Help! There’s GMO in my food!

People are talking about it these days. Fact is, you may already be eating it. We can almost hear Greenpeace advocates crying, "Help! There’s GMO in my food!"

GMOs, in case you don’t know, are genetically modified organisms where genes have been transferred between unrelated species – for instance, animal genes into vegetables, bacteria genes into food crops, even human genes into animals. According to Greenpeace, the ethical issue here is that "the genetic engineering industry does not respect nature’s boundaries – boundaries designed to protect the uniqueness of individual species and assure the genetic integrity of future generations." There are many ecological, social and health concerns.

Greenpeace digs further into the issue: Genetic engineering uses enzymes to break the DNA strand at certain places, insert new segments, and "stitch" the strand back together again. Genetic engineers can "cut and paste" genes from one organism into another so that the makeup of the organism is changed and its natural biology is manipulated for the expression of certain traits (like genes may be inserted so a plant will produce toxins against pests). The precise location of an inserted gene cannot be accurately controlled and this can cause unexpected results if genes in other parts of the organism are affected.

Rice with a human gene? Potatoes with a chicken gene? Tomatoes with bacteria and virus genes? These are some of the new GE foods that may soon be introduced on the market. The unrestricted cultivation and marketing of certain GE varieties of tomato, soybean, maize, cotton, oilseed rape, squash and potato are already allowed in the US. GE crops are already commercially grown in Canada and Argentina. The sad fact is that in most parts of the world, governments are not even notified if US or Canadian imports are from GE crops. Genetically modified soy and corn from the US get into the Philippines by the bushels without our knowing it. For all we know, those imported junk foods we love to gorge on could contain GE ingredients.

So who stands to gain from all this?

Greenpeace’s reply: Who else but those greedy agrochemical multinationals, who call themselves "life science" companies but actually plan to take over life itself by gaining control of all the world’s staple crops like rice, maize and wheat by patenting their seeds. They claim that GE crops will increase yields and help small farmers in developing countries. The truth is, these profit-hungry companies are only helping themselves by forcing farmers to use their patented seeds and herbicides.

Two years ago, Greenpeace commissioned an independent food-testing laboratory in Hong Kong (Hong Kong DNA Chips Ltd) to test 30 common consumer food items available in the Philippines where GE foods are not labeled or regulated. Using a standard PCR (polyemerase chain reaction) test, lab men checked for the presence of gene sequences from two most commonly grown types of GE crops: roundup ready crops (primarily soya and corn) and Bt crops (primarily corn) that have been genetically engineered to produce an insecticide toxin. Of the 30 products tested (because they contained either soya or corn ingredients), 11 tested positive for GMO. These are: Bonus Vienna Franks, Rica Protina Hotdogs, Campo Carne Moby Hotdogs, Purefoods Beefy hotdogs, Quality Foods Budget Franks, Foodmart Enterprises Crab Cake, Hong Chi Food Yung Ho Soya Drink, Doritos Smokey Red Barbecue, Nestle Nesvita Natural Cereal Drink, Isomil Soy Infant Formula, and Knorr Cream of Corn Soup.

Greenpeace points out that the corporate double standards of multinationals – they maintain one standard for Europeans and another for Filipinos – certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Force-feeding Filipinos with GE foods, these corporations do not label their products in the Philippines like they do in Europe or provide care lines, in-store leaflets or GE-free guarantees in the Philippines like they do in Europe and countries of the First World where consumers are more aware of the GE issue.

In January 2000, the Hong Kong Legislative Council supported a motion demanding the mandatory labelling of GE products. Starting September 2001, the Korean government began requiring mandatory labeling for GE foods. Anyone found falsely labelling faces a three-year jail sentence or a 30-million-won fine. Those who do not label face a 10-million-won fine. What is the Philippine government doing?

* * * How to read expiry dates

Expiry (or expiration) date – that’s the first thing we look for when we buy our daily bread, among other consumer goods. But often, we don’t bother to look when it comes to our favorite chocolates, which "expire" in our mouths faster than you can say Toblerone or M&M! A colleague Linda Bolido calls our attention to the practice in establishments of mindlessly attaching price stickers to items being sold without regard for the kind of information they are covering up. The consumer is thus denied access to certain vital information like expiry dates and ingredients.

"I sometimes have to look at several pieces of the same item just trying to find one where the expiry date and/or ingredients have not been covered up," an anxious Linda notes. "Consumers should be concerned because they might just end up with products expiring before they can even use them, or having expired while still on the grocery shelves."

To stretch the issue, perhaps the government could adopt measures to make sure that expiry dates are clearly understood. Americans, Europeans and even the Japanese have different ways of writing expiry dates. The British and Europeans, including their former territories, usually write expiry dates by starting with the day, followed by the month and then the year – e.g. 5/8/02 for 5 Aug. 2002. Americans, on the other hand, invariably start with the month, followed by the day and the year; hence 8/5/02 for Aug. 5, 2002. As for the Japanese, sometimes they start with the year; thus 02/8/5 for 2002 Aug. 5. So what happens is that a consumer who does not know how to read dates according to product origin might be lulled into thinking that he/she still has plenty of time to use whatever it is that has an expiry date.

Excuse us while we get back to our chocolates which are in mortal danger of expiring any minute now.