What Will It Take to Get You to Swallow GMO and Nanotech Foods?

Heather Callaghan
Activist Post

Dear reader: Are you one of these “new technology rejecters”?

Apparently you will be the one getting a label if you don’t want GMOs or nanoparticles in your food. Read on…

Previously, research from North Carolina State University and the University of Minnesota showed that people were willing to consume food with nanotechnology (particles, chips for purposes of tracking and changing texture, taste) – but they wanted it labeled and were willing to pay more to have nano-free or nano-labeled food.

The duo is back to tell you what it would take to get consumers to finally accept genetically modified organisms and nanotech in their food – with a dose of chiding, that is.

The researchers conducted what they say is a nationally representative survey of 1,117 U.S. consumers. Participants were asked to answer an array of questions that explored their willingness to purchase foods that contained GM tech and foods that contained nanotech.

The questions also explored the price of the various foods and whether participants would buy foods that contained nanotech or GM tech if the foods had enhanced nutrition, improved taste, improved food safety, or if the production of the food had environmental benefits. (Hopefully, the questions were asked in a purely theoretical light because so far, GMO and nanotech foods have delivered none of those things.)

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Dr. Jennifer Kuzma, senior author of a paper on the research and co-director of the Genetic Engineering in Society Center at NC State. (Her position reveals an obvious bias, but wait until you find out what label you get if you don’t accept GMOs and nano foods.)

In general, people are willing to pay more to avoid GM or nanotech in foods, and people were more averse to GM tech than to nanotech.

However, it’s not really that simple. There were some qualifiers, indicating that many people would be willing to buy GM or nanotech in foods if there were health or safety benefits.

They broke the participants up into four groups – guess which label you fall into?

Eighteen percent of participants belonged to a group labeled the “new technology rejecters” – they would not by GM or nanotech foods under any circumstances. (Luddites!)

Nineteen percent of participants belonged to a group labeled the “technology averse,” which would buy GM or nanotech foods only if those products conveyed food safety benefits.

Twenty-three percent of participants were “price oriented,” basing their shopping decisions primarily on the cost of the food – regardless of the presence of GM or nanotech.

And 40 percent of participants were “benefit oriented,” meaning they would buy GM or nanotech foods if the foods had enhanced nutrition or food safety.

Therefore, they concluded that if nutrition and safety were promised factors, people would gobble up the “benefits.” Gotta love those labels…

Kuzma added:

This tells us that GM or nanotech food products have greater potential to be viable in the marketplace if companies focus on developing products that have safety and nutrition benefits – because a majority of consumers would be willing to buy those products.

From a policy standpoint, it also argues that GM and nanotech foods should be labeled, so that the technology rejecters can avoid them. (You can avoid them, but you will still get called names! emphasis added)

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Where, praytell, did they find the participants for this survey – certainly not in Hawaii, Oregon, or California, where GMOs are considered the bane of environment and health and where people take unadulterated food seriously. GMOs have not delivered on their promises of ending hunger, better health and better environment. The majority of the public remains unaware of unregulated nanotech in their food.

No, folks, the purpose of the survey on engineered foods is to engineer YOU. (But of course it has the added benefit of helping food producers to ~~shape~~ market to you.) To blindly accept what is unacceptable or thus, be cast aside.

The paper, “Heterogeneous Consumer Preferences for Nanotechnology and Genetic-modification Technology in Food Products,” is published online in the Journal of Agricultural Economics. Lead author of the paper is Dr. Chengyuan Yue of the University of Minnesota. The paper was co-authored by Shuoli Zhao, a graduate student at UM. The research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Heather Callaghan is a natural health blogger and food freedom activist. You can see her work at NaturalBlaze.com and ActivistPost.com. Like at Facebook.

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