TheBulletin.ca Journal of Downtown Toronto
Dana Perls —
A new genetically engineered Arctic Apple® could be approved to enter the U.S. food supply as early as December, and, like other GMO foods, it won’t be labeled and won’t have undergone independent safety testing. The same could happen in Canada.
Apple growers and consumers say they don’t need or want this GMO apple, but it will soon be in everything from baby food to school lunches to Happy Meals, posing risks to our health, our environment and apple farmers across the United States and maybe Canada.
Baby food companies are one of the largest buyers of apples, and Gerber is one of the world’s largest baby food companies. Gerber has stated that it doesn’t currently use GMO fruits or vegetables in their baby food. Until now that’s been easy because there weren’t any staple GMO fruits or vegetables, like apples, on the market.
This GMO apple was genetically engineered via a new, virtually untested experimental technique called RNA interference, which many scientists are concerned may have negative unintended impacts on human health. The Arctic Apple® was not designed for increased nutritional value, but for purely cosmetic purposes — it was genetically engineered to not brown when cut. However, browning in apples can be prevented naturally by applying lemon juice or another source of vitamin C — making this new risky genetically engineered apple unnecessary.
Please tell Gerber: we don’t want risky GMO apples in its baby food.
Without natural browning, apples may look fresh when they are actually decaying. Worse, apples’ natural browning enzyme also helps to fight diseases and pests, meaning that farmers may have to increase their pesticide use on these new GMO apples.
Apples already carry some of the highest levels of toxic pesticide residues, many of them linked to hormone disruption, reproductive harm and even ADHD. Pound for pound, kids eat more food and have higher levels of pesticide exposure — and we know that early life exposures to toxic pesticides can be especially harmful. Yet another reason that we don’t need to introduce this new GMO apple into one of our kids’ first foods.
Help us keep the doctor away! Tell Gerber to keep GMO apples out of our babies’ first food!
