Daily Brew5 genetically modified foods on their way to the supermarket
[A first generation Innate Russet Burbank potato, left, sits next to a conventional Russet Burbank potato after peeling in this undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/handout/J.R. Simplot Company]
Did you ever take home a potato from the grocery store only to cut it open at home to find it’s brown inside? With the newly approved genetically modified (GM) potato, those brown spots could be a thing of the past.
Both Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have recently given U.S.-based J.R. Simplot Company approval to sell GM potatoes in Canada. These potatoes could be grown in Canada and make their way to Canadian supermarkets by October.
The spuds are also less likely to bruise and will have less asparagine, an amino acid that produces acrylamide that is believed to be a human carcinogen.
GM foods, however, have remained very controversial, and those against them haven’t taken warmly to the news of the introduction of GM potatoes to consumers.
GM potatoes have already appeared in U.S. supermarkets and in the food service industry since May 2015, and a second generation of the potato that is blight resistant is going through regulatory approval in the United States. That potato, which will need the use of fewer pesticides, may make its way to Canada, too.
These potatoes are far from the only GM foods out there. Here are four other GM foods that might soon be part of your meal.
[The Arctic apple on the right, does not brown like the conventional apple on the left, because the genes which produce polyphenol oxidase have been silenced. CBC News]
Apples
Much like the GM potato, the Arctic apple, developed by Summerland, B.C., company Okanagan Specialty Foods, was created to prevent browning. It was approved for sale in Canada and the U.S. last year.
While the company says they are “delicious, convenient and good for you” and they will lead to fewer apples being wasted, they have had staunch opposition from GM food opponents.
Perhaps partly due to pressure from anti-GM foods groups, companies like Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Gerber have already said they don’t plan to use GM apples.
However, despite the controversy around the Arctic apple and GM foods in general, Okanagan Specialty Foods have more GM foods in the works.
[Delish/Debra McClinton]
Corn
There are a number of GM corn products out there, and corn is one of the four major GM crops grown in Canada. GM corn can appear in corn chips, corn flakes, cornstarch, corn syrup, corn oil and other corn-based foods.
It was designed to reduce the number of pesticides needed for corn, which would save farmers time as they wouldn’t have to travel across their fields as much. Genetic modification also protects corn from worms through a protein that’s injected into the seeds. Because of this, sweet corn can be grown in places where it may have been difficult to grow corn due to the number of insects that would’ve been around.
GM corn has faced particularly strong opposition over the years and has found itself in the middle of a number of controversies. For example, a 2012 French study that looked at rats fed Monsanto GM corn or Roundup, a herbicide typically used alongside GM corn, found the rats died earlier and developed tumours faster than rats not fed GM corn.
By 2014, anti-GM food activists were noting a decline in GM corn in Canada, saying among other things that it was starting to become hard to find in Canadian supermarkets.
[A Member of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement passes part of a destroyed field at the Monsanto facilities in Nao-Me-Toque, Brazil, in 2001. A Brazilian court fined Monsanto $250,000 in 2012 for what a judge said was the company’s misleading advertising concerning GM soy. AFP]
Soy
As a popular crop in a number of regions, including Canada, the U.S. and Brazil, it shouldn’t be a surprise that soy is another food that is often genetically modified.
However, unlike some other GM foods, many of the benefits of GM soybeans are for farmers not consumers. With GM soybeans, farmers can plant more soybeans that are easier to maintain with higher yields.
But like many other GM foods, studies have been done on GM soy that have made anti-GM groups and general consumers alike concerned about its safety.
For example, a study of goats fed GM soybeans has shown it has caused goats to produce abnormal milk, which in turn has caused kids to weigh significantly less a month after they were born. Some now believe GM soybeans may be behind the high infant mortality rate in the U.S.
[An AquaBounty salmon/Reuters]
Salmon
In addition to GM crops, we may soon be seeing GM animals, too. Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved GM salmon for human consumption, which was the world’s first GM animal approved to be sold as food.
This new form of salmon, known as AquAdvantage Salmon, grows twice as fast when compared with regular salmon, and Health Canada is reviewing if the salmon should follow in the footsteps of the U.S. and allow it to be sold as food in Canada, too.
The eggs for the GM salmon are currently grown in Prince Edward Island, but not without controversy. Last year, the Federal Court heard a case challenging the approval of those eggs to be produced in Canada, but later upheld the approval.
