Is reading the label sufficient to avoid GM food?

As someone who is passionate about organics, I am naturally (pardon the pun) strongly opposed to the use of genetically modified foods (GM). So I have been making significant attempts to remove them from my fridge, pantry, and garden (yep, they can be found there too). But, rather unexpectedly, I am having a LOT of trouble doing so. Why? Because there are thousands of products already in our supermarkets which contain GM foods, and they are NOT labelled GM!

This came as a shock. In Australia, our labelling laws are rather lax when it comes to GM. If a product has, for example, included GM canola oil in it's contents, it is not required by Australian law to be labelled as GM. The reason? Our regulatory authority, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), deems that once a food has been refined to a certain level (e.g. reduced to merely oil) then the GM-ness of the food is no longer an issue, and no labelling of it as GM is required.

This has made it virtually impossible to avoid GM foods altogether unless you avoid all processed food, or reject any processed foods which have not been cleared by Gene Ethics or GreenPeace as being GM free. (Bob Phelps, from Gene Ethics is pictured left.)

You would assume that an authority like FSANZ, which has "our best interests at heart", would have a swathe of convincing research evidence on which to make this decision about labelling. You may be surprised to learn that in fact their ruling about when the GM-ness of a food is no longer significant is a purely subjective one, with little science to support it. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that a more refined version of a food negates any possible effects associated with GM.

The labelling decision also directly flies in the face of mounting evidence which clearly points in the other direction - that even highly processed GM foods can have a detrimental effect on our health. (For more info on that, see Gene Ethics.)

This is scary stuff, because in the USA - where GM has been around now for a couple of decades - it is estimated that more than 80% of their processed foods contain GM ingredients. Australia appears to be heading in the same direction. We are consuming significant amounts of GM food, without even knowing it.

While GM advocates claim that, after many years of GM in the food supply there are no widespread negative health effects, such claims are impossible to test. Population rates of cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other major health problems are on the rise every year. If any of these issues are in any way contributed to by the consumption of GM food, it would be completely hidden and impossible to prove.

But if GM is really so potentially detrimental to our health, why would it even be approved and on our shelves in the first place? The answer may shock you. In order for a GM food to be accepted by FSANZ (or by the FDA in the USA) the company who creates the GM food simply needs to provide it's own research demonstrating safety. That's right, the GM company itself does it's own research, with it's own scientists, and then tells FSANZ everything is a-okay. FSANZ (and the FDA) do NONE OF THEIR OWN INDEPENDENT TESTING TO DETERMINE IF THE RESEARCH IS ACCURATE.

When independent researchers have looked at GM foods, their results contradict those of the GM companies. And the countless testimonies of farmers and communities around the world, who are living daily with GM agriculture, should be enough to raise the alarm.

Some of those documented testimonies about GM's effects on human and animal health include:
2001 - Twelve cows die mysteriously after being given GM corn in their feed
2003 - 100 people residing next door to a new GM cornfield become seriously ill
2005 - More than 250 agricultural labourers in six separate towns, became seriously ill after working in a GM cotton field
2006 - 25% of sheep stocks who grazed on GM cotton plants died from a toxic reaction

For an excellent summary of the potential health threats posed by GM, and the frightening lack of regulation of the entire industry, check out this global research paper. Or read more at Gene Ethics. I've also picked up an excellent book, which I would highly recommend if you want to research things even further, called Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods by Jeffrey M. Smith. It's a couple of years old now, so doesn't include the very latest research, but does a wonderful effort in summarising the research findings from around the world examining GM and it's effect on our health.

When it comes to avoiding GM it's important to know that, in Australia at least, you can't trust the label. Unless, that is, the label says that the product is certified organic. When food is certified organic, it has been carefully scrutinized from start to finish and decreed to be free from any GM input.

This is possibly one of the most fundamental reasons yet for continuing to make the organic choice, every day. And it's certainly not one that I had anticipated!

Pervasive preservatives

As someone trying to live a healthier and more environmentally conscious life, I sometimes find myself having to make compromises. Take, for example, my penchant for enjoying a hot-buttered crumpet with my cup of tea, during the winter months. There is - as yet anyway - no such thing as an organic crumpet. So I push my convictions aside as I hurl the packet into the trolley each week. "They're not so bad," I reason to myself. "Much healthier than many other afternoon treats I could have"

Now that wholemeal crumpets have become available, I have virtually decided that any guilt I still feel over my crumpet's non-organic status is no longer justified. "So what if they're not organic?!" my self-talk assures me. "They are healthy and wholemeal, and way ahead of the lamington on all counts!"

But there is one lurking demon that has come to my attention in recent weeks that I simply can't shake off. Crumpets are loaded with two of the worst preservatives known to human kind. Preservatives 202 and 234.

What's a girl to do? Preservatives are so hazzardous to our general, long-term health (despite what Food Standards Australia New Zealand says) that as part of my organic conversion I have started to try and avoid preservatives at all costs.

Its amazing just how many food chemicals, including preservatives, are in our everyday food. The website www.nutritionandyou.com.au warns that the so-called "healthy average Australian diet" can easily provide you with over 100 toxic food chemicals each day. Many of these are suspect carcinogens and proven to cause nervous system damage, hyperactivity, damage to babies, children, pregnant and breast feeding women.

The great news is that choosing Certified Organic food is the safest bet for avoiding preservatives. For a food to be certified organic it must be free of preservatives - even the processed food items. And if you are going to buy a non-organic item beware of products claiming to be "all natural" and "additive free", as they can still legally contain an array of nasty chemical cocktails. Even "Natural Flavour" is not necessarily natural, and may merely refer to nature identical flavouring, which is legal to do.

So what about those crumpets? Well, I still don't think I'm ready to give them up, despite staking out the moral high-ground. But I have made the decision to cut down to just one or two a week. And to take a VERY close look at all the other non-organic food items I have lurking in my pantry to ensure that my intake of preservatives falls way below the "average" Australian intake. Scary stuff. And another good reason to choose organic whenever possible.

The longest journey begins with a single step

I've started this blog after exhaustive searching of the web revealed very little quality information about how to "live organic" - how to conscioulsy and actively choose organic food, products, and gardening methods on a daily basis. Sure, there are plenty of articles out there written by people and companies trying to spruik there own organic wares. But I want to hear about the experiences of real people who are struggling to make the right choices everyday about their food and health. I want to hear about what choices you make when you desperately need to buy eggs, and the only option staring you in the face are caged, battery hen eggs from the local corner shop. Do you make the purchase and slip out quietly like a disgraced sports star picking up a secret hit of EPO? Or do you forego the eggs - because they're not organic - and not make the birthday cake for your daughter after all?

Living organic is not a straight forward process. Everyday there are compromises and balancing acts as we try and make the best choices we can with regard to food, how we grow it, and the products we buy containing agriculturally based ingredients. With mainstream society still only barely cogniscent of the way in which agriculture operates, and the terrible damage food production and distribution methods have had on our environment and our health, it is still very difficult - even in 2009 - to live a truly organic life without a great deal of difficulty and good planning.

This blog is a place where I will share my experiences and struggles, and as much information about organics as I can lay my hands on. I hope you will post comments and share your experiences with me, so together, as a community, we can support each other to make the change we want to see in the world - the change to an organic way of life!