March 2015 • Crescent Magazine20

Feat

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grocery store shelves are jampacked with foods of all kinds, from healthy superfoods to decadent sweets. But the food consumers buy today is certain-ly not the same as what their grand-

parents — or even their parents — bought years ago. Additives and genetically modified organ-isms — commonly known as GMOs — are in most of our foods, and they are reshaping the way we eat.

But what are these extra ingredients, those added to foods or listed on food labels we don’t often recognize and sometimes cannot even pro-nounce? Should consumers be worried?

There is a lot of confusion surrounding ad-ditives and GMOs. According to the Food and Drug Administration, additives are simply ingre-dients that have been added to food either di-rectly or indirectly during handling or packaging. They include such benign things as xantham gum, a substance used in foods as a gelling agent and thickener, or as controversial as aspartame, a low-calorie sweetener that is about 200 times sweeter than sucrose.

Additives are used in the U.S. and other countries to preserve flavor or enhance color or texture. And they are subject to many rumors.

The dye Yellow No. 5 is rumored to cause hy-peractivity in young children. According to the FDA, a small number of children — 1 in 10,000 — have a Yellow No. 5 sensitivity and break out in hives when exposed to it.

There is no evidence that it and other addi-tives like it cause hyperactivity. but the FDA still

requires it to be indicated on packaging. Aspartame has been said to erode stomach

lining and cause cancer. The FDA refutes the claims that it causes any medical issues at all, but others would disagree. Payal Patel-Dovlataba-di, assistant professor of public health and direc-tor of the public health program, said aspartame leads to an increased risk of more than 90 con-ditions, ranging from headaches to cancer.

She said the body cannot properly digest as-partame, and this causes it to negatively affect one’s neurons. She added that aspartame is par-ticularly insidious because it is in many sug-ar-free foods, and consumers may not realize they are eating it. She said other, naturally occurring sweeteners like stevia could be good alternatives to aspartame.

Patel-Dovlatabadi also expressed concern about carrageenan, a thickening agent used in dairy products. She said it is naturally occur-ring but can cause inflammation and should be avoided by those with a gluten intolerancy.

Ann Powell, associate professor of biology, said it is nearly impossible to avoid all food addi-tives, but there are some she avoids. She said she buys antibiotic- and growth-hormone-free chick-en, as well as growth-hormone-free milk. She also does not eat foods containing monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer, because it gives her headaches.

Patel-Dovlatabadi said there are thousands of food additives, and while several can cause health problems, there are many that do not. Some are even beneficial, such as foods fortified

with Omega-3 fatty acids, which can help aid brain function.

“There are quite a few additives that are per-fectly safe for consumption,” she said.

Powell said the more consumers are aware of what is in the food they eat and its possible ef-fects, the better. She supports the labeling of GMOs in food for this reason.

“It would be nice for the consumer to have a choice,” she said.

Han Lai, a visiting Fulbright Scholar from China, grew up on fresh, completely natural foods. She said this is because China is careful about its food, focusing on freshness and natu-ral methods of production. The result: it has no additives. She said American-produced food has left her missing home.

“Some of the fruits do not taste like the orig-inal flavor,” she said. “It does not have the fruit flavor.”

GMOs were first approved for human con-sumption in the United States in 1995, and by 1999, almost 50 percent of the corn, cotton and soybeans planted in the country were GM. By the end of 2010, GM crops covered more than 3.8 million square miles of land in 29 countries worldwide — one-tenth of the world’s farmland.

GMOs are created when a gene from one organism is spliced into the DNA of another. Common genetic modifications include resis-tance to pesticides, but many different kinds of GMOs exist.

Karen Batra, director of Food and Agriculture Communication for the Biotechnology Indus-

RYAN MURPHY & ANNA SHEFFER

WEARE WHAT

WEEATGenetically modified organisms and various additives have become

the norm in the food industry today, despite controversy and opposition.

21Crescent Magazine • March 2015March 2015 • Crescent Magazine20

Potential health benefits: Crops can be modified to have extra nutrients or a longer shelf life. Test-ing is underway to create edible vac-cines in produce.

Greater yields: With GM crops, farmers can use fewer pesticides, and their crops could survive harsh climates, weeds or poor soil conditions.

Lower pesticide use: Crops engineered to be pest-resis-tant won’t need to be sprayed with pesticides, so there will be less chemical runoff in the water supply.

More food for more people: GM crops can be engineered to adapt to multiple environments, resulting in more food produced worldwide.

Potential health risks: GM foods could cause allergic reac-tions, and bacteria-resistant genes could potentially spread to the bac-teria in our bodies.

Cost to small farmers: Small farmers have to purchase ex-pensive GM seeds from agricultur-al companies, causing them to lose money. These seeds can only be used for one year.

Possible harm to wildlife: There is the worry that insects will become resistant to the pesticides in GM crops and that GM crops will become invasive or be poisonous to native species.

Biotech companies: Companies like Monsanto are prof-it-driven and don’t seem to care about farmers.

CONS:

PROS:

GMOS ARE COMPLICATEDHere’s a quick run-down of the arguments

on both sides of the fence.

