Food Labelling

In Australia the current food labelling laws are so weak that the majority of Australians are eating genetically modified foods without even knowing it. Canola oil is a classic example. Until the 1970s there was no such thing as canola oil — the marketing name ‘canola’ was derived from ‘Canadian oil, low acid’. In a triumph of food technology over common sense, genetically modified (GM) canola, which is tolerant to herbicides, was introduced in the mid-1990s in Canada. In 2003 GM canola was approved as the first genetically modified food crop to be trial-grown in Australia. In 2008 it was commercially released. Fast-forward to 2010 and 8 per cent of our national canola crop is genetically modified and we still don’t know if we are eating it or not as highly processed foods by law don’t need to be labelled. I’m not saying you don’t have the right to eat it or farmers don’t have the right to earn a decent living, but I think that everyone has the right to purchase foods that are properly labelled and that state whether or not they contain a genetically modified ingredient. That is the only way we can make an informed choice. Canola oil is just the tip of the iceberg, though.