The Quiet Invasion of Genetically Modified Crops

Spence Cooper
Friends Eat 

According to the USDA, Roundup Ready seeds were planted on about 95 percent of all sugar-beet acreage earlier this year, and will be harvested in spite of a federal judge throwing out the approval of the crop for commercial planting; the judge said the department had not properly considered the potential environmental impacts.

The Agriculture Department said that it planned to have interim rules governing genetically modified sugar beets in place by the end of the year, and would give priority to completion of a study on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar-beet seeds for potential re-approval within two years. 

What Crops Are Genetically Modified? 
According to the National Agricultural Statistics Board annual report, dated June 30, 2010, by 2009/2010, 93% of the US planted area of soybeans, 93% of cotton, 86% of corn and 95% of sugar beets were genetically modified varieties. And the derivatives of these GM crops — corn syrup, high-fructose syrup, cotton seed oil, flour, lecithin, and more — are found in the majority of processed foods sold in the US. Additionally, genetically engineered micro-organisms are also used as sources of enzymes in the manufacturing of processed foods. And virtually all animal feed is genetically modified.

In one form or another, genetically modified food is immersed deep within the entire US food chain, and none of these GM products are labeled anywhere, except in the Price Look-Up (PLU) codes — numbers affixed to produce and other products in grocery stores and supermarkets — that begins with the digit 8.  Even GM animal products have been developed, although reportedly not currently on the market. In 2006, a pig was engineered to produce omega-3 fatty acids through the expression of a roundworm gene.