Lying Labels

You walk into the grocery store, a basket in one hand and a list in the other. You have decided to do some baking for your family, perhaps it’s your sister’s birthday or you’re just in the mood for sweets.

Either way, you’ve found yourself at the store and you want to pick the best items for your baked goodies. As you start cruising down the aisle, you eyes glance over the many different labels plastered over the food. How do you know which items to pick? What do these labels even mean? Is one really better than the other? Walk no further because we’re about to put three of these labels on a stand and find out.

Sugar-Free

Often when consumers see this phrase, they assume it means the product has lower calories and is healthier. But often, these products have just the same amount or even more calories and there is no guarantee they are any healthier for your body than the regular form. This misconception has become so prevalent that in November 2017, the FDA issued the requirement warranting food producers label their food as “low calorie” or “reduced calorie” if it indeed is meant to be lower calories. I; however, their food is not meant to be a form of lower calories they must use one of the following disclaimer statements: “not a reduced calorie food”, “not a low-calorie food,” or “not for weight control.” So, what does it mean to be a sugar-free product? Well officially, sugar-free products have less than 0.5 grams of sugars per serving and while less sugar is healthier, that doesn’t mean the product doesn’t contain other ingredients in order to make what is lacking. I mean, how else will they still have that great taste you crave?

By adding artificial sweeteners such as high-fructose corn syrup, the bane of all sweeteners. High-fructose corn syrup claims to be made from ‘all natural’ ingredients. It does come from corn. However, the process in which it is made is all manufactured and the body doesn’t perceive it as a ‘natural’ sugar. Instead, it goes straight to the liver, where it is treated as a toxic, and prevents your body from breaking down fat, making it harder to lose weight. Before you ever buy anything that says “sugar-free”, look at the ingredient list. Is high fructose corn syrup near the top of the list? If so, you’re better off going with the normal version which has the sugars your body can digest more easily.

Fat-Free

According to the FDA, a “Fat-free” product contains less than 0.5 gram of fat per serving. However, fat in foods improves it palatability and enriches it tastes. So, just like the sugar-free products, “fat-free” products are pumped with artificial flavors, emulsifiers, and sugar to improve the taste and texture. And, more sugars is definitely not healthier than less fats.

For some reason; however, our society seems to think fats are the reason for all of obesity problems. That’s not actually the case. Your body needs fats in order to make energy, lipids, and other cellular components. As one of my professors once said, “If you don’t eat carbohydrates, you’ll live but if you don’t eat fats, you won’t”. So, what was the whole hype with fats? Well, first you need to understand that there are different types of fats based on its cellular components. Saturated fats, which have no double bonds within its structure and are solid at room temperature, and unsaturated fats, which have double bonds within the structure, causing them to be liquids at room temperature.

Now, too much of a good thing, can be a bad thing. Yes, your body needs fats for energy and cell membranes, but too many saturated fats can raise your cholesterol and increase your risk of heart disease. So what about unsaturated? Unsaturated fats can actually be healthier for you than saturated fats, if, you eat the right one. It all depends the placement of the double bonds within their structure and how much you eat. For example, omega-3 (aka fish oil) is beneficial for your heart, and while omega-6 (vegetable oil) can be beneficial as well, in too high of doses, is linked with high blood pressures and strokes. Our bodies are designed to eat a high omega-3 to omega-6 ratio but in our current society, we have it switched.

Lastly, what is this mysterious transfat we hear whispered about in the grocery store? Artificial trans fats (or trans fatty acids) are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid. And they are awful for your health. They decrease your good HDL cholesterol levels while increasing the bad (LDL) cholesterol levels. They also increase your risk of developing heart diseases, type 2 diabetes, and increase your risk of stroke. Definitely need to stay away from them and when you see a “Trans-fat Free” label, don’t be fooled. These items also fall under the less than 0.5 grams per serving so if you happen to snack a lot on a “trans-fat free” item during the day, you may actually be eating quite a lot of trans-fat! Also, for any “fat-free” item, if the ingredient list says hydrogenated or partiallyhydrogenated oil, you better put that package back on the shelf.

