GMO Spud

The Simplot company has recently announced that they’ve developed a genetically modified potato engineered to eliminate a potentially harmful ingredient that emerges in the high heat required for French fries and potato chips. John Keeling with National Potato Council responded to the question, how will it be received? “We know that the product has been rigorously reviewed and approved so we feel like the government has done their due diligence. Our position on technology across the board is going to be, we support technology. Once they are approved, we believe that the market place is going to need to be out there to work that out and figure out how they fit in and growers can make reasonable decisions about whether to grow it and consumers can make reasonable decisions about whether to buy it. We think critical to that whole exercise, for that market to function effectively is an identity preservation system that will allow people to make a choice and understand that the choice they make is backed up by it is what it says it is and we think that there ought to be, based on consumer interaction with marketers, there ought to be voluntary labeling that voluntary labeling ought to be preempted at the federal level so you shouldn’t have a lot of individual states labeling efforts, you should have one provision for voluntary labeling with a set of standards so that there is truth in advertising.”

 

So the Ironing is that GMO potato eliminates an ingredient that has been shown to produce cancer in rats but lots of people will not eat a GMO product for fear that it is bad for you.