Not much, at least in New Hampshire.
A well-funded effort by Gary Hirshberg, he of the organic giant Hirshberg’s Stonyfield Farms, failed to alarm lawmakers, who instead said that warning labels on GMO foods, in defiance of every scientific body's statements, would be a "rush to judgment", notes National Grange legislative director Grace Boatright.
Despite claims by Big Organic (and homeopathy and anti-vaccine groups, at least in California) that the public wants these labels, only 7% of people in a recent survey said it was very important for a label to note GMOs, even after the millions companies have spent trying to scare people - unless the questionnaire prompted them to want to be worried about a GMO label, when it went up to 59%.
Not only has genetically modified food gone through the same scrutiny every other food in existence has gone through (including the genetically modified kind before scientists were able to do it precisely, and that random stuff nature does), it has gone through a lot more. GMO foods are the most thoroughly tested in history.
And when there are labels, people don't read them. The government mandating posting fast food calories and no one reads those, they didn't change diets one bit. So GMO labels would not make any difference in consumption if they were' informational', as Big Organic marketing efforts claim. They want them to be warning labels, and do with legislative fiat what they have not been able to do in the marketplace; make all food expensive so they can sell more that has a sticker proclaiming their process.
If the public really demands GMO warning labels on food, then anyone putting a sticker on their food should sell a lot more. Instead, crackpots have taken to proclaiming their salt has no GMOs. Which makes sense, since salt is not an organism.
It must be made by Monsalto. Credit and link: MNN and Shea Gunther's friend Jes, who took the picture.
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