Mislabeling GMO Foods: How Prevalent is it?

Amelia Bartenschlag and Miriam McCarty and Briana Smith

Advisor: Dr. Kerry Cheesman
Biological and Environmental Sciences Dept.
Abstract
Food corporations label many products as organic, all natural and non-GMO. Some companies appear to mislabel their products; two possible reasons for this are 1) intentional mislabeling of brands to benefit sales, and 2) cross
pollination of GMO into non-GMO fields during the process of growing the plants. For this experiment, corn (Zea mays) products such as cereals, snack foods, and corn flour were collected from North America, South America and
Europe. This experiment was designed to test if corn products on the market are actually GMO or non-GMO in accordance with their labeling. Standard DNA extraction techniques are being used followed by Polymerase Chain
Reaction (PCR) and electrophoresis. Once PCR is completed on each corn product, the promoter CaMV 35S is observed only in GMO positive samples. The data collected is being cross-referenced to the list of products that are
labeled organic and non-GMO. At this point in the research it is clear that there are some foods labeled incorrectly. More samples are being analyzed to determine the overall incidence of mislabeled products.

Introduction Results Discussion

From local newspapers to the New York Times, the word GMO has become a
popular term for headlines. The World Health Organization defines GMO as a plant,
animal or microorganism that has altered DNA that would not have changed through
any natural processes found in nature (World Health Organization, 2016). Many
people do not know what GM foods consist of nor do they know which products they
buy contain GM material because companies are not forced to label their products as
GM positive or non-organic. 1974 marked the first year that scientists called for 16% of snack products tested GMO positive
research to be done on GM products that were available for the public to consume.
Twenty-two of the most well-known crops to be genetically modified, including wheat,
rice, corn, soybean and canola, are able to hybridize with their wild counterparts and
produce fertile offspring (Warwick, Beckie, & Hall, 2009). This contamination can alter
the weediness level of the wild plant - meaning that a wild form of rice picked up the
trait of herbicide resistance from the GM rice and now the wild rice could potentially
become a superweed. Cross pollination is just one explanation for the reason why
products end up being mislabeled. The other reason lies in the companies
themselves. In Europe any food product that contains 1% or greater of GM material
must be labeled, whereas in the USA there are no requirements for food companies to
label their food products as GM containing (Lynch & Vogel, 2001). After all the tests
and case studies there have surfaced two possible reasons that food labeled as
GMO-free or organic ends up containing GM material - cross pollination happened
at the seed level in reproduction or that companies are purposely mislabeling their
products.
Methods
Different corn products were gathered from a variety of countries including the
United States.
DNA was extracted from the products using standard methods from BIO-Rad
Laboratories. Each sample was ground up with a mortar and pestle and 1 gram
was used. 5 ml of distilled water was mixed with the sample. The mixture was
ground for 2 minutes until a slurry was formed. 25 ml of water was added to the
slurry and mixed. 50 microliters (l) of the slurry was moved to a .5 ml microtube
using a micropipette. Next, 500 l of InstaGene was added to the slurry and mixed
using the auto shaker. Tubes were placed in a water bath at 95C for 5 minutes.
Tubes were moved to microcentrifuge where they were spun for 5 minutes at high
speed. Samples were refrigerated until Electrophoresis was performed.
PCR was completed next by adding 20l of MasterMix primer enzymes to 20l of
the supernatant formed during centrifugation. This process was completed twice.
Once using the supernatant and Plant MasterMix primer enzymes (green) and
once with the GMO MasterMix primer enzymes (red). All corn samples were run
with both primers. Samples were mixed with the auto shaker and then placed in the
thermocycler. The Program consisted of 2 minutes at 94 degrees Celsius 1 minute
at 56 degrees Celsius and one minute for 74 degrees Celsius on repeat for three
hours. PCR was run in duplicate.
Electrophoresis was performed with each sample after the thermocycler was
completed. The gels were made with 1% buffer and 3% agarose. Each gel was run
with a molecular weight ladder and supernatant with orange loading dye added. A
GMO ladder and a certified non-GMO ladder were both used as a control on every
gel. The gels were run for 30 minutes at 100V. Gels were stained with ethidium
bromide for two hours and then evaluated under UV light.
(See Figures below)
10% of cereal products tested GMO positive
5.2% of flour/meal/baked goods tested GMO positive
15% of popcorn products tested GMO positive
5.2% of whole corn products tested GMO positive
1.5% of starches/ pasta products tested GMO positive
Results revealed , as shown in Figure 3, that 38% of products tested were
mislabeled.
Figure 1 determination of Figure 2 results of GMO testing by category of
GMO positive and negative
samples..
Figure 3 percent of corn products Figure 4 GMO labeling by category of
correctly labeled as GMO or non-GMO
Cross Pollination in GMOs
Figure 2 revealed that out of 190 samples tested, 102 of them were GMO positive.
This positive trait was determined by examining the gels after electrophoresis. The
GM positive samples revealed an extra marker as displayed in the BioRad picture.
Figure 3 displays that the 102 samples that tested GMO positive, 38% of them were
mislabeled. This means that the food had a label of being organic, Non-GMO, or
all natural and ended up testing positive for the GM trait. The results reveal
something about how GM foods are regulated in the United States and elsewhere
around the world. The mislabeling issue can be traced back to the seeds that are
planted in the ground. Contamination usually happens in the seed lots. The GM
seeds can be carried by wind, water, animals and humans. If a GM seed reproduces
with a non- GM seed the affects can be detrimental. Altering the invasiveness of the
plant as well as increasing its likelihood to become a weed becomes greater (Lynch &
Vogel, 2001).
Cross pollination can not only happen in the field but also in the lab. Robert Richmond
mentions that during development of the GM seeds, cross pollination could happen
between GM foods, or packaging and distributing of the final GM product could cause
contamination (Richmond, 2008). All of the food items tested were corn products.
Corn is traded all over the world and is in need with the increasing number of people
that inhabit the planet. Biotech crops are planted in areas that significantly need food.
Countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia are areas where GM seeds are
the only seeds planted. From 2005 to 2006 there was a 13% increase in the use of
GM crops in Asian countries (Teng, 2008). This relates to Richmonds paper about
biotechnology in the sense that an increase in trading with foreign countries leads to
GM products to be more easily spread and dispersed. Cross pollination is very easy
when there are multitudes of different crops being transported at the same time. The
ways to minimize the cross pollination from oversea trading include to restrict GM
food. plants to enclosed facilities, creating a buffer zone when growing crops so the seed
dispersal is minimized to a certain area or to manipulate genes to block foreign plant
seeds.
Mislabeling GMOs
The public has brought up concerns about allergies to certain genes. Out of all the
corn products tested, product number to GM positive ratio was highest in popcorn,
with 75% of popcorn products being GM positive as shown in Figure 4. This was
followed by cereal, which had 73% of products being GM positive. With the
abundance of peanut, dairy and other seed allergies this raises a concern to many.
The government does not require foods to be labeled as being GMO so there is no
way to tell what genes are actually in your food. To ensure that these products are
safe the companies must go through a consultation phase with the FDA. Mislabeled
food could be a result of the FDA not following up on the certification. While it is
against the law to label products wrong, such as organic if they are modified, there
are no nationally enforced laws to label a product as GMO. Therefore, if a product is
mislabeled, the supplier could face label fraud, but not get reprimanded for not being
labeled as modified. Figure 2 displays that over 54% of all foods tested contained GM
material. This coincides with the 1999 findings that 60% of all grocery store foods
contained GM material (Lynch & Vogel, 2001).
corn product.
Presented at the Ohio Academy of Science Annual Meeting, April 2016