Produce Puzzle

Until recently, I thought those little stickers with numbers on fruits and vegetables were only meaningful to the cashier.  As it turns out, they are supposed to give us information as to how the fruit or vegetable was grown.

A code will consist of either 4 or 5 digits.  A five digit code that begins with the number 9 is organically grown.  The United States government defines organically grown food as food grown and processed using no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. 

If a label contains just 4 digits, or 5 digits with the first number being a "0", the food was conventionally grown.

If a label contains five digits and begins with the number 8, the food is a genetically modified organism (GMO).  GMOs are seeds that have had their DNA manipulated for various reasons.  For example, most of the corn produced in the United States is genetically modified to produce its own insecticide. 

So it all sounds simple enough.  Select 9s for organic, 0s or four digits for conventionally grown, and 8s for GMOs.  However, as you might imagine, there is a lot of controversy and much that remains unknown about the effects of GMOs on our health.  Possible concerns are the development of allergies, or that insects will become resistant to the crops that have been genetically modified. 

So how common are genetically modified foods in your store's produce department?  Foods that are frequently genetically modified include corn, wheat, tomatoes, rice, potatoes, soybeans, lentils, and squash.  However, when researches scoured the produce departments of 4 large supermarkets in Florida, they could not find a single fruit or vegetable code that began with an 8.  How could that be?  The guidelines for labeling produce are voluntary!  Consumers are wary of GMOs and when asked, most Americans said they would avoid purchasing them.  As a result, most companies are simply putting conventional codes on their GMOs. 

So for now, and most likely for a number of years, the only sure distinction you can make based on the label is organically grown versus conventionally grown.  However, Whole Foods Market just became the first retailer in the United States to require labeling of all genetically modified foods sold in its stores.  But as we know, change is slow, and the new requirement will not be fully implemented until 2018.