You and The World: Blog Post 1: Food Labeling

Posted by Zoe Schwingel-Sauer in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 4:16 pm

My name is Zoe Schwingel-Sauer and over the past couple weeks in my freshman english class at Science Leadership Academy, I have been researching a prominent issue, in our world today. The issue that I have decided to tackle and actively contribute to is labeling in the food industry. Throughout my research so far, I have focused on antibiotics and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The predicament is that major food incorporations feed their animals antibiotics, and inject crops with GMOs, but they don’t say they so on the food package. In the past food labeling has been an underlying problem, but recently it has surfaced and people are beginning to take a stand.

A big complication is that many people aren’t educated about antibiotics or GMOs in the food industry. Antibiotics are useful and needed for people to recover from illness. However eighty percent of antibiotics are being given/sold to farms to improve growth. Farmers feed their animals antibiotics to improve their growth and fatness. Say if a chicken was naturally going to be about five pounds, antibiotics could double or even triple the weight. Meat that is marbleized is the meat that has been fed antibiotics. This meat is considered better quality because of the fat, therefore it is sold for more money. What’s the big deal with that? Well, most animals that are raised to be slaughtered, live in very horrid conditions. These feeding grounds make it perfect for the bacteria to become “superbugs.” These superbugs are eaten by the animals, and then consumed by you. Since you are eating these superbugs and antibiotics, your immune system can no longer be helped by antibiotics. Therefore, in the future if you are ill and the cure is antibiotics, the antibiotics cannot help you.

What are Genetically Modified Organisms exactly? GMOs are genetic engineering, basically combining organisms that don’t naturally go together. In farming, farmers tend to combine corn genes with each other. For example if one corn grows really abundantly, but doesn’t grow very fast, a farmer will combine the corn t
hat grows abundantly with a corn that grows very fast.

This

may seem ideal, but it is the opposite. When researching GMOs, scientists found that there was a connection between GMOs and various types of cancer, organ failure or destruction, and miscarriage. Also, while some of the GMOs are successful, many are not. This is very wasteful, and some of the GMOs end up being harmful. The USA is one of the few countries that has NOT banned the use of GMOs in food. All of Europe, Japan, and India have banned GMOs because the extent of the damage isn’t predictable or even fully known. GMOs are awful for people, and currently in the USA, food corporations do NOT have to put on the packaging label of a food product that it contains GMOs.

Recently California attempted to take a huge stand against food companies who falsely label their products. Proposition 37 also called “Right to Know” tried to ban companies from labeling foods with GMOs as “natural.” Even though Prop 37 failed to pass, this has sparked a food revolution! California would’ve been the FIRST state to force companies to label their products that have GMOs.

Throughout my research I hope to enrich my understanding of the food industry. I want to help make labeling food packages, with everything that is in them, including GMOs or antibiotics, required. I believe that everyone has the right to know what they eat. Major companies argue that labeling food packages with GMOs or antibiotics would cause unneeded panic, but people should be worried. In reality, only few people know exactly what they’re eating. In order to become healthier and stay safe, I feel that labeling food packages correctly is necessary.

Here is a link to my bibliography.

Thank you for reading!

Below is a picture of what a chicken looked like in 1950 without antibiotics compared to a chicken in 2008 with antibiotics.

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