GMO FREE CHRISTMAS?
Think again.
Good farmers are practical people and are used to dealing with natural processes which is good reason why you need to pay attention to their objection to the Gene Technology Bill currently before a select committee in Parliament. The other reason you need to pay attention is because thus far you have been duped on what Genetically Modified foods are already
in our food chain.
We once endured a Food Safety officer at the market who had an unhealthy attitude towards regulation. Such is the confidence of the pathological kind that he challenged the 7000 year old cheese making history by stating one would not want to eat cheese with mould on it. Back then, 7000 years ago, it is claimed, cheese was fluked when milk being carried in ruminant bladders as was the norm, quite possibly by Egyptians, curdled and cheese was formed. The point is the rennet in the stomach lining created the formation of the right bacteria to make the cheese.
Since then without the aid of modern technology cheese has become a form of unique and regional identity for many cultures.
Cheese’s status as a super food for over 7000 years, made traditionally with only four ingredients, milk, salt, starter culture and animal rennet is as a consequence of industry’s capture, suffering the same fate of many other real whole unadulterated foods. Traditional food methods from bread making to beer brewing once the defining difference and success for small independent businesses who cared about quality are now captured by nefarious actors who push industrial products designed for industrial scale
production of inferior ‘food’.
So it should not be too surprising to discover that producers who produce large quantities of cheese may add an an unlabelled genetically engineered ingredient called Chymosin, and bakers may add a genetically engineered mico-organisms in the form of yeast (Vita Yeast) to their foods. Traditionally plant rennet is derived from cardoon thistle or nettle.
Chymosin was at last count in 80 to 90% of all cheese and bread products in the US since the 1990’s, including Britain and in NZ & Australia since 1999 usually in hard cheeses. Chymosin, a rennin, was created by the Pfizer and approved by the Australian and NZ Food Regulations in 1988.
You won’t know this GMO is in your cheese because producers don't have to declare it. Instead it goes by the name ‘vegetable rennet’ in the list of ingredients, if it is mentioned at all.
Lack of transparency in the world of industrial food is nothing new, the watering down of the Organic certification by the USDA is well known. So it should not surprise you that Pfizers Chymosin (fermentation produced chymosin) received an exemption from any pre approved requirements that apply to other new food additives, and industry leaders and manufacturers claim it is safe as a consequence.
Nothing to worry about folks.
But concerns remain real about Chymosin's safety, one concern being that there are no long term study’s on the effects of genetically modified substances on human health, other than us eating them now. Diet related diseases share the same growth rate as the rise in production of industrially produced foods in industrial nations.
The correlation between the rise of the plethora of diet related diseases in Westernised cultures and the rise of industrially processed foods cannot be ignored. The alarming incidence of ‘gluten intolerance’,celiac disease, IBS, allergic reactions to food, bowel cancers, just for starters, all highly prevalent in these nations that consume these processed foods, remain mainly unsolved medical mysteries.
Anti GMO sentiment has been alive and kicking in New Zealand since the 1970’s. Because of this and with Organic NZ at the helm a moratorium was enforced by Govt in 1978 lasting 10 years, yet since then despite the illusion that we are a GE free country, GE technology has crept into this country either in labs or forests.
The 2014 NZ High Court ruling that gene editing was a form of genetic modification is today a thorn in the side of the misguided and industry led United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals vision for the future.
The United Nations vision of the future is emboldened by the use of Gene Technology once deemed dangerous and risky and now cocooned in buzz words once associated with Green politics.Using climate change, environmental sustainability, food security and health and more pertinently the NZ second emission reduction plan 2026-2030 current NZ GE laws are an obstacle to the growth of the Genetically Engineered.
Today's world is a step too close to the one envisaged by the United Nations 2030 SDG's.
It is looking like a worldly homogenisation of cultures, enabled by the centralisation of systems, resulting in factory farmed and processed food, aided and abetted with technology and science that dictates how we grow, eat and live.
Factories replace farms, labs replace kitchens, scientists replace growers, toxins replaces medicine.
Subterfuge is another nasty ingredient synonymous with companies like Pfizer; they give Chymosin a lofty vegetarian status claiming it is a more ‘ethical’ option for cheese making.
Cymosin is not vegetarian, it’s not plant based, it is genetically modified in a lab using calf genes.
We cannot be expected to make the right food choices
if we are kept in the dark.
The Gene technology bill currently in its final stages in the hands of a select committee in Govt aims to overhaul these current restrictions
on genetic technologies.
Add into the cocktail Government regulations that allow the withholding of information that might inform the common people of what is in their food, then we need to look to alternative ways that will enable us to make the right choices if the powers that be cannot and will not do that for us.
Solutions:
Food producers need to be pro active and if they use real traditional vegetable rennet or any GMO then they need to declare that information on their foods - say: Contains No GMO.
Consumers need to ask producers if they use Chymosin or a GMO additive, then vote with their purchase or not.
Read here for more info on this and a list of known NZ cheesemongers who disclose their use of GMO's.
Pessimistically it looks like the horse has bolted on this GE zeitgeist and as long as we are captured in the crystal ball reading of the 2030 SDG’s and the NZ second emission reduction plan 2026-2030 then our food future looks anything but democratically decided, as decisions are made beyond our elected politicians by overseas interests and industry barons.
So let’s ditch that doomsday prophecy of labs and factories and food tech and opt instead for gardens, farms, and growers and producers and the freedom to choose how we grow food, farm food and eat food.
Be reassured that at the very least there are a number of voices at the grass roots level, including enlightened Farmers calling for rejecting this Gene Tech Bill in its entirety.
Current laws around food labelling and food safety standards are inadequate as they do not allow us to make informed decisions on what we choose to consume.
Dishonest food labelling does not encourage trust.
Consequently we have to ask for producers to declare they are GMO free.
Otherwise assume the worst of processed foods if you have not already.
A little knowledge in this case is quite possibly a very useful tool. Start using it and buy from the people you can trust.
List of known NZ cheese producers who disclose use of GMO's: https://hatchardreport.com/gene-tech-provisions-introduced-by-stealth/
dec 2025
Further to the above: local Karikaas cheese states: We use animal rennet in everything except the Feta, Leyden low fat and edam, these have the plant based rennet.
