This week for our blogs, we have been given free reign to write about something we have found interesting recently. I am always interested in reading about pseudoscience, science-denial and the fear-mongering that can come with it.
A couple of days ago while eating a bag of potato chips, I noticed a food label on the front of the bag, "GMO-free". This struck me as odd, seeing as how there are no GMO potatoes currently on the market in New Zealand. Our strict laws here in New Zealand don't allow for any GMO crops. These were chips from a New Zealand company called "Proper Crisps". They take pride in being organic and all the relevant buzz-words are there. Gluten, dairy, GMO-free and vegan-friendly, with no added MSG labels were all there.
Monosodium Glutamate was the old bogeyman before people were afraid of gluten. It's the sodium salt of the amino acid, glutamate, and occurs naturally in a lot of foods. People wrongly correlated it with a lot of health problems, such as headaches, after eating too much Chinese food. It's simply a misunderstanding. John Mahoney (2013), ex-head for popularscience.com wrote an interesting article on the history of MSG, which gives food "umami" or "fifth taste".
Gluten is another ingredient that is widely misunderstood and feared. It has lead to a craze of gluten-free diets and people thinking that gluten is actually unhealthy to eat. The truth is, it is only damaging to people with the autoimmune disease, coeliac disease, which affects about 0.5% of the population. Seeing as how gluten is present in wheat, it affects those with wheat allergies as well. Yet, gluten has been blamed for a range of problems, even as far as autism (Darling, 2014).
I think the single craziest food label I have ever seen is "Chemical free". I have seen it on bacon for sale here in New Zealand. Almost everything here in our universe is a chemcial, except for the obvious exception of pure elements or photons and other subatomic particles. Bacon contains quite a list of chemicals, no matter how natural or organic it is.
A lot of food lables are necessary. For reasons of faith, halal, kosher. For reasons of allergies, such as nuts, which can be life-threatening. But, when foods are labelled for silly things that don't need labelling, I'm left wondering where it ends. Do we label all food as being plutonium-free? Or labelling a bag of carrots as meat-free? Labelling something as GMO-free is just giving into fear-mongering and science-denial. GMOs are safe. They have been proven safe and are nothing to be feared (Entine, 2014).
I think the single craziest food label I have ever seen is "Chemical free". I have seen it on bacon for sale here in New Zealand. Almost everything here in our universe is a chemcial, except for the obvious exception of pure elements or photons and other subatomic particles. Bacon contains quite a list of chemicals, no matter how natural or organic it is.
A lot of food lables are necessary. For reasons of faith, halal, kosher. For reasons of allergies, such as nuts, which can be life-threatening. But, when foods are labelled for silly things that don't need labelling, I'm left wondering where it ends. Do we label all food as being plutonium-free? Or labelling a bag of carrots as meat-free? Labelling something as GMO-free is just giving into fear-mongering and science-denial. GMOs are safe. They have been proven safe and are nothing to be feared (Entine, 2014).
Darling, W. M. (2017). Non-coeliac gluten sensitivity—a look at the evidence behind the headlines. Diabetic Foot, 11(27).
Entine, J. (2014). The debate about GMO safety is over, thanks to a new trillion-meal study. Science and Technology, Forbes. Retrieved from http://www. forbes. com/sites/jonentine/2014/09/17/the-debate-about-gmo-safety-is-over-thanks-to-a-new-trillion-meal-study.
Mahoney, J. (2013). The notorious MSG's unlikely formula for success. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnmahoney/the-notorious-msgs-unlikely-formula-for-success?utm_term=.vwgevKERj#.rf9GLY47x
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