The battle over labelling genetically modified food in the US is being reheated.
Soup giant Campbell鈥檚 has the US federal government to reverse its opposition to mandatory labels on products containing ingredients from GMOs, which many of its soups do. It is the first major food maker to break from industry-wide .
Advertisement
The move comes just weeks after the US Food and Drug Administration turned down a petition to require labels on . The agency has issued guidelines for voluntary labels, but has consistently opposed mandatory ones, arguing that genetic modification is not a 鈥渕aterial鈥� change in food. Consumer groups disagree, and the state of Vermont has mandated labels on GM foods starting in July.
Campbell鈥檚 is an interesting case. Best known for its canned produce, immortalised by artist Andy Warhol, its products are typically more comfort food than health food 鈥� sometimes heavy on the salt and sugar, but with more nutritional credibility than or fries.
That鈥檚 probably one factor behind its stand. It doesn鈥檛 expect customers to spend a lot of time fussing about nutritional purity in the way that those shopping at organic-heavy chain Whole Foods Market would.
Yet Campbell鈥檚 nonetheless deserves credit for serving it up straight. It believes GM foods are safe, and is willing to tell its customers so.
Refreshing honesty
That honesty is refreshing and essential. It鈥檚 distressing to hear big biotech and agribusiness saying 鈥渢rust us, there鈥檚 nothing to worry about鈥�, while they try to ban labelling on GM foods.
We have heard that before, from companies peddling pesticides, herbicides and CFCs 鈥� and it didn鈥檛 turn out well. We didn鈥檛 understand enough about ecology and food chains to fully anticipate the environmental impact of the wide use of pesticides. And CFCs were a great improvement over the toxic gases used for refrigeration in the 1920s; nobody thought they would destroy the ozone layer.
Science paid a price. By the 1970s, environmental fiascos had left the public wary. 鈥淐hemistry鈥� became a dirty word, and consumers looked suspiciously at cryptic ingredients in food.
We can鈥檛 afford to repeat those mistakes. Advocates of GM foods should explain their benefits, and companies using and selling them must be honest about their presence if they want to earn public trust. The best way to convince consumers of the benefits is to let them see for themselves.
That will also put pressure on advocates for GM foods to deliver the gains they promise. The 鈥�Flavr Savr鈥� tomato, sold for a few years from 1994, is a case in point. Designed to survive shipping and handling and look good in the store, it turned out to have little taste and lacked the texture of a ripe tomato.
If genetic engineering can deliver food that combines good nutrition and good taste with reasonable cost and modest environmental impact, I will look for the label and consider it a selling point.
Image credit: Richard Levine/Demotix/Corbis