32% of your packaged food products are genetically modified

Gone are the days when you knew where the food you were eating was coming from, what with pretty much everything mass produced and packaged at distant locations, after a series of processes to ensure great shelf life. But with increasing incidences of lifestyle diseases, the average Indian has wisened up, and is trying to pay heed to what he/she should or should not eat. The worrisome part, though, is that while we read the nutrition information on packaged food to determine what could be good for us, what we often ignore or fail to understand is that we may be risking our lives owing to the fact that much of what we consume has been genetically modified. 

A recent study by the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML) at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) to understand whether GM foods are available in the Indian market, tested 65 imported and domestically produced processed food samples. Overall, 32% of the food products were GM positive, with a whopping 46% of imported food products also testing positive. About 17% of the samples manufactured in India tested positive, all of which contained cottonseed oil. What’s worse is that of the 20 GM-positive packaged samples (excluding crude cottonseed oil), 13 did not mention use of GM ingredients on their labels. In fact, some brands, including big international names, claimed to have no GM ingredients, but tested positive.

Speaking about this issue, Dr Priyanka Rohatgi, chief clinical dietician, HOD, Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at a city hospital, says, “Though India has resisted GM food production, there have been instances of such food being imported into the country (including corn, baby food and breakfast cereal, which have been introduced without adherence to relevant labeling laws). While a Directorate General of Foreign Trade notification in 2013 addressed the issue of labeling by requiring those importing GM food to explicitly mention it in their labels, in the case of home-manufactured products like edible oil, there are chances of GM cottonseed oil being mixed with other edible oil without any labeling.” 

Elaborating on the health implications, Dr Priyanka says, “There is a strong correlation between the increasing use of herbicides, genetically-modified crop growth and the increase in a multitude of diseases. Studies have shown the sudden increases in the rates of diseases in the mid-1990s coincided with the commercial production of GE crops. Although such crops can resolve the issue of hunger in developing countries, the misuse of the technology can only be tackled by being aware customers. Some of the most negatively impacted food items are corn, soya, canola, aspartame and sugar beets, which should be avoided.”

ALL ABOUT GM FOOD

• Food produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has not allowed GM food in India so far.
• The FSSAI and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have not approved any GM food product. However, the CSE study confirms the illegal presence of imported and domestically manufactured GM foods in the Indian market. As per the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, every package containing GM food shall bear ‘GM’ at the top of its principal display panel.
• As per Rule 6(7) of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, every package containing GM foods shall bear at the top of its principal display panel the letters ‘GM’.