The U.S. Senate is on the verge of settling the nation’s fiercest food fight: GMO labeling. And if you need an example of lawmakers, lobbyists, special interest groups, and corporations wasting time and money on a manufactured problem that is completely inconsequential to the health and welfare of the American people, look no further than this.
The fight is about whether food companies should disclose the presence of GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, in their products. This applies to hundreds of ingredients, from soybean oil to vitamins to cheese. In the U.S., almost all corn, soy, and cotton crops are genetically engineered to tolerate herbicides or resist pests, so any by-product of those crops would require a label. Same with canola. Sugar from sugarbeets, which produce more than half the sugar supply here and are also grown via genetically engineered seeds, would need a label. The list goes on.
No good justification for a label exists: Ingredients derived from these crops pose no health or safety concern and do not compromise the nutritional value of food. That, however, has not impressed our esteemed United States Senate, which will take a break from terrorism and trade pacts to deliberate a new label on a can of soup.