Mars, Inc., announces it will clearly label all GMOs on its products

Tuesday, April 12, 2016 by: Sarah Landers
Tags: Mars, GMO labeling, chocolate bars

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(NaturalNews) Over the last few weeks, there has been several amazing announcements from food giants that are seen as a step in the right direction by those who are trying to live a healthy, GMO-free lifestyle.

General Mills caved into the mounting public pressure to clearly label its foods GMO; Campbell's promised to clearly label GMO ingredients; Del Monte decided to move away from GMO almost entirely – and now Mars, Inc., has announced it will follow in their footsteps.

According to the Mars, Inc. website, the company states, "we not only ensure the safety of all raw materials in our products, we're also committed to being transparent with our consumers so they can understand what's in the products they love." The company goes on to say, "In 2014, the state of Vermont passed a mandatory genetically modified (GM) ingredient labeling law that requires most human food products containing GM ingredients to include on-pack labeling as of July 2016. To comply with that law, Mars is introducing clear, on-pack labeling on our products that contain GM ingredients nationwide."

According to GMWatch, Mars made its announcement just days after General Mills – and it is hoped that more companies will soon follow suit. But while the clear and transparent labeling of Mars products containing GMOs is a step in the right direction, Mars also states that they "firmly believe GM ingredients are safe," explaining that they support the judgement of regulatory agencies – such as the FDA – and believe that the studies into GM ingredients have been extensive.

Are the studies extensive?

No. According to Earth Open Source, in-depth food safety studies on GM products carried out by scientists independent of the GMO industry are rare – those that have found risks in their results have suffered persecution. The GM crop industry is thought to restrict access to its products by independent researchers so that the effects of GMOs on human and animal health can simply not be investigated.

Research results that are not in favor of GMOs are usually attacked by the industry, mainstream media and Big Agri companies – compromising scientific progress in understanding the potential health risks of eating GMO foods. Many scientists who don't have their hands tied by Big Agri companies actually believe that GMOs are extremely risky.

Geneticist David Suzuki states, as reported by Collective Evolution, that "by slipping [GMOs] into our food without knowledge... we are now unwittingly part of a massive experiment...Geneticists follow the inheritance of genes, what biotechnology allows us to do is to take this organism and more it horizontally into a totally unrelated species... It's very very bad science, we assume that the principals governing the inheritance of genes vertically applies when you move genes laterally or horizontally."

Collective Evolution also states that research from Canada has identified numerous pesticides in the blood of both pregnant and non-pregnant women, thought to be linked to the consumption of GMO foods. And in an even more freaky report, it appears that DNA from GM crops can be transferred into humans who eat them. Consumption of GMO foods is also thought to cause intestinal permeability, imbalanced gut bacteria, immune activation and allergic response, impaired digestion and damage to the intestinal wall – triggering or exacerbating Celiac disease.

GMO products have been inked to a range of health problems, including cancer, which is thought to be caused by both consumption of the GMO foods themselves and exposure to herbicides such as glyphosate. Glyphosate itself has been linked to liver and kidney failure in a study at King's College London, as reported by GMO News.

There are no long-term studies of the effects on human health caused by eating GMO foods – and pressure from the FDA and other corporations mean that most studies that do point to the negative effects will be silenced or ridiculed before given enough attention.

So while it's great that Mars has made the decision to clearly label its GMO foods – it would be better if they had taken the same steps as Del Monte, who according to Fortune are starting to move away from GMOs altogether in 2016.

Sources include:

Fortune.com

GMWatch.org

Mars.com

EarthOpenSource.org

Collective-Evolution.com

GMO.news

Science.NaturalNews.com