January 3, 2022 — GMO foods have been a source of fiery controversy for a decade. Today, the USDA has pulled off a regulatory miracle. Starting now, there will be no more GMO foods in the U.S. None. Instead, we will call them bioengineered. USDA even has a friendly little logo for food companies to slap on their products. […]
March 26, 2021 — In case you haven’t noticed, many entrepreneurs are ready to sell us bunk to enhance our health. Sometimes it comes in the form of alternative medicine, as Tim Caulfield so aptly describes. Very often, the better-for-you bunk comes in the form of ultra-processed foods with claims like GMO-free and all-natural – to help people rationalize […]
August 14, 2018 — Scientists in Minnesota are busy taking trans and saturated fats out of soybean oil. Of course, that’s a good thing. Right? Editing Your Food’s Genes with CRISPR and TALEN The first generation of genetically-modified foods was a bit clumsy. That started in the 1980s with “genetic engineering” that used bacteria and viruses used to modify […]
December 21, 2016 — If you want some understanding of why sensible food policy is so hard, study the results of new opinion research by the Pew Research Center. Researchers Cary Funk and Brian Kennedy find that beliefs about healthy food, more than education and facts, shape the way that people think about questions: These choices reflect personalized “ideologies” […]
August 20, 2015 — It looks like GMO-Free may be on its way to becoming the next in a long line of health halo scams that lead people to assign unjustified health benefits to foods because of claims that line up with popular convictions. Chipotle is amping up its promotion of a healthy image for the restaurant chain with […]
April 12, 2013 — Food policy engenders conflict with an intensity that echoes historic religious conflicts. Battles over labeling for genetically modified (or GMO) foods are the latest example. A messy rift in a committee of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics charged with developing a position statement on GMO foods erupted into headlines this week. The New York […]
