Sugar From Genetically Engineered Beets on Its Way
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 09.12.07
Photo credit: uwehermann
Look out for genetically modified sugar in a shopping aisle near you by next year. American Crystal, a large Wyoming-based sugar company, has announced it will be sourcing its sugar from genetically engineered sugar beets beginning this year and arriving in stores in 2008, according to the Associated Press.
Spotting those GE sweeteners won't be easy: You won't find any labels trumpeting this detail, because; like GE corn and GE soy, products containing GE-beet-derived sugar will be on the down-low. (Oooh, those wascally wabbits!)
The GE sugar beet is designed to hold its own against Monsanto's broad-spectrum Roundup herbicide, and farmers planing GE sugar beets are told they may be able to apply the herbicide up to five times a year, says the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).
This marks an 180-degree turn for American Crystal on the controversial issue of genetic modification. In May, the company said in a statement that it had no plans to grow GM sugar beets, and that herbicide-resistant varieties developed using biotechnology would not "be allowed to be sold, given away, distributed, or planted in year 2007."
What a difference three months makes. Last month, David Berg, the company's president was quoted by the AP as saying that he believed biotechnology was "the current wave that will help feed the world."
The candy barons, on the other hand, are apparently on our side. OCA reports that companies like Hershey's are urging the 12,000 American sugar-beet farmers not to go with the GE flow, mainly because of consumer reticence to the concept. ::AP and ::Organic Consumers Association
Sucrose is sucrose. The end product should be identical in every way to regular sugar. Local ecology should be the focal point of this debate.
Keep in mind, the Organic label is the only label we have to assure a product is NOT genetically modified.
Anything without an organic label is a crap-shoot, and in fact, has a good chance of containing a genetically modified component (considering nearly all processed foods have some form of soy, canola and/or corn in them).
Whether the end product is the same or not, purchasing "Round-up Ready" GMO crops and their by-products supports one of the largest environmental polluters in the world (and that's being nice): Monsanto.
And talk about local ecology, this is an outstanding documentary I was lucky enough to catch at a film festival:
http://www.thefutureoffood.com/
If it's identical in every way, why would they have bothered tinkering with it's genes?
If it's identical in every way, why would they have bothered tinkering with it's genes?
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Because now they can apply massive amounts of pecticides to the crop and it will not die and yield more sugar...guess what that means? More poison in our bodies, more poision in the ocean...YAY!!!..>I'm excied
Wrong on so many levels... products like this baffle me.
As far as "sucrose is sucrose", that may be true, but what's in the box? Pure sucrose with no residues?
If I have to listen to another person talk about "substantial equivalence" while Monsanto profits off of the fundamental differences of GE crops, I might just have to vomit up a PR hack!