David Castle told a crowd gathered in Saskatoon last week that regulators, processors, producers and consumers need to delve deeper into the true meaning of food labels.
Castle, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph in Ontario, spoke Feb. 11 at the University of Saskatchewan. He told the crowd that the current labelling system and many proposed systems fail to serve consumers, producers and processors, especially when it comes to food grown or processed using biotechnology.
“Sixty percent of processed food in the grocery store today contains genetically modified material … but just what does that mean to the consumer? Really, what does that mean and how does a label telling them that serve them?” he asked.
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The reason for labelling in the past was safety and food information, he said.
Labelling a product as genetically modified tells consumers a biotechnological technique was used in its production.
“Not all of these techniques involve the transfer of genes from one organism to another.”
Castle is one of the first in his discipline to research the subject of food labelling and its place in Canadian society. He has found research money and a demand for perspective on the subject from industry and government, and has sponsors such as BioteCanada, a group that promotes biotechnology.
He cited a labelling practice that he and his colleagues refer to as nested information.
Labels often list ingredients that are summarized in vague terms such as “artificial flavour,” which could contain 30 or 40 compounds, Castle said.
“I don’t believe that consumers in a supermarket aisle can make an informed choice from the labels they have now, so I am not sure that labelling a product as containing GM
material will solve any problems or allow consumers to make informed choices,” he said.
In his current research project, his team is surveying 1,500 Canadian consumers. Of these, 80 percent say they want to be informed if a product contains GM material.
Castle said that places the consumers’ right to know over that of processors’ and producers’ rights to adopt new technologies.
Overloading a product with a long list of ingredients and information about the production processes is problematic, he said. It may not satisfy consumers’ needs and might needlessly prevent the adoption of new, more beneficial technologies.
Castle recommended that a summary term built on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada definition of novel food be used to identify the product as having unique traits. A reference number for that food could identify the individual product and allow a consumer to look up a comprehensive description of the food using the Health Canada internet site.
“Do most of us want to take the time to examine each label? Can we effectively do this in the store? No, we’ve got to get the kids to where they have to be, balance paying the bills with trying to run a household, get to and from work. But there are those who really want to know and they should have the ability to find out,” he said.