Non-GMO

This label is a particular favorite of mine. Why? Because I am a plant geneticist and I can tell you any Non- GMO label is just trying to pull your leg. A “GM” is a genetically modified product, which according to the FDA, is a product which has undergone a specific process in which agrobacterium is used to transfer a new gene into the product that produces a desired trait. These traits can vary from pest resistance, disease resistance, nutrition enhancement, and even taste. However, due to the war on GMs, GMs have been limited to pesticide and herbicide resistance within corn, soybean, alfalfa, sugar beets, and cotton. So, all a Non- GMO product means is that it does not have one of the above crops that was modified using agrobacterium.

But “genetic modification” occurs in so many other ways, even in organic and traditional breeding methods. For example, look at sweet corn. Not the “GMO labeled” corn but the corn before agrobacterium DNA transfer was invented. Look at the ancestral corn, Teosinte. It looks NOTHING like corn! It’s tiny, lots of branches, and doesn’t taste near as sweet. But, that’s the plant that gave rise to corn. How? Through selective breeding of mutations by our ancestors. Yes, that’s right, I said mutations. The DNA mutated, which is a natural process, and we humans saw the differences and selected for them, creating a whole new plant species that we call sweet corn. The entire genome has been “modified” compared to the ancestral plant and no agrobacterium was needed for this. Other crops that are completely different from their ancestors include carrots and eggplants. Look them up, they look pretty different!

There are also other methods used to modify plants that aren’t categorized as “GMOs”. Take for example, chemical mutagenesis which has produced our common day Texas grapefruit and much more. Their seeds were exposed to gamma radiation in substantial does, and then sifted through to find the ones with mutations that produced desirable qualities. Sounds like genetic modification to me! However, there has been no record of bad effects on consumers, no one has complained about it, and can even be labeled as “Non-GMO” since it wasn’t created using the new, more precise method with agrobacterium.

Also, everyone loves seedless watermelon, right? Did you ever wonder how they could grow more seedless watermelons if there are no seeds for future watermelons? Here’s how they do it. Watermelons are diploid, meaning they have two copies of each chromosome. Using a carcinogenic chemical, the offspring’s chromosomes are doubled so that they are now tetraploid. Cross a tetraploid watermelon with a diploid, and it results in a triploid watermelon that is infertile, aka no seeds. This is a classic example of modifying a genome and then combining it with traditional breeding in order to produce a classic fruit we all love. And no one thinks of a watermelon as a GMO since it wasn’t created using agrobacterium.

Are you starting to see now, how silly the “Non-GMO” label really is? Everything is genetically modified. Either through traditional breeding and selection of mutations, the use of radiation or chemicals to cause mutations and select the best one, or through agrobacterium which inserts the exact trait of interest into the genome without causing other mutations. When I’m at the store, I roll my eyes and laugh when I see the “Non- GMO” label. It means nothing.

And personally, I’d prefer to know my food was modified using agrobacterium or the new CRISPR-9 gene editing techniques compared to chemical mutagenesis or even traditional breeding and selection. Why? Because this is the 2st century. Those other methods are crude and less precise, used by our ancestors when they didn’t understand the genome. We are learning more and more everyday about how biology works and we can use this knowledge to select new traits for nutrition, taste, and so much more. And these new techniques are precise and efficient, producing the same results as the older methods while decreasing the chances of dragging along an undesirable mutation as well. But this is just my own thought. Before you decide, look up more on your favorite foods. Look up what it really means for a product to be “Genetically Modified.”

Ending Words

If you’re going to label something, label it correctly and label everything. And, that means our labels should be misleading. They should tell us exactly what our food is for we have the right to know what we are or what we are not putting into our bodies. Whether it claims to be “Fat- or Sugar-free”, whether it is “Organic” or “All Natural, whether it is created through chemical mutagenesis or “GMO” processes, we have the right to know. So, the next time you go to the grocery store and you see all the labels, don’t blindly believe what they state, because more often than not, they aren’t telling the whole truth.

WRITTEN BY PRISCILLA GLENN