Genetically Modified Food
Genetically-engineered foods are becoming common and we consumers have to decide what we want. Plant breeders have been improving food varieties for years, giving us sweeter-tasting carrots, peas with edible pods, and a host of cereal crops with better yields. Some years ago, they even bred the harmful erucic acid out of rapeseed, giving the new product the more acceptable name, canola.
Gene technology
As an extension of these clever techniques, scientists are now altering plants using gene technology. This new gene technology can make plants carry medically useful components such as bananas containing a hepatitis B vaccine, a great step forward in regions where hepatitis B is rife and regular vaccines are too expensive. Many plants have been genetically-modified to withstand the effects of weedkillers or resist attack by insects. Although these all sound like benefits, some products are generating large-scale protests all over the world because people are concerned that it could lead to higher residues of weed killer in foods.
Gene beans
Much of the fuss is over soy beans, one of the most important food crops, especially in the United States. Extracted soy bean oil is used in home cooking and the food industry generally. Left-over oil ‘cake’ is also fed to farm animals. Soy protein also goes into beverages, cereals, breads, biscuits, sausages and many other food products. The Australian soy bean industry is much smaller and, as a result, soy beans are not used as widely in our foods. But their popularity, especially through soy beverages, is increasing.
The company that makes Roundup(TM) (a commercial variety of the chemical glyphosate and the world’s biggest selling weedkiller) has also produced a genetically-altered soy bean that can resist the action of Roundup(TM). The idea is that farmers spray genetically-modified crops with Roundup(TM), the soy beans live and the weeds die. Other companies are also developing crops to resist their own herbicides. Herbicide-resistant crops may lead to bigger sales of herbicides, and are therefore very profitable.
Labelling problems
Genetically-modified soy is not yet grown in Australia, but soy products imported from the United States, such as beverages made from soy protein, are on our supermarket shelves. However, you won’t know you’re buying genetically-modified soy because there is nothing on the label to tell you. The Australia and New Zealand Food Authority has proposed that this silence should continue. It considers the genetically-modified soy bean is ‘substantially equivalent’ to any other soy bean, and therefore does not need to be labelled. The authorities are probably right as far as major nutrients such as protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals are concerned. It is not known if the genetically modified foods have all the qualities that protect against things like cancer. They may have more. It is unknown.
Superweeds?
Many people throughout the world are protesting about genetic engineering for food crops and some concerns are valid. In the same way that the over-use of fertilisers and pesticides has degraded land and ruined waterways and the wildlife that once inhabited them, so gene technology may leave a miserable legacy.
Scientists agree with environmentalists that it will be vitally important to control genetically-modified plants. But some groups doubt they will be able to do it. Pollen from crops can travel several kilometres. The ‘Scottish Crops Research Institute Annual Report’ in 1994 told the tale of pollen from rapeseed plants fertilising plants 2.5km (1.5 miles) away. There has been a documented report that rapeseeds, genetically modified to resist herbicides, had bred with a wild relative to produce weed-like plants also resistant to the herbicide. Could these wild weeds turn into superweeds? Scientists say the possibility is low, but they don’t rule it out.
What you can do
Gene technology is with us. And it would be absurd to think all these new foods are harmful. Some will definitely be beneficial although some, such as the proposed canola oil with more saturated fat, are a nutritional problem. However, the real issues are whether genetically-engineered foods are really necessary and whether they should all be labelled. Do you want to know when a food contains genetically-modified ingredients? If so, put pen to paper and write to the Minister for Health in your state. When asked to approve the proposal that genetically-modified foods deemed to be ‘substantially equivalent’ should not be labelled, the Australian Health Ministers asked for time to consider the proposal. They have to make a final decision in early December 1998. Now is the time to let them know what you think. Address letters to the Minister for Health, Parliament House in the capital city of your state.