A few facts on GMO:
Yes it is extremely confusing to know what is best for your family and yourself because all companies, gmo and non gmo sellers, have a bottom line of making money and there is so much scare tactics in advertising out there.
The food that nature provides is the food that we have to forage and hunt for. As soon as humans started growing their own food they started changing the DNA by selectively breeding to make the parts we eat (the seeds, the fruits) bigger so that they would feed us more efficiently. Today most of our food varieties were created in a lab whether they are GMO or NON-GMO.
Plant breeding techniques have developed over the years to include many different types of genetic manipulation that is only accomplished through laboratory procedures. Taking a gene from one species and transferring it to another (transgenic — the true definition of GM), is the most recent method scientists have created. Changes in our food did not happen in nature, new crop varieties were created in labs long before the problem of GMO came to be.
Yes the long term multi-generational effects on a molecular biochemistry level have not been closely examined by scientists because in order to do that, there would have to be studies done on people for multiple generations before any new GM crop could be released, and we know that people can live for over 70 years. Should we wait 150 years to fully test a new GM crop or should we release it and let the benefits of high yields feed more people than ever before? The population is growing right now with no sign of stopping and those people need food. There is also a food waste problem that not many people seem to be concerned about.
I hope that I can help you with how to tell apart GMO from non GMO. There are only 8 crops that are on the market today which are transgenic (GMO). They are Corn, Soybeans, Alfalfa (used in feed for animals), Cotton, Papaya, Squash, Canola (for cooking oil), and Sugar Beets (used for processed sugars). Any other food ingredient that you can buy is already NON-GMO. Apples and potatoes are GM crops approved for market but not widely available yet. There are also a couple of companies which are making money by certifying products such as the Non-GMO Project. Products with this box on the package are certified by that company to be non-gmo.
The Farmers that I have talked to and those who speak out for themselves seem to have no problem with their choices of seeds and they choose to grow GM crops on their farms because of the benefits that they provide.
Whether a GM crop will use more pesticide or not depends on the type of crop and what GM genes that it possesses. There were super bugs and super weeds popping up before the use of GMOs and some GM crops are actually helping to reduce the amount of pesticide being put into the environment. Using only one variety of crop is a problem that is being addressed with new and old farming techniques that are more conscious of the necessity for biodiversity but has been a problem for a long time and has probably not been helped by the advent of GM crops. ‘Super seed’ is the equivalent of buying a show dog from a professional breeder, versus a puppy mill that breeds poor quality or inbred but still purebred dogs. You would want your crop (or dog) to perform well but it will not if it is second hand.
There is no such thing as GM wheat available today. It was developed but it didn’t work and was stopped in production. Around the world about 60 years ago, there were worries of huge crop failure in wheat due to a plant disease. However, there was someone who worked on crops to prevent this massive famine. The reason we have the type of wheat we do today is because of a lab created (but non-GM because GM didn’t exist at that time) variety of wheat which was genetically resistant to this disease and also produced a massive amount of seeds (the part we eat). The man who led the research to create it was Norman Borlaug and he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for saving millions of lives by saving the wheat crop and leading a green revolution in Asia.
sources available upon request
