Isabella

Writing
4/20/20
Why Food with GMOs Shouldn’t Be Labeled
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about genetically altered food, or Genetically

Modified Organisms (GMO), is that its unhealthy. However, there are no reported cases of illness or harm

from GMOs. Several healthy foods that we eat on a regular basis actually contain GMOs, and they’re still

healthy! Many good things can come from genetically altered food. GMOs are also considered a modern

discovery, but the first examples of it appeared over 10,000 years ago.

Not all healthy foods have GMOs, but many do. Some of these include yogurt, squash, protein

shakes, margarine, veggie burgers, tofu, salad dressing, and even granola bars or whole wheat bread! The

list of other things with GMOs comprises of many fruits and vegetables, roses and carnations, soybeans,

cotton, corn and rice. Here we have set up some side-by-side pictures of organic and genetically modified

foods. We’ll go through them quickly. In your head, see if you can tell any difference between the foods.

Here is corn. Here are apples. Here are carrots. Here are tomatoes. And here are grapes. It was not easy to

tell the difference, was it? That is because most GM foods even look the same as their organic

counterparts.

If even healthy food has GMOs, what problem would labeling foods that have them solve? The

only purpose of a label is to distinguish products. Award-winning journalist Nathanael Johnson writing

for Grist says, “Once people understand how mushy the definition of GMOs really is, they start to realize

how hard it would be to make substantive change by regulating GMOs.” He is explaining how GMOs

cannot be identified in food, like milk can be identified in food, which makes it difficult to make a change

by labeling the GMO foods. The label does nothing if everything has it. 98% of non-GMO foods are

labeled. Why do we need a GMO or non-GMO label on everything? People who don’t want to consume

GMOs can easily just look for food labeled non-GMO.

 Out of all of the organism that are modified, the most consumed today is soybeans. In history,

however, rice and corn made up huge portions of people’s diets in the Americas and Eurasian countries.

Over ten thousand years ago, Native Americans began breeding corn to become the food we all know

today. While in Europe and Asia, rice and wheat were being altered. If GMOs have really been around

that long, who are we to say they are dangerous and must be labeled?

GMOs have many benefits for farmers. GMOs allow crops to tolerate minor droughts, they

reduce food waste, they are able to resist insect damage, they improve the manufacturing business, and

some of them have enhanced nutritional content. Many people MISunderstand the definition of GMOs,

which is why they are against them. Imagine the frustration a farmer must feel when consumers aren’t

buying their foods because they are thinking on the false pretense that GMOs are dangerous. Pretty

irritating, right? The trust in brands and technology will go down if GMO foods are labeled. Things other

than our food will change if GMO foods are labeled, and it will all be because of a misunderstanding.