Marylanders Ask Senators Mikulski and Cardin to Stand With Science

We endorse informative, relevant food labeling to protect consumers and help us nourish our bodies with varied, balanced, and healthy diets. For example, labeling for nut, milk, or egg residue is relevant. Severe allergic reactions are a real concern. Nutritional information of protein, fats, fiber, sugar, vitamins, and minerals are also relevant. This information empowers parents to prepare nutritionally balanced meals.

You say you have the “right to know what’s in our food”. Labeling whether a product contains ingredients derived from a GMO crop tells you nothing about what is “in” the food. Genetic engineering is a breeding method, not a product. It isn’t an ingredient to scoop into a bowl. For example, sugar from GMO sugar beets is just sucrose, there is nothing “in” it. It is just like sugar from sugar cane.

All food comes from organisms that have been genetically altered by humans, with the exception of a few wild plants and animals. The ancestors of bananas, carrots, and many other foods are almost unrecognizable. In the same way that information on whether a home was built using an old fashioned hammer or a modern nail gun does not inform you about the home’s safety or quality, knowing whether foods contain ingredients derived from GMOs does not tell you about safety or quality.

There are thousands of different varieties of corn grown across the US, yet we know all of them as “corn” regardless of the breeding techniques used in their development, and regardless of the many differences in DNA sequences between varieties. Each farmer chooses which variety to grow and which practices to use based on the environmental and economic conditions on their farm. The term “GMO” doesn’t reveal whether a plant variety is patented, what pesticides were used in its production, the size of the farm, or other details that many labeling advocates may find important. These production process details and many others are currently indicated though voluntary process-based labels such as certified-humane, kosher, halal or grass-fed. Organic and voluntary non-GMO labels, both of which exclude GMO ingredients, are very common and provide that choice and information to those who want it.

Mandatory labeling of foods with GMO ingredients will increase fear, and make foods more expensive for Americans families. The “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act” recently passed in the House and is being discussed in the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. Anti-GMO activists, including Organic Consumers Association, Only Organic, GMO Free USA and more, have portrayed it as an attempt to hide what’s in our food, calling it the “Denying Americans the Right to Know” Act. However, the text of the bill states that a GMO should be labeled if it is materially different from its non-GMO counterpart, while specifying that the mere fact of being GMO is not enough to be classified as materially different. The bill also registers all GMOs that are used in food production, establishes a national GMO food certification program to avoid a state-by-state patchwork of GMO definitions, and creates national standards for labeling GMOs.