Am I eating biotech foods?

If you live in the United States and lately topped a sandwich with cheese, gobbled down a bowl of cereal, or guzzled a soft drink, chances are you've eaten foods from genetically modified crops. (This link opens a new window.)

How widespread are biotech crops?

Globally, people raised 25 times more acres of GMO crops in the year 2000 than they had in 1996.

Farmers planted an estimated 109.2 million acres of GMO crops in 2000 (almost twice the area of the United Kingdom). For more detail, read the Global Status of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2000, from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). (Global Status of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2002) (These links open new windows.)

In the United States, about 40 new agricultural products have met federal requirements and may be sold commercially in this country. Not all of these will end up on your dinner table. In fact, many are grown for animal feed or non-food use. However, many GMO crops are in development and may hit the market in the next decade.

The ERS tracks the acreage devoted to these crops in the United States. Their report Genetically Engineered Crops for Pest Management in U.S. Agriculture (this link opens a new window) indicates that biotech soybean, cotton, and corn acreages increased dramatically after these crops were introduced in the mid-1990s. These GMO crops accounted for 20-44 percent of acreage planted in 1998.

According to information from USDA's Economic Research Service (ERs), most genetically engineered crops commercially available in the United States carry herbicide-tolerant or insect-resistant genes. (This link opens a new window.)

Who keeps lists of GMO foods that might be on your table?

The Food and Drug Administration

Because the FDA regulates food and feed derived from genetically engineered organisms, this is where you're most likely to find GMO plants destined for your dinner table.

Some products of these crops have no GMO components because they have secondary uses. For example, when GMO canola is grown only for oil extraction the extraction process eliminates DNA and proteins that might be derived from GMO DNA. The final food product has no GMO component.

The FDA list describes each company, new GMO variety, trait, and gene source for GMO products they've worked with and cleared for use. (This link opens a new window.)

So far, crops on the FDA list includes these crops that you might eat,

• cantaloup,
• papaya,
• potatoes,
• radicchio,
• tomatoes,
• squash.


It also includes these crops that are the products of biotechnology, but which are processed to create products that don't include GMO proteins or DNA.

• canola,
• corn,
• cotton,
• flax,
• soybean,
• sugar beet.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The Environmental Protection Agency keeps a list that describes their plant pesticide regulatory decisions concerning GMO crops. They determine if crops that contain pesticides must be treated as pesticides. (This link opens a new window.)

Most of the decisions they list focus on plants that contain the Bacillus thuringiensis toxin.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)

APHIS, which is part of USDA, must protect US agriculture from pests and diseases. Among other things, APHIS regulates GMO organisms and products if they're potential plant pests. Regulated products are either kept out of the country or kept physically confined. If the product is deemed harmless it gains "nonregulated status", and APHIS no longer tracks it.

Biologics of Crop Plants (general biology documents on plants often reviewed for field testing as genetically engineered species). (This link opens a new window.)

Petitions of Nonregulated Status Granted by APHIS. (These are biotech crops deemed safe which are no longer regulated by APHIS.) (This link opens a new window.)