulating their practice, that’s when our own
regulations come into question.
We as a country are one of the least
regulated when it comes to GMOs. Today,
the Grocery Manufacturers Association
(GMA) estimates that two-thirds of food sold
here in the U.S. contains GMOs, and it wasn’t
until this year – roughly two and a half decades into
their presence on our shelves – that a law was passed
requiring GMO labeling by 2018. A significant opposition
to progress in enacting the labeling laws is the herbicide
manufacturer, Monsanto.
portion of U.S. food
that contains GMOs,
per the GMA
According to a Pew
Research Center 2015
Survey on GM foods:
37
percent of Americans
who think that
eating GMO foods is
generally safe
portion of Americans
who say eating foods
grown with pesticides
is generally unsafe
67
percent of U.S. adults
who don't think
scientists understand
the health effects of
GMO foods
MOST
COMMON
GMO FOODS
According to the
Huffington Post
corn
soy
squash and zucchini
alfalfa
canola
sugar beets
milk
enhance magazine | NOVEMBER 2016
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