Last week, thanks to a tip from Caitlin, I went to a screening of GMO OMG, a new documentary focused on the issues surrounding genetically modified organisms (aka GMOs) and their prevalence in our food.
(In case you haven’t heard anything about GMOs, here’s a quick rundown: in the last 20 years or so, it has become common practice to alter the genes of certain plants, adding genetic traits from other species to somehow enhance that food. Examples: Hawaiian papayas are modified to resist a certain virus, the large majority of corn and soybean crops are modified to resist pesticides and herbicides, and the FDA is currently deliberating approval of a genetically modified salmon.)
photo courtesy of ‘GMO OMG’
GMO OMG begins at the home of filmmaker Jeremy Seifert. A father of three, Seifert begins to question the amount of genetically modified food his children are consuming, and the health impact of all these GMOs. He then moves into some of the issues surrounding seed companies’ practices in proliferating genetically modified seeds. According to the documentary, companies like Monsanto, DuPont and Pioneer force farmers to buy new seeds every year (rather than re-planting), have raised seed prices dramatically in the past decade or so, and spend millions yearly on government lobbying to deter the FDA from conducting detailed research into the health effects of GMOs. Seifert also questions the morality of owning living things (in reference to the patents that Monsanto and others place on their seeds), and even gets a bit spiritual when discussing the sanctity of the seed.
The original question, of the health effects of eating GMOs on his young children, is a fair one — while many scientists have said that GMOs are safe, they are such a new development that it’s difficult to know the long-term effects of consuming them, especially consuming them from such a young age. But this issue gets a bit lost as Seifert’s crusade against GMOs expands, which I think detracted from the overall impact of the documentary.
As he freely admits, there are many issues with genetically modified foods. But by trying to focus on all of them, Seifert doesn’t really provide any concrete takeaways, especially since his children are still eating GMOs at the end of the documentary anyway. The tirade against Monsanto, while perhaps justified, seems out of place and unnecessary, especially when that screen time could have been used to shed light on what research has been done on genetically modified foods in relation to human health.
One issue that Seifert covered briefly that interested me was the question of labeling. Currently, companies are not required to indicate in any way that their product has been genetically modified. As Marion Nestle explained in What to Eat, when the first genetically modified foods were set to go on the market in 1994, biotech companies said, “because genetic engineering methods were fundamentally identical to those used in conventional plant breeding, labeling would mislead you into thinking GM foods were different and somehow inferior.”
photo courtesy of ‘GMO OMG’
While I don’t feel strongly about GMOs in any direction, companies’ reluctance to label gives me pause. If there’s nothing wrong with them, then why hide it? I don’t particularly care whether my corn has another species’ genes in it, but I do very much like to know what I’m eating (which is why I obsessively check the label of everything, including my beloved peanut M&Ms. Gotta love that Red 40 Lake!) The hesitance to identify GMOs in the supermarket insinuates that there’s something shady about them, at least in my mind — if the M&Ms can put it out there, why can’t Monsanto?
At this point, the jury is still out on whether GMOs are harmful to our health. But whether I’m eating organic*, grass-fed heirloom arugula or an Oreo, I want to know what’s in my food. Seeing a GMO sticker won’t necessarily prevent me from buying a bag of j-chips, but I want to know what I’m eating, and whether those crispy, spicy, salty, perfect little chips were fried in Roundup-ready soybean oil. Hopefully GMO OMG can raise more awareness about what we’re eating**, and incite more people to ask for labeling and transparency in the grocery store.
*Organic foods by law cannot contain any genetic modification.
**I lied when I said the documentary begins at Seifert’s home. It actually begins with Seifert asking a random collection of people if they eat GMOs. Most of the people had no idea what they were, so the doc will definitely be an introduction to this food issue for many.
Note: As it turned out, Seifert happened to be on HuffPost Live last week also. The conversation, which also included a genetically modified food specialist, was fascinating (and started quite a debate in the comments!), so you should definitely check it out.
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