Christina Sarich
Natural Society
August 14, 2013
Alluding to consumer fears, many large US-based corporations, including Kellogg, Pepsi, Kraft, Coke and Heinz will now drop GMO foods from their European products while leaving GMO-sourced food in our US supply. This begs the question – do US citizens deserve to eat GMO-free food?
Companies Continue to Serve GMOs in U.S. While Backing out of Other Nations
Larry Bohlen, a Safer-Foods Safer-Farms campaign director, is
encouraged that 22 different European nations have been putting the heat
on GMO producing companies like Monsanto, Dow and BASF. He says, “If
companies are feeling the heat from 22 European nations, wait until they
start hearing from 50 American states.”
This could be good news since US politicians seem to conduct business
as usual while millions of Americans verbosely tell their
representatives that they don’t want GMOs and at the very least they should be labeled.
While the United States and Canada have virtually no GE food labeling
laws, countries like Russia, Australia, Italy, and more have mandatory
labeling of nearly all GE foods. But at least a Boston City Council
recently unanimously voted in favor of a resolution to ban GE foods until they were more seriously scientifically scrutinized, and also labeled.
There are currently over 150 territories in Europe which are GMO-free zones. Check out this global map to see which nations reject GMOs.
Interestingly, many US companies still sell modified goods, not
modified crops in countries where GMOs are not allowed in order to still
conduct business there. Kellogg and General Mills both sell products in
the EU, even though Kellogg and General Mills defended themselves against a January anti-GMO campaign with commentary from Kris Charles, a spokesperson for Kellogg.
Could these US companies’ change of heart be part of the reason that Monsanto has pulled their bid to have new GMO crops approved in Europe?
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