Kitchen

[PickyPicky3]

I bought some deli potato salad today (which I almost never do) and got my first contains bioengineered food sticker. Definitely the soybean oil.

Did a little research and ended up confused. New disclosure rules became optional on 1/1/21 but required as of 1/1/22. I read that disclosure is required on only the first listed ingredient, but soybean oil was the second.

Learned that the phrase non-GMO can no longer be used, and that all bioengineered foods are GMO but not all GMOs are bioengineered.

Are you current on this? 1/1/22 is almost here!

Can someone explain this in a few simple sentences?

[Kachina624]

Was potatoes the first ingredient?  That's most likely your GMO.  Wouldn't bother me a bit. 

[PickyPicky3]

@Kachina624  Yes. I guess I haven't heard of GMO potatoes, but definitely GMO soybeans. I need to understand a regulation before I can forget about it. 

This is another of those food regulations that apply to grocery stores but not restaurants.

[Mindy D]

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@PickyPicky3 wrote:

I bought some deli potato salad today (which I almost never do) and got my first contains bioengineered food sticker. Definitely the soybean oil.

Did a little research and ended up confused. New disclosure rules became optional on 1/1/21 but required as of 1/1/22. I read that disclosure is required on only the first listed ingredient, but soybean oil was the second.

Learned that the phrase non-GMO can no longer be used, and that all bioengineered foods are GMO but not all GMOs are bioengineered.

Are you current on this? 1/1/22 is almost here!

Can someone explain this in a few simple sentences?

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@PickyPicky3 First, which sticker do you see on it? Chances are that the label is on product now to comply with 2022 regulation. Both Soy Beans and Potatos can be bioengineered, so i need to ask for you to either tell me the exact location where your read the disclosure reauirements or copy paste the paragraph here. Very few foods are allowed to be bioengineered as of today. 

[PickyPicky3]

@Mindy D  Neither. Just the words contains bioengineered food.

**** I just surf when I research -- lots of skimming and frequently changing keywords. It will take a bit to find my sources. But it seems the difference between GMO and bioengineered has something to do with third party verification. I'll be back.

[Sooner]

You hear about GMO and hybridized wheat and how awful it is and we wouldn't be fat if it didn't exist, etc.

I can tell you one thing, we might not be fat and a good portion of the world would be starving.  So what's the trade off?

So many things today that are villinized--what would be the trade off without it?  People don't talk about that. 

Also that viruses spread so rapidly because of modern travel.  .  .

[Mindy D]

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@PickyPicky3 wrote:

@Mindy D  Neither. Just the words contains bioengineered food.

**** I just surf when I research -- lots of skimming and frequently changing keywords. It will take a bit to find my sources. But it seems the difference between GMO and bioengineered has something to do with third party verification. I'll be back.

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@PickyPicky3 quotes and logos are from USDA

Bioengineered Foods

• Retail food products that are bioengineered or contain bioengineered ingredients will say so on the label. Only foods that meet AMS’s definition of bioengineered food will carry that disclosure. 
• You will see words, a symbol (see Figure 1), scannable links, text message instructions, or in some cases phone numbers or web addresses that convey the information.

     

Figure 1

• You may start seeing the disclosure on food products as early as February 2019. By January 1, 2022, you will see it on all food products that require disclosure. Disclosures will be easy to spot on the food package or on signage related to bulk food displays.

• Sometimes the terms “Bioengineering,” “Genetically Modified Organism,” “GMO,” and “Genetic Engineering,” are used interchangeably for marketing purposes, but disclosures under the Standard use the term “Bioengineered.”

• A bioengineered food disclosure is a marketing label, and does not convey any information about the health, safety, or environmental attributes of bioengineered food as compared to non-bioengineered counterparts.

• Food produced by very small food manufacturers, and food served in restaurants, food trucks, trains, airplanes, delicatessens and in similar establishments will not be required to bear bioengineered food labels, even if the product has bioengineered ingredients. 

Derived From Bioengineering

• Foods that carry a symbol that states “Derived from Bioengineering,” (see Figure 2) or that otherwise disclose the product contains ingredients “derived from bioengineering” are not bioengineered foods.

Figure 2

• Such labeled foods do not contain detectable modified genetic material.  As a result, entities can make these specific voluntary disclosures for these types of products.

[Mindy D]

@PickyPicky3 Where did you read that the disclosure was required only on the first ingredient? 

[Mindy D]

@PickyPicky3 List of foods that can be bioengineered:

• Alfalfa (pdf)
• Apple (ArcticTM varieties) (pdf)
• Canola (pdf)
• Corn (pdf)
• Cotton (pdf)
• Eggplant (BARI Bt Begun varieties) (pdf)
• Papaya (ringspot virus-resistant varieties) (pdf)
• Pineapple (pink flesh varieties) (pdf)
• Potato (pdf)
• Salmon (AquAdvantage®) (pdf)
• Soybean (pdf)
• Squash (summer) (pdf)
• Sugarbeet (pdf)

[Mindy D]

@PickyPicky3 If you just want to know the difference between gmo and bioengineering, then I can explain that. Before I explain that, you should know this about the new regulations. The difference between the two will be in my final post on the thread because it will take me a while to compose the answer.

First, 

• "Most products of new GMO techniques like CRISPR gene editing won’t require a BE disclosure. That’s because the law focuses on foods containing detectable modified genetic material in the final product. Products that contain GMOs made with new techniques are currently untestable.
• Foods that are heavily processed contain little or no intact genetic material for accurate testing, so they also fall outside of BE disclosure. That includes very common products like sugar and cooking oil, as well as packaged goods that contain such ingredients.
• The BE labeling law only applies to food intended for direct human consumption. GMO crops for livestock feed take up millions of acres of agricultural land and ultimately support the human food supply — but the BE labeling law does not look at it. Because of the sheer volume of GMO commodity crops grown for livestock feed, choosing Verified meat, dairy, and eggs is the key to building a non-GMO" 

• "There are also complexities in the new law that prevent GMOs in multi-ingredient products from being disclosed. For example, a canned soup containing GMO corn would not require disclosure if the formulation lists meat as the first ingredient. Under the BE labeling law, it doesn’t matter that the corn is prevalent and plainly visible in the product or that 92% of corn grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. It doesn’t even matter that the corn might have detectable modified genetic material. With meat as the first ingredient, the product is not subject to disclosure. Even if water, broth or stock is the first ingredient and meat is the second, the loophole still applies because those kinds of liquids don’t count." 
  Above is quoted from an article

• What You Need To Know About Bioengineered (BE) Food Labeling

  May 26, 2021 -

   
• https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjB646sy-70AhU5RTABHSrUChoQFnoECAUQ...