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According to the FDA, the most common ones are corn (92% of all corn planted is GMO), soybean (94% planted are GMO), canola (95% is GMO), and sugar beets (99.9% are GMO). There are also GMO potatoes, papayas, apples, and summer squash, although these are not quite as prevalent in our food supply.
There are a number of grains for which no GM varieties exist, and there is no risk of contamination for these crops. If you want to be 100 percent certain you're consuming GMO-free grains, your options include amaranth, barley, buckwheat, bulgur, einkorn, farro, grano, kamut, millet, oats, quinoa, rye, sorghum, spelt, teff and triticale.
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- Overview
- Saving the Florida Orange
- Flu-Free Chicken
- More Seafood
- Fighting Blindness and Malnutrition
Without genetically-modified foods, we might have to give up oranges and resign ourselves to living with avian flu and more malnutrition.
It was hailed as a radical move when more than 100 Nobel laureates sent a letter to Greenpeace Wednesday, urging the environmental group to stop blocking genetically modified foods like golden rice from reaching those who need it.
But really, the letter (and the press conference scheduled for Thursday) are just amplifying what most scientists have been saying all along: GMOs are safe, important to farmers, and can help solve some of the world’s most vexing nutrition problems, like preventable blindness, as well as climate challenges like drought.
Does this mean that GMOs are perfect? No. There are indications that some GMO crops are creating expensive problems with herbicide-resistant weeds, according to a recent National Academy of Sciences study (see Scientists Say GMO Foods Are Safe, Public Skepticism Remains), and the public perception that GMOs are uniformly bad is a major hurdle to selling them. And then there’s the whole labeling debate.
Greenpeace calls GMOs "genetic pollution." But if GMOs are to be completely out of the picture, it might mean there are no vegetables enriched with cancer-fighting chemicals, drought-resistant corn, allergen-free peanuts, and bananas that deliver vaccines.
Here are some other potential breakthroughs that could be lost:
Oranges in Florida are under attack from a citrus-greening virus that threatens a $9 billion industry. Despite generations of breeding, no citrus plant resists greening, and once infected, a tree dies. A plant pathologist at Texas A&M is developing virus-resistant oranges (see Can Genetic Engineering Save the Florida Orange?).
Avian flu devastated chicken and turkey flocks across the U.S. last year, affecting about 48 million birds, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. But a team of U.K. researchers has developed a genetically modified chicken—the Isa Brown—that doesn’t pass the virus onto other birds. And that means food for more people. (See Want a Bird Flu-Fr...
There are not enough fish in the ocean to feed the 9 billion people expected on the planet by 2050, so scientists have been looking for years at ways to farm fish using fewer resources. After a lengthy review, the Food and Drug Administration last year approved salmon genetically modified to grow to full size faster than regular salmon.
Along those lines, a Boston-area startup is developing ways to feed farmed shrimp with lab-grown bacteria, rather than harvesting wild fish to feed them (see Finding Ways to Feed the Fish That Feed Us).
And then there’s the enhanced golden rice (see The Next Green Revolution) which, along with sweet potatoes, have the potential to prevent Vitamin A deficiency that affects up to 50 percent of the population in some countries and leads to blindness. Golden rice has won humanitarian awards, yet public outcry has largely blocked its use.
Meanwhile, the debate over whether GMOs are good or bad has been stuck in neutral for years. Pamela Ronald, a UC Davis scientist who has been working to develop a disease-resistant, drought-tolerant rice, laid out what’s at stake in a National Geographic article last year:
- April Fulton
Jan 3, 2024 · Use of genetically modified (GM) crops is among the proposed solutions—but is it truly a viable solution? GM crops are plants that have been modified, using genetic engineering, to alter their DNA sequences to provide some beneficial trait.
Apr 8, 2022 · Many wild plants naturally produce toxins that act as a defense against pests, and people made seed choices so that many crops today are tasty, nutritious, and easy to digest. Farmers want plants that are easier to harvest and produce more fruit, vegetables, grains, fiber, or oil. They also look for plants that can withstand disease, pests ...
Apr 19, 2023 · Why do farmers use GMO crops? Most of the GMO crops grown today were developed to help farmers prevent crop loss. The three most common traits found in GMO crops are: Resistance to...
Jul 21, 2022 · The slightly longer answer is that seedless watermelons aren't GMOs because the process by which they are produced doesn't meet the Non-GMO Project's Standard's criteria for biotechnology.
