Altered foods fill U.S. stores, stir questions

Take a look at the ingredients on the next package of food or drink you crack open. Does the fine print include high-fructose corn syrup? Soy protein or soy lecithin? Vegetable oil?

Store shelves are lined with foods and beverages that contain these and other ingredients derived from soybeans, corn and canola plants.

Consumers Union discovered how ubiquitous genetically altered food is when it tested a sampling of processed foods containing these ingredients last year. The publisher of Consumer Reports found more than trace levels of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, in infant formulas, soy burgers, tortilla chips and corn muffin mix, among others.

It's little wonder, given that this year 52 percent of the nation's soybean crop is genetically modified, as is 50 percent of the canola planted and 25 percent of the corn crop. The projected acreage of altered cotton -- a source of cottonseed oil -- is also substantial at 48 percent.

The genetically modified crops have been altered to resist certain herbicides or diseases; some produce their own pesticide.

It's no stretch to say that almost everyone has eaten GMOs.

Advocates of biotechnology point this out as evidence that the food is safe. After all, consumers have not died in droves.

Skeptics counter that just because no illnesses have been attributed to eating GMOs, it doesn't mean GMOs are safe.

As the controversy over genetically modified organisms grows, so too does the pressure to label foods and, from some, to remove GMO ingredients altogether.

For food makers, the process involved in declaring a product GMO-free is an ordeal.

ClifBar Inc. of Berkeley, for example, buys more than 250 ingredients for its Clif Bars and Luna Bars, spokesman Randy Erickson said.

In March, Clif Bar added to its labels the claim "non-GMO soy." To live up to the claim, the company's five soy suppliers regularly test their product. Clif Bar follows up with its own tests.

The company stopped using corn products altogether, which meant finding another supplier for vitamin C, of all things, Erickson said. Eventually, the company hopes to be able to say its bars are GMO-free.

Why go to all the trouble?

Clif Bar is concerned about potential long-term effects of GMOs, Erickson said.

"We acknowledge that we don't know all the answers yet," he said. "So we want to steer clear."

Another company taking the same route is Giusto's Specialty Foods Inc., a seller of bakery ingredients in South San Francisco. Dan Weggenman, vice president of the company, said much of his day is spent contacting corn and soybean suppliers to ensure the crops are not genetically modified. Since the company specializes in organic ingredients, and all current definitions of "organic" preclude GMOs, it's more a paperwork chore than anything, he said.

But purists who insist on foods only nature would create will find the options are scarce. For example, Giusto's sells popular multigrain organic cereals that contain triticale (trit-ih-KA-lee). Unknown to most users and consumers, triticale is a hybrid of rye and durum wheat invented through considerable scientific manipulation.

The hybrid, which combines the versatility of wheat with the hardiness of rye, is a nutty-tasting grain found now in breads and cereals, some organic. It's also used as livestock feed.

To grow triticale, scientists had to figure out how to make the seeds capable of reproducing, which involved matching their chromosome sets. Rye has seven pairs of chromosomes; durum wheat has 14.

Scientists also had to add a step to account for the hybrid's malformed endosperm, the part of the plant that nourishes the seed embryo.

Scientists used a chemical called colchicine to solve the fertility problem. When applied to newly forming cells, colchicine causes the chromosomes to double, creating a rye-wheat hybrid that contains 21 matched pairs of chromosomes. Thus, triticale is born.

Scientist Kent Bradford says triticale is comparable to modern genetically modified food.

"We've made lots and lots of genetic experiments, if you will, by the methods we already have, and we've accepted these products," said Bradford, director of the Seed Biotechnology Center at the University of California, Davis.

Others, such as Mark Lipson, policy program director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, argue that it is not the same because the process used to create triticale combines traits already in the food supply.

Another food that falls into the gray area is cheese.

Nearly 90 percent of cheese today is produced with an enzyme, chymosin (KI-mo-sin), that curdles milk. Over the past 10 years, chymosin largely has replaced a cheese-making coagulant taken from the stomachs of veal calves.

Chymosin is produced by genetically altered yeast and mold. Cheese makers favor it as a purer product than calf rennet because it contains none of the stray microorganisms that can make cheese manufacturing unpredictable. Moreover, cheese made with chymosin can be labeled kosher and vegetarian.

Biotech backers cite cheese as an example of a biotech food people have been eating for years without harm.

Cheese makers, however, consider their product significantly different from foods that contain foreign DNA. Their point: Chymosin is not an ingredient of cheese, but is used only in the process of making cheese.

"The end product is pure," said Ignazio "Ig" Vella, chief executive officer of Vella Cheese Co. in Sonoma.

Vella said he's refused to use other products of biotechnology, such as a product said to ripen cheese more quickly.

"I pride myself on making a natural piece of cheese," he said.

As consumers who object to GMOs learn more about how food is made, they, like Vella, will be forced to decide where to draw their own lines.