Over the last couple of years, I have been fighting a battle. This battle has a worldwide theater and people on my side have been fighting it for a little over two decades. It isn't the War on Terror or the War on Drugs. It is GMOs vs. organic. And as a supporter of the use and growth of GMOs, I can tell you first hand that we are losing
Now, what is the difference between the two, you may ask? Well the difference is simple: A GMO (short for genetically modified organism) is any organism who's genetic material have been altered by various genetic engineering techniques. Organic is essentially any organism that has not been altered in any way, shape or form. Now, based on these two vastly different definitions, one would easily think that organic food stuff is good for you and that GMOs are not.
Those people are what I would like to call "wrong."
Allow me to quickly dispel one organic myth right away: Yes, organic products can potentially contain herbicides and pesticides. According to Peter Laufer, author of the book "Organic: A Journalist’s Quest to Discover the Truth Behind Food Labeling," even though a food item may say that it is made with organic compounds and ingredients, "Only the "100% Organic" label guarantees the U.S. Department of Agriculture's definition of organic." This means that while, yes, the organic food was grown and raised in way that there are no synthetics, sewage material, or growth hormones, there is a chance that pesticides and herbicides were used in the development of organic food. Laufer continues by saying, "Other factors contribute to whether food meets the USDA's varying organic definitions and those followed by organic purists... What's in the water used to irrigate the crop? What might waft over a field from a nearby factory smokestack... What pesticides drift onto crops from adjacent chemical farms..." And as a final point, only 95 percent of organic products are actually organic: "There are about 200 non-organic substances producers can to add to without sacrificing the organic claim," Laufer writes. "And that non-organic 5 perecent could be sprayed with herbicides and pesticides."
Organic food is not better for you. One could assume because organic food producers don't use chemicals on the crops means that it is better to consume that GMOs. Again, you would also be wrong.
According to a 2012 study conducted by Stanford University, despite the high price one will pay for supposedly healthy food, "the researchers found little significant difference in health benefits between organic and conventional foods. No consistent differences were seen in the vitamin content of organic products, and only one nutrient — phosphorus — was significantly higher in organic versus conventionally grown produce (and the researchers note that because few people have phosphorous deficiency, this has little clinical significance). There was also no difference in protein or fat content between organic and conventional milk, though evidence from a limited number of studies suggested that organic milk may contain significantly higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids." Companies tend to use organic as a sort of buzzword, making people believe that organic is actually more healthy for you than conventional farming, when really they are about the same.
As a final point, people are mislead to think that because organic is food is, well, organic, that it means that it must be of pure quality and standards. This is highly false.
Returning to the words of Laufer, "The inspection process for products labeled organic is superficial, and it is fraught with inconsistencies and potential conflicts of interest. At least once a year, a third party inspects farms and food manufacturers that claim their wares are organic. The rigor of these visits ranges from simply looking over paperwork to mucking about in the fields to conducting detailed interviews with farm owners and workers, along with processors and transporters." Unlike GMOs, which go through a rigorous evaluation before they are put on the market, organic products go through a variety of tests who's rigor can be found questionable.
I firmly believe that there are multiple reasons why people tend to deny GMOs as being perfectly safe and harmless. One reason is blatant and obvious chemophobia, which has sprung from lack of scientific understanding, as well as a general mistrust of science. As the public becomes more educated in the process of cultivating genetically modified, I feel that such anti-GMO sentiment will die down.
