The GMO Elephant in the Room
Ronnie Cummins- Organic Consumers Assoc.
The GMO Elephant in the Room
When’s the last time you signed a petition or wrote a letter urging the FDA or Congress or your state legislator to add Vitamin A or potassium to the nutrition label on packaged foods?
Do you recall ever petitioning anyone to change the serving sizes listed on food labels? Or to increase the font size used to list calories?
More likely, the only label change you’ve argued for or campaigned for has been one that tells you whether or not your food has been genetically modified.
On February 27, First Lady Michelle Obama launched a media blitz to tout the FDA’s proposed new rules for nutrition labels on packaged foods. Both the FDA and Mrs. Obama trumpeted the changes, the first in 20 years and 10 years in the making, as being designed to help consumers “make healthy food choices for their kids.”
Conspicuously absent from the media hype was any mention of the one label that consumers have been crystal clear about wanting, the label that consumers in nearly 60 other countries have but Americans don’t—a label that tells us whether or not our cereal or soda or mac & cheese contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
ronniecummins@organicconsumers.org