Tagged: genetically modified food

The recent announcement by grocery chain Whole Foods that it will require labeling of products containing genetically modified ingredients was greeted with excitement by many consumer groups. Biotech giant Monsanto, a leader in GM technology, sees it another way.

Whole Foods hopes to have labels on the GMO products on its shelves in five years. That move has certainly caught the attention of the food industry.

People have been cross-breeding plants for thousands of years, manipulating traits in agricultural crops from generation to generation. When scientists discovered that they could actually modify the genes of these plants in a laboratory, the landscape of agriculture changed dramatically -- and fast.

Legislation filed in the Missouri Senate would require all genetically modified meats and fish raised and sold in the state to be labeled as such. The bill is sponsored by Democrat Jamilah Nasheed of St. Louis.  She says people have a right to know what they’re putting in their bodies.

“We’ve had an industrial boom, we’ve had a technical boom, and now we have a biotech boom, and there hasn’t been a major studies to show one way or the other if genetically modified foods are good or bad,” says Nasheed.