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| © Natural Society |
Do you do your best to avoid GMOs in food by reading labels and only
buying from trusted brands? Well how would you feel if you found out
that a popular brand of tortilla corn chips that you’ve been buying –
specifically because their packaging states they are GMO-free – was FULL
of GMO corn? Yea, you’ve been eating those tasty little chips like they
were going out of style, all while potentially hurting yourself without
even knowing it.
That is exactly what’s happening with tortilla
chip maker Xochitl, a company recently ousted for covertly including
GMO ingredients in its chips.
Xochitl has been printing
the GMO-Free label on the bottom left on their packages, branding
themselves as a label that consumers can trust. However, after
conducting a study looking at many products that are supposed to be
GMO-free, Consumer Reports, has found this labeling to be less than
honest.
Consumer Reports says that Xochitl has been lying
about their GMO content – and not just a little bit. We aren’t talking
about trace amounts of GMO corn.
The report even found its way
into the mainstream media.
Despite
the non-GMO claims by Xochitl (pronounced “so-cheel”) and their Totopos
de Maiz original corn chips, the Consumer Reports investigation found
that the non-organic (supposedly non-GMO) varieties of the chips
contain
over 75% GMO corn, after testing 6 different packages.
GMO corn was found in each type of chips, even with the ‘all natural’ and ‘No GMO’ claims on the front and backs of packages.
The
Xochitl finding raises an important question about the unverified,
non-third party claims of companies trying to sell their GMO-containing
products. It also makes the suggestions of the Grocery Manufacturer’s
Association that we should just trust food manufacturers to
‘voluntarily’ label their GMOS without independent verification and
government mandated labeling even more ridiculous.
Report: 92% of Citizens Want GMOs Labeled
The report, which can be
read in its entirety here,
states that the majority of samples from companies that make
unregulated non-GMO claims contained about 0.9% GMO corn or soy on
average. Xochitl just happened to grossly overstep that average.
So, even though looking at packaging can help you to minimize GMO
consumption (as most non-GMO advocates have been saying for years), it
is going to be more and more difficult to find truly non-GMO products
unless they are sourced outside of the US. as so many of our crops are
contaminated with genetically modified seed.
It is also vital to
note that “All Natural” products had comparable levels of GMO corn or
soy to their “conventional” counterparts according to Consumer Reports;
in other words,
the “All Natural” label is virtually meaningless if you want to avoid GMOs.
Though
it is understandable that food companies would want to present their
products as GMO-free since over 96% of Americans want their food labeled
so they can avoid the stuff, producing a product and selling it to
national grocery store chains all over the nation with a false ‘NO-GMO’
brand is unconscionable – and illegal. Their website, not just their
brand packaging, states this claim.
If we continue to fight against this trend, I do think we can win. After all, several multi-million dollar
lawsuits against Coca-Cola - makers of Vitamin Water, and
Tropicana - for claiming their products were ‘all natural’ when they were not, have been won.
We
are, in fact, the largest GMO-producing country in the world. Over 90%
of the soy we grow and 90% of our corn is now genetically modified.
Please,
adjust your grocery shopping habits according to this information, and
of course let Xochitl know just how you feel about their fraudulent
practices on their contact page
here - their Facebook page will no longer load.
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