Some GMO myths explained

Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are everywhere these days. Some people see them as the saviour of the human race; some people see them as the devil incarnate; most people have no clue what to think about them. I have already looked at the pros and cons of GMOs, at least as I understand them from my research, in an earlier blog. But the Globe and Mail has just produced a handy mythbuster on GMOs, which includes the following snippets:

• The GMO identification bill now going through the US House of Representatives, having been recently passed in the Senate, will probably not actually make public which genetic traits of a GMO have been altered and why. It will probably just be a simple statement that some ingredients were genetically modified (and even that will probably involve scanning a QR code into your cellphone).
• Those weird square watermelons are not genetically modified - they were just grown in a square box.
• Likewise, those oversized chickens, with 90% white meat and no legs to speak of, are not genetically modified but adapted through regular breeding practices over the years to fulfill a marketing need. The only genetically-modified animal food currently available is some salmon, which is engineered to grow faster to its market size.
• There is no such thing as genetically-modified oats on the market, even if some products (like McCann's Irish Steel Cut Oatmeal, for example) claim that to be "non-GMO".
• Similarly, wheat is another common product that is not available in a GMO version (although, predictably enough, Monsanto are currently working on that). So, all those claims on the Internet that the apparent explosion in gluten sensitivity is due to GMOs can not actually be true.
• The scientific consensus is still that GMOs do not constitute a health risk of any sort. The incidence of cancer, obesity, diabetes, kidney disease, autism, celiac disease or food allergies is not significantly higher in North America, where GMOs are widely used, than in Europe, where GMOs are largely banned (although I must admit that surprises me, even if the causes were not due to GMOs).
• Just changing or deleting specific genes of an individual crop is probably not is itself counted as "genetic modification", which is usually seen as involving the addition of genetic material from another, different, organism.
• Genetically-modified rice, such as the much trumpeted "golden rice", which is often touted as being a game-changer in world nutrition, is not actually in widespread use yet. Rather, it is still being tested, and the non-profit institute responsible for its development fears that the modified rice does not actually grow well enough to be embraced by farmers.
• Fast food chain Chipotle recently made a big marketing over the fact that they have taken GMOs out of their menus, but in fact it was only ever the soy cooking oil and their tortillas that had any GMO content anyway. Beware of marketing ploys (also see the item on oats above).
• Almost all soybeans and most corn grown in the USA and Canada are genetically modified (mainly so they can be sprayed with glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's ubiquitous Roundup herbicide), although most of the GMO corn we eat is actually in the form of syrup, starch or oil.