Half of All Americans Wouldn’t Buy FrankenFoods…If They Could Tell The Difference
A recent New York Times/CBS poll bears good news for ecopreneurs in the food industry. Fifty-Three percent of consumers said they would not buy genetically modified food. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell the difference between Frankenfoods and the real thing.
A new CBS News poll found that 87% of consumers would like GMO ingredients to be labeled, just as they are in Europe, Japan and Australia. Yet the U.S. Congress has never even held a vote on the issue, to give shoppers the opportunity to exercise their most basic right - to make a choice.
Once again, labeling decisions made by the FDA and USDA, influenced heavily by big agriculture are keeping consumers from understanding what is in their food. The FDA’s position is: GMOs are the “substantial equivalent” of conventional crops and so does not require “disclosure of genetic engineering techniques…on the label.”Of course, there’s an explanation for that.
Robert Brackett is spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
“I think that consumers have that information available to them if they want to look for it,” says Brackett, “You can find it on websites. You can go directly to the manufacturer.”
Well, OK – be glad to do that if I had time, but, in fact though most consumers don’t. And herein lies the opportunity for eco entrepreneurs.
Today, more than 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop is genetically modified - had its DNA altered to increase production and withstand chemical weed killers like roundup. Nearly three-quarters of all corn planted in the U.S. genetically modified.
Experts say that means if it comes in a can or a box and the label lists soybean oil or corn syrup as ingredients, odds are that it contains GMOs. Overall, 65 percent of all products in your local grocery store have DNA-altered ingredients…not that you’d know it by looking.
As an eco entrepreneur with food products that do not contain GMOs you probably already prominently display that on your labels. But, what’s the next step? Capitalize on the P.R. As this poll makes the rounds of media; get your public relations team working to spread your name around as an alternative. Give interviews, send out press releases; distribute the poll information to your consumers…they’ll pass it on.
P.R. can be a powerful tool! What other ideas do you have?
Image Credit: Scott Pollock under Creative Commons License
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Apart from a bio-tech disaster that could show up decades or even a generation later, GMOs are the saviors of our American lifestyle. There is no way we could live the way we do without them.
When Monsanto and other GMO producing giants develop a GMO modified plant that will grow anywhere and produce huge amounts of bio-diesel quickly and easily, we will realize the tremendous contribution they make to bettering our lifestyle.
A hemp plant that produces biodiesel fuel and fiber for paper and cloth but no TCP, is entirely possible, as well as a modified version of ‘Jatropha’ an oily weed grown in the tropics. If we don’t let these Scientists work, and take some minimal risks we assign ourselves to repeating the past, with carcinogenic benzine molecules from petroleum as abundant in our society as the cancers they cause us, and no one protests that fact!
There is a bias against genetically altered foods, and for good reason. As consumers we are often lied to about what is in our food and how bad it is for us.
However that being said, it is common for people to be against things like genetically modified food without really having a reason except fear of the unknown.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with genetically modifying foods. It is simply altering the genetic structure of foods so that they are higher yielding, don’t need as many toxic pesticides, and are more nutritious.
As consumers we need to be skeptical of the things we buy, and certainly there are probably GMO foods that we should not be buying. But by holding a uniform opinion about all GMO foods could be potentially just as bad as not being skeptical at all.
A smart approach is to take each GMO product and review the evidence..
Odd, isn’t it, that all those people should decide they would not eat GM foods when they have been doing so for more than a decade with no perceptible effects. How were they provoked, I wonder? By the use. perhaps, of a nice evocative term like “Frankenfood”?
Moreover, one might presume that, by the same token, half of all Americans would buy GM foods if they were labeled.
This is a great article! I referenced it on my blog. If you want to check and see what I wrote you can find it here: http://bloggermom.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/half-of-all-americans-wouldn%e2%80%99t-buy-frankenfoods%e2%80%a6if-they-could-tell-the-difference/
Keep writing great stuff!
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