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Health & Fitness

Pondering the "High Costs" of Labeling GMOs

A local resident wonders why producers of GMOs resist labeling them as such.

The ads that claim that labeling foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is “too expensive” baffle me.  Disclosure:  I do not proclaim to be an expert on food labeling requirements nor the proposed legislation.  I am simply wondering, as a concerned voter:  why would labeling GMOs result in high food costs? 

Surely the cost of printing the labels is not at issue.  We require all kinds of information to be placed on grocery products, including nutrition information and ingredient lists that are far more detailed than the proposed statement.  It must have been quite an uphill battle to get food producers to provide all of that information, back when those requirements were first legally mandated.  Those kinds of disclsures require comprehensive nutritional analyses before the disclosure can even be made.  And yet, given the number of people with allergies, food sensitivities, and other dietary considerations, it was deemed that the benefit outweighed the costs. 


If labeling itself doesn’t create the high cost, then, what does?  And why are the benefits of labeling not outweighed by the costs?  Food sensitivities have not gone away; in fact, they seem to have increased over the years.  The next logical step would seem to be, then, to disclose when a food has been altered from the form it has historically taken.  More than fifty other countries do require it; why not the U.S?

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I did some research and here’s my understanding of it all:  if foods containing GMOs are labeled as such, then people who read the label will be unjustifiably afraid of the food and stop buying it.  When they go to look for alternatives, they will discover just how many foods in grocery stores in the U.S. contain GMOs.  Something like 90% of soy and 80% of corn gown in the U.S. are said to be from genetically modified seeds, for example, so there won’t be enough food products that do not contain GMOs to go around.  Demand  for non-GMOS will be greater than supply, and therefore prices will go up.


I see a whole lot of assumptions in this scenario, the most basic of which seems to be that too many people will stop buying foods containing GMOs if they were so labeled.  But wait a minute!  Why would so many people be scared off by a simple label announcing a food’s origins?  Two reasons occur to me:  1) we simply lack sufficient information to know appreciate what the label really means and the unknown is often frightening, or 2) there’s good reason to be scared.  In either scenario, I fail to see how not labeling GMOs is preferable. 

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If it’s the first scenario, then it seems to me that the GMO food producers are missing a prime opportunity.  If the foods they produce are as safe and beneficial as they claim, then why aren’t they singing the praises of what they have created?  Producers of organic foods jump through hoops and pay whatever it costs to be able to label their products accordingly.  They tout the origin of their foods at every opportunity.

If GMOs are safe, nutritious and saving the ever-increasing population of our hungry planet from starvation, then why doesn’t Monsanto spend the time and money to let us know how great they are?  Where are the “Monsanto safely feeds a hungry world with improved yields and nutrition” campaigns?  Consumers love to buy from companies with whom they feel an alignment.  Why would any big company doing great things skip out on such an opportunity to connect with their ultimate consumers?

Instead, it seems that the GMO producers prefer to cloak their technologically advanced plant improvements in a shroud of secrecy.  This leads me to wonder why.  What don’t they want us to know? 

Once upon a time, tobacco companies insisted that their products were healthy and made from natural sources.  They, too, resisted labels that implied anything to the contrary.  I don’t mean to say that eating genetically modified corn is akin to smoking cigarettes.  I sure hope it's not.  I've eaten too much genetically modified corn myself.  In fact, I don’t mean to distill any fear about GMOs at all.  For all I know, they are the best thing since sliced bread.  My inquiry is simply to wonder WHY we don't know.  Why the resistance?  What is it that the producers of GMOs don’t want us to know? 

 

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