Is Genetically Modified Food Still Nutritious? Is it Safe?

We have a lot of questions and concerns regarding genetically modified food.

If you are familiar with our petition to the American Medical Association, then you know we are big supporters of GMO food labeling.

After we announced our petition on Clean Cuisine, we received an email (see below) from a reader, which prompted this follow up post regarding concerns over the nutritional value and safety of genetically modified food.

Here is the email we received:

“I don’t think there is a problem with the Genetically Modified Organisms themselves but rather the sprays they put on some of these plants. Corn that has been modified to grow faster and bigger is not going to harm my health. But if it has been modified to withstand heavy chemicals, then heavy chemicals are put on it, and then I eat it, that’s bad.”

Here was our quick response:

“There are other concerns. For example, if corn grows faster it might not have as much time to capture nutrients from the soil and therefore be less nutritious. We just don’t know because full testing has not been done. For now the place to start is to just let consumers of the food know. This would very likely incentivize agricultural interests to study whether their product is truly better or not and if it is better in any way then they can let us know and if it is worse they can sell it for less and let the public decide whether to pay extra for traditionally cultivated crops.”

The email from our reader really got us to thinking about some of our unanswered questions regarding genetically modified food.

The thing is, we are concerned about more than just the fact that so many GMO foods are doused in toxic herbicides. One GMO question that is particularly relevant to Clean Cuisine is whether or not the nutritional content of genetically modified foods are compromised.

Is Genetically Modified Food Nutritionally Compromised?

The short answer is, we don’t really know.

We are aware of a genetically modified “golden rice” that has supposedly been modified to contain super high doses of vitamin A. That might sound like a great thing, but we don’t know whether or not there are any downsides to this modification?

We also know that most GMO food is not being modified to be more nutritious; instead 90% of the GMOs in rotation are engineered to be herbicide resistant. GMO crops are directly linked to the herbicide glyphosate, which has been linked to numerous health issues.

If you are familiar with the tenets of Clean Cuisine, as outlined in our book (see photo, left), then you know we are all about reducing inflammation and maximizing nutrition. Instead of encouraging people to “count their food” in the form of calories, carbs, fat grams, etc. we have always encouraged people to make their food count nutritionally. We have been preaching the same basic “make your food count” concept for over a decade, ever since the release of our first book, The Gold Coast Cure (HCI, 2005). And in the past, eating the most nutrient-dense food was as simple as choosing foods in their most natural, unprocessed state. We used to always use the example of choosing corn instead of corn flakes.

Unfortunately, GMO’s have complicated what was once a simple, straightforward message….

Have You Heard About the GMO Corn Horror Stories?

If you read Caitlin Shetterly’s nightmare GMO corn allergy story published in ELLE magazine, you would realize there are some potentially serious health issues that have been associated with genetically modified food. Caitlin’s corn allergy ordeal is not an isolated incidence. There are a good number of people who are not tolerating corn very well these days.

Whether the increase in food sensitivity and allergies can all be attributed to GMOs, I don’t really know. But what I do know is there is no doubt that food allergies are on the rise. The National Health Interview Survey found, for instance, that since 1999, the number of children with food allergies has jumped by 50 percent, and those with skin allergies by 69 percent (and experts say the increase is not the result of increased reporting.)

I am almost 40 years old and when I was in school food allergies in the lunchroom were just a total non-issue. Of course anyone who has kids these days knows all too well about the special “allergy lunch tables” and Skippy-free school zones. Almost everyone agrees that something has radically changed in the last two decades. The problem is, nobody knows exactly what that something is.

We Think We Have a Right to Know More About Our Food

Currently, 64 countries require GMO labeling, including 28 nations in the European Union, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia, and China. We think the United States should be on board. If you agree, please help support our stance by signing our petition to the American Medical Association to Support GMO labeling.