Member in the news: Marc Bellemare

 Good Question: What Foods Contain GMOs?

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Chipotle announced Monday says the food it prepares will be free of genetically modified organisms or GMOs. It’s the first major restaurant chain to make this change. In 2013, the Mexican grill was also the first to tell customers which foods contained GMOs.

According to the Center for Food Safety, 75 percent of processed foods have been genetically modified. The U.S. Department of Agriculture does not require companies to label foods as such.

So, what foods contain GMOs? Good Question.

Up to 93 percent of corn and 94 percent of soybeans are genetically modified in the United States.

“Considering there is corn in just about everything we eat and there is high-fructose corn syrup in many of the foods we eat, there’s GMOs in a lot of the things that we eat,” said Marc Bellemare, an applied economist at the University of Minnesota. “If you’ve ever had a soda, chances are almost 100% that you’ve consumed genetically modified crops.”

Anything labelled “organic” is non-GMO. Most of the fresh fruits and vegetables in the U.S. have also not been genetically modified. Among some of the exceptions: some squash, zucchini, papaya, sugar beets and one kind of apple. Earlier this year, the USDA approved the planting of an apple resistant to turning brown.

The meat we eat hasn’t been genetically modified, but most of the animal feed in the U.S. contains GMOs.

“A lot of the dairy, milk, cheese that we eat is coming from animals that consume GMOs and it’s in a lot of things that we eat that we don’t really suspect might have it,” said Bellemare.

Chipotle has said its drink will continue to have genetically modified ingredients. It also says it’s working on non-GMO feed for its meat. Its grass-fed beef is not fed with anything containing GMOs.

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