By now most are well familiar with the term GMO - Genetically Modified Organisms (for food). They are a cause for increasing concern with many who wish to eat as healthy as possible. There are a lot of food storage companies out there claiming "GMO free" certification or "Non-GMO" products - but how true are these claims? We encourage everyone to read the facts.

The Facts

• There is no such thing as “non-GMO certified.”  This is a made-up term that doesn’t actually reflect a real certification from any oversight agency or government. Any so-called certification is conducted entirely by private agencies - of which there is no nationally accepted or incorporated standards for testing, nor are there any government or professionally recognized instutions regulating or providing certifications for these private agencies. It’s a very expensive process costing thousands of dollars simply to test a single ingredient, let alone the cost to test hundreds or thousands of ingredients - which would cost millions. In other words, it's extremely cost-prohibitive for most companies to even consider - and it does not and never has offered official "certification".
• The Non-GMO Project has this to say: "Unfortunately, “GMO free” and similar claims are not legally or scientifically defensible due to limitations of testing methodology. In addition, the risk of contamination to seeds, crops, ingredients and products is too high to reliably claim that a product is “GMO free.”
• Also from the Non-GMO Poject: "While you may see other claims regarding GMO status (e.g. “GMO free”), these are really not legally or scientifically defensible, and they are not verified by a third party".
• We see claims from other emergency food providers that their products are "GMO-free". Investigation shows that they are simply lying, lacking certification, documentation and actual verifiable evidence that they have undergone the rigourous and expensive testing required. See our Comparison page for a few of these snake-oil salesmen.
• The USDA and the FDA has never created a non-GMO certification for food. It simply does not exist. If you read this somewhere, realize that point. It’s just a marketing ploy used by unscrupulous sellers. There is NO national standard, and it is very misleading to consumers to claim “non-GMO” in a product.
• Moreover, no soy or corn in the entire country can be truly considered as GMO-free. The United States abandoned this decades ago. Cross-contamination is now so pervasive that within the U.S., it's just not possible. This is a well-established fact and well known by all authentic suppliers and canneries. No non-GMO seeds are used anymore for commerically available corn or soy. Any soy or corn (or their thousands of derivative products) that you've eaten at any time in your life should be considered GMO for this reason.
• Virtually all meat products come from soy-fed sources. Any meat you buy (including some factory farmed fish) has been fed soy – and virtually all soy is known to be GMO. The same is true for corn. Unless you have grown this yourself from non-hybrid seeds SOURCED outside of the United States (Mexico for example, which still has authentic corn but is struggling to keep it), and kept free from other pollinating sources, then you’ve been eating GMO corn (and meat) all your life.
• "Certified Organic" does not mean it is a non-GMO product either. USDA certification requires at least 95% of content to be organic in order to carry the USDA Organic label. The other 5% can allow for quite a few potential loopholes:

   

   

   

  “The casings for those tasty USDA Organic sausages can come from conventionally raised animals that have been fed antibiotics (or GMO-laden corn). The hops in your favorite organic beer can be sprayed with all manner of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.”

   

  - Barry Estabrook author of Politics of the Plate

  The USDA’s loophole list also includes two very common ingredients: non-organic cornstarch, and soy lecithin. Additonally, the use of antibiotics on organic apples and pears is allowed to prevent fire blight, as one example. Furthermore, despite organic certification procedures, organic certification is about the process of growing food, not the actual resulting food produced. There is no actual testing process for organic ingredients, so there is a very good chance that GMO contamination could indeed occur. "Organic" should simply NEVER be considered to mean "non-GMO".
• GMO contamination can happen any number of natural ways (not including contamination via manufacturing or production):

   

   

  1) From trace amounts of GMO ingredients found in animal feed.

  2) Via cross-pollination between GMO and non-GMO crops.

  3) Via seeds traveling by wind or carried by migratory birds that take root in the soil of an organic farm,

  4) Lastly, from farmers, wholesalers, distributers and suppliers whose ingredients co-mingle from various sources.

   

• Even the privately owned "The Non-GMO Project" website clearly states that its label does not guarantee a product is 100% GMO-free, because contamination is an ever-growing threat.
• Due to all of the aformentioned problems, claims of "non-GMO" - even if well intentioned - are dubious at best. We feel it is false and dishonest to claim otherwise. We have been in business for 18 years and are not aware of any company in the industry that has actually performed GMO tests that have been even independently certified by private agencies.
• Ripoff Reports has an expose regarding Legacy Foods who has made many such claims. There is also evidence they have fabricated the certification testing agency involved in obtaining their "GMO-Free" labeling. Unfortunately, it's a common practice to convince uninformed buyers that one company is "GMO-free" while others aren't.
• None of the major canneries in the storable food industry have conducted GMO testing. Not even the largest major canneries such as Rainy Day, Mountain House, Alpine Aire, etc. It would cost many millions of dollars and actually be “worthless” in the end – because testing is only valid for one particular crop – and as such, cannot be guaranteed year by year.  Do you know where the farmer buys his seed, year by year? Or how the pollen blows about across the entire world? What about seed transplantation by migratory birds? Or even another despicable practice, how Monstanto forces farmers to buy their seeds? This is another reason why such claims of “certified non-GMO” are actually completely bogus and always have been, even if they had paid millions of dollars to have their products laboratory tested by a reputable source and then independently verified. Those that make such claims are blatantly lying and you’re supposed to be naive enough to believe them.
• All of our canneries (we only deal with the major ones due to the many deceptions mentioned above) request non-GMO sources for all of their food ingredients. It is NOT certified – as such a thing does not exist.  All the food is however, USDA inspected.

 

In conclusion, we’re not willing to claim what isn’t true. It's dishonest when you find it. We advise everyone to be careful of what they accept as fact and what is simply another marketing ploy. Our Price Comparison page covers these type of scams and a few more.

https://survivalacres.com/shop/content/105-the-truth-about-non-gmo-foods