Washington's Food Fight: The Debate Over GMO Labels

 

Wataru Kaizuka

 

“Huh? What’s GMO? Does it have something to do with food and our health?” Most people would probably say so. Of course, food labeling takes a big part in our life. It tells us what the product is made of, and even where the original ingredients were made. Knowing these information gives us relief, and we can distinguish whether the product really fits our body. It is convincing that food labeling is required by law.

But now, the question is,

“Should GM(Genetically Modified) food be labeled, too?”

 

GM food is food that is produced from organisms that have had specific changes introduced into their DNA using genetic engineering. Putting it simply, scientific methods are used to make these, so it has a greater risk of causing damage to human health, compared to conventional food. In the document, there are many people who don’t even know GMOs, which means most people just care about eating good food with low risk, and it is natural. Although GM food doesn’t seem to harm people, since it doesn’t make so much difference from normal food, but it surely has a lot more possibility to cause people harm. And now, in Washington, many farmers who take part in making GM crops think that GMOs should be labeled. They’re saying that especially because most of the people don’t even know about GMOs, the government should let people know about GMOs and distinguish them from normal food. An author, George Kimbrell says that he even wrote a letter to the Washington general, warning about the problem. There has been debates talking about this matter (whether to label GMOs or not) but the government doesn’t take the problem so seriously. There were many experiments with GMOs and scientists who were researching about those and farmers who were growing these agreed that GMOs are different with normal food.

When people spend their lives, the custom of eating healthy food and taking the right nutrition is essential. GM foods are existence that has high percentage of causing harm to human bodies. It may be difficult for people who don’t know about the situation, because you can’t tell if it’s a GM food or a normal food just by looking. But what if, in a rare possibility, a person took a GM food without understanding anything? He or she might become sick, or may even cause death. It is no use if life is taken away. In order for people to spend a healthy life, GM foods should be labeled as soon as possible.

 

 

"Washington's Food Fight: The Debate Over GMO Labels ." . N.p., 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 1 Jan. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9KoqUeqbx4>.