How British vegetarians have become unwitting consumers of GM food
Food safety campaigners concerned by `hidden' contents of popular soya products.
By Severin Carrell and Sheera Frenkel
Independent on Sunday 13 July 2003
Vegetarians are unwittingly eating GM-contaminated food, including certain products which claim they are GM-free. Some of the most popular brands for Britain's 2.2 million vegetarians and vegans, food safety authorities have found, contain GM soya beans and maize - a fact rarely disclosed on the label.
The popular foods containing traces of GM crops include soya mince and soya chunks sold by firms such as Holland and Barrett, Protoveg Sosmix and Burgamix, and Cow & Gate vegetable casserole powder for babies - the last of these is labelled as being GM-free. Many vegetarians will be unaware that 90 per cent of the vegetarian cheese sold in Britain uses chymosin, an enzyme originally created using GM techniques. This has replaced the rennet from cow stomachs in cheeses sold by supermarkets such as Safeway, Asda and Marks & Spencer.
Other meat-substitute products from the US and Canada also contain GM soya, which is stated in small print on the label - including Garden Burgers' vegetable burgers, Schwartz's salad toppings with bacon-flavoured bits and Bac-Os, bacon-flavoured soya chips made by the food brand Betty Crocker.
Even well-informed food safety campaigners were taken by surprise by the discovery that Sosmix - a dehydrated soya-based and pork flavoured powder widely used by vegetarians has been found to contain up to 0.7 per cent GM soya by Irish food safety investigators. The controversy follows a damaging report by Tony Blair's strategic policy unit on Friday which warned that although investing in GM crops could have long-term economic benefits, there was little benefit or consumer demand for GMs in Britain.
An expert scientific review of GM crops is also due out this month, but Friday's report is a major setback for the Prime Minister, who is a keen supporter of GM foods. It also weakens the case for allowing GM crops to be planted in the UK after the results of crop trials into GM sugar beet, maize and oil-seed rape are released this autumn. But environment groups and the Vegetarian Society said the discovery of routine GM contamination of vegetarian products proved that it was extremely difficult to keep GM material out of non-GM foods. They claimed this raised further doubts over the European Parliament's decision last month to allow foods to contain up to 0.9 per cent GM ingredients.
Tina Fox, chief executive of the Vegetarian Society, said: "This is about having choice. I really object to the idea that these have even a little GM." Charlie Kronick, a GM campaigner from Greenpeace, added: "We're supposed to be in control of this technology, and yet it's slipping on to our shelves."
Trading standards officers are now preparing to prosecute two food companies in England after the Food Standards Agency found they had allegedly mis-sold products as "non-GM" which actually had detectable levels of GM soya.
The FSA investigation found that six other British products aimed at vegetarians contained GMs, including three products sold by Leeds-based Suma Wholefoods. Earlier this year, magistrates fined a Birmingham-based company, East End Foods, £14,000 including costs for claiming that their soya mince was GM-free.
The case - the first brought in Britain for mislabelling a GM product - came after laboratory analysis revealed the bag actually contained 50 per cent GM soya. Ireland's Food Safety Authority (FSAI) is planning further tests of 11 products sold by food firms that have been found to have traces of GM soya or maize in products labelled as GM-free.
The companies whose products were found by the FSAI to contain Monsanto's GM soya have been given the test results, and all are understood to have promised to redouble their efforts to ensure that their GM labelling is accurate.
But Dr Pat O'Mahoney, the FSAI's chief biotechnology specialist, said that in seven cases the label claimed they were GM-free or organic.
Bac-Os
What is it? Ingredients list on these bacon-flavoured soya bits states it is GM
Protoveg Menu Burgamix
What is it? A staple of vegetarian larders, this powder contained 0.1 per cent GM soya
Cow & Gate casserole
What is it? A dehydrated baby food, found to have 0.1 per cent GM soya
Schwartz salad topping
What is it? A seasoning for salads, it uses bacon-flavoured GM soya chunks
Holland & Barrett maize
What is it? Used in various vegetarian recipes; tests found traces of GM maize
H & B soya protein mince
What is it? Used to make vegetarian dishes, it contained traces of GM soya
Cheshire cheese
What is it? This cheese, made for vegetarians, uses a GM-derived enzyme
H & B soya chunks
What is it? Used to make a meatless Irish stew, this had small traces of GMs
The answer - Go Organic! Veggies Burgers and Sosages are made to our own specification from Organic Ingredients. Click here to see our Organic Policy.
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