National Post | October 25, 1999 | Terry Daynard
For different reasons, activist groups and a few farm organizations are calling for the mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients - even those nutritionally identical to traditional products.
The farm groups assume that most consumers, if they know what's in food and if they are properly informed, will readily accept the new technology - and, indeed, preferentially purchase genetically enhanced (GE) products.
But Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Council of Canadians and other anti-biotech groups see mandatory labelling as a means of completely eliminating GE food from the marketplace.
European experience shows the latter approach works, with food retailers and manufacturers choosing to avoid using GE ingredients entirely (or so they say), rather than risk having activists label their "genetically modified" products Frankenfood. Farm groups committed to a label-and-inform strategy seem to overlook the role of the media, many of whom are less interested in informing than in fostering controversy. Anyone who has witnessed the CBC's biotech coverage knows that balanced reporting is often a myth.
But lost in all of this has been a fundamental question: If you're going to label GE foods, then what do you label? Most advocates say, "Do what the Europeans are doing." But European labelling requirements are targeted almost exclusively (and conveniently) at genetic enhancements to corn, soybeans and canola - especially those enhanced products coming from North America. Europeans have carefully excluded their own forms of genetic modification.
Consider European barley: Most varieties are products of mutation breeding caused by heavy bombardment with nuclear radiation or chemical mutagens such as mustard gas. Scientific literature shows the mutagens are virtually all powerful carcinogens; they create genes that do not exist in nature and cause other genetic damage not necessarily apparent to the plant breeder.
Yet in Europe, foods and beverages made with this barley are considered "natural" - not subject to "genetically modified" labelling. Premium Glenlivet whisky or Heineken beer made from nuked or carcinogen-enhanced European barley? They're not labelled.
Europe's use of unknown-to-nature genes contrasts with North America's genetically modified corn, soybeans and canola, which are altered by inserting known, natural genes from common garden and other food plants or from safe natural, organic pesticides.
Four large Japanese brewers, to "address the wishes" of their customers, have recently announced plans to eliminate use of genetically modified corn - but not of imported European- or Japanese-grown barley. (Artificial mutagenesis is widely used in Japanese crop breeding as well.) Meanwhile, the European shell game extends well beyond barley to many other artificially mutated EU crops and other foods. A large percentage of British cheese is made using (and contains) a curdling enzyme, chymosin, produced by genetically modified E. coli bacteria. Indeed, one manufacturer advertises chymosin as an environmentally friendly substitute for traditional rennet, taken from dead calf stomachs. But this genetically modified food bears no labelling requirement in Europe.
The same applies for many other food additives - most (if not all) organic acids used as flavour enhancers are from GE organisms, for example. No labelling required in Europe. The same for aspartame, used as a non-caloric sweetener in thousands of diet drinks and foods - in Europe as in North America. No labelling required.
European governments have no reason to change a labelling practice that now serves as an excellent trade barrier to imports of North American grains and oil seeds. The activists are not interested either, since it spoils their scheme of portraying genetic modification as a recent and evil plan hatched by greedy multinational chemical companies to seize control of the world food supply. North American agriculturalists joining the let's-label-foods-as-in-Europe bandwagon have not done their homework.
A complete and honest list of foods containing genetically modified ingredients - with "genetic modification" defined as any form of genetic engineering creating organisms that cannot otherwise exist - would include almost everything we eat (for mutation breeding is used in North America as well, though perhaps not as extensively as in Europe). It would include most North American cheese, any food containing synthetic organic acids, aspartame and many other common ingredients. Some big brand-name baby foods, despite their producers' public proclamations to the contrary, contain a genetically modified ingredient - not corn, soybeans or canola but citric acid, used to enhance flavour.
The list might also include livestock products from farm animals treated with antibiotics, such as penicillin, for genetically modified organisms produce these as well.
Perhaps the simplest tack would be to label all foods as containing genetically modified ingredients. That would be far closer to the truth than what's going on now in any country.
The good news is that this smoke and mirrors has nothing to do with human health, since all North American- and European-approved genetically modified foods are safe to eat. In some cases - for instance, genetically enhanced, insect/mould-resistant corn - they are safer than "regular" foods. The bad news is that the hype about genetic modification has detracted from efforts to solve real food health problems - such as obesity and illness caused by natural food poisons.
Terry Daynard farms near Guelph, Ont., is executive vice-president of the 21,000-member Ontario Corn Producers' Association and is a former professor of crop science, University of Guelph.