CORN93%

COTTON96%

SOY94%

SUGAR BEETS95%

Percent of U.S. crops that are GMO

75% of processed foods

contain GMO ingredients

170 million acres of GMO crops were planted in 2013

about half of all land used to grow crops

try Organization, said the eight most prevalent genetically engineered crops are corn, soybeans, cotton, sugar beets, papaya, squash, canola and alfalfa. Of those, corn, soy, cotton and sugar beets are the most prevalent.

“Of all those four crops grown in the U.S., more than 90 percent are GMOs,” Batra said.

GMOs have many different advantages. One strain of rice has been modified to be more nu-tritious, making it sought after in a number of developing countries. Some bananas have been grown with weakened viruses in the sapling, re-sulting in edible vaccines for diseases like chol-era. British scientists have even modified a breed of hens to lay eggs with medicinal egg whites, used to treat cancer.

But not everyone is on board concerning GMOs and additives. Lai teaches at Cheng-du University of Traditional Chinese Medi-cine in China. Her view on GMOs is highly fo-cused around the traditional teachings about health through prevention instead of through treatments. She said when at home in China she buys natural food, or foods explicitly labeled non-GMO, even if they are more expensive.

“We cannot change the natural process,” she said. “We like to respect and obey the rules of natural order, and that’s how I perceive it.”

Powell thinks the way GMOs are used in the U.S.’s industrial agricultural system does not harness the benefits of GMOs enough.

“I sometimes wonder if that type of sys-tem has done more harm than good,” she said. “But that being said, there’s no evidence they do harm to the human body.”

She believes this is a common view, even with the onset of healthier GMOs, but some be-lieve GMOs are dangerous and can even cause cancer.

Patel-Dovlatabadi said that since GMOs were created in the 1990s, there has not been enough time to test them thoroughly enough.

“The effects are not short-term,” she said. “These are long-term effects.”

She said that while there have not been long-term studies performed studying the effects of GMOs, incidences of health conditions like

cancer and gluten-intoler-ance have increased since GMOs were introduced.

A 2012 study pub-lished in the journal Food and Chemi-cal Toxicology sup-ports this. Rats fed glycophosate-resis-tant corn — other-wise known as the Roundup Ready crops created by the Monsanto Co. — developed liver and kid-ney problems. About 80 percent of the female rats in the test group developed tumors, creating outrage against Monsanto.

But the study had some problems. The rats used were from the Sprague Dawley strain — a breed prone to tumors. The study was also criti-cized for its small sample size, too small to reach a definite conclusion, and was retracted in 2013 because of a lack of evidence.

Batra said GM crops are first tested by the company that creates them in a greenhouse and then by field tests. The company then petitions the U.S. Agriculture Department for approval, and after that, governmental agencies conduct further testing.

The Environmental Protection Agency also tests the crop if it is modified to be insecticide or pesticide resistant, and the FDA performs tests to ensure GM foods do not cause allergic or ad-verse reactions.

Some believe the government should adopt policies like those in Europe, where in certain European Union countries GMOs have been banned. Others countrie have placed heavy re-strictions, requiring labeling and extensive test-ing, before any produce is made available. Ballot measures to label GMOs failed in both Oregon

March 2015 • Crescent Magazine22

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and Colorado in November 2014, and amend-ments in other states also failed to pass.

Patel-Dovlatabadi said it is difficult to avoid GMOs and additives entirely, and so it is im-portant for consumers to read ingredient la-bels and be aware of what they are purchasing. She said two of the most common ingredients in processed foods are high fructose corn syrup and soy lecithin, both of which come from com-mon GM crops.

“It’s amazing to understand that corn byprod-ucts are in practically everything,” she said.

GMOs can also have negative effects on small farmers. These are farmers who cannot af-ford to pay the higher prices for GM seeds and ultimately find their businesses dwarfed by those who can.

Batra said GM seeds cannot be replanted be-cause they do not grow well after a year of use. Farmers must sign a contract with seed supply companies like Monsanto to purchase the seeds, and they must agree not to save seeds from the crops. Also, seed companies can sue for royalties when their seeds end up on a farm that didn’t purchase them, even if they were spread by natu-ral means, such as wind or rain.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that farm-ers must pay royalties to Monsanto if they wish to create new seeds from the company’s patent-ed seeds. There are even reports that weeds have interbred with the modified crops, resulting in pesticide and herbicide-resistant weeds that are much more difficult to remove.

But Batra said she believes GMOs can help small farmers as much as large farmers. She noted that GMOs can help farmers get a high-er yield from their crops in developing nations since the GM seeds can grow in poor soil condi-tions or in areas where there are a lot of weeds or pests. She said small family farms could also benefit in the U.S. because farmers do not have to plow the fields or spread fertilizer as much.

“We’ve got a lot of stories where farmers don’t have to spend as much time in the fields,” she said.

The debate surrounding GMOs will contin-ue since food is such a crucial part of life every-where, regardless of how involved science is in its production. But Lai will continue to focus on the balance of foods and its benefits with her studies in Chinese medicine.

“The food we take can shape our thinking and our mood,” she said.

One thing is clear: For better or for worse, food these days is not what it used to be.

“It’s a complex issue,” Powell said. “We want issues to be black and white, and in some cas-es, they’re just not black and white like we like them to be.”