You Eat What You Know

Training session turns attitudes positive toward bioengineered food

MONDAY, June 3, 2002 (HealthDayNews) --It seems that just a little 're-education' can make Americans change their attitudes about genetically modified food.

A Purdue University researcher surveyed 576 people about their knowledge and attitudes toward bioengineered food before and after the participants underwent special hour-long training sessions on various aspects of food biotechnology.

Before they entered the sessions, only 31 percent of the participants believed that genetically modified food was properly regulated by U.S. federal agencies, and 25 percent were confident that bioengineering was unlikely to make existing food allergenic.

Those numbers increased to 83 percent and 63 percent, respectively, after the session. It included information on how bioengineered crops are created, their environmental impact, and federal regulation and approval processes.

The Purdue study also found that 90 percent of the people who received this training said they would eat and serve genetically modified food to their families. The study appears in the June issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.

Funding for the study included money from an unrestricted grant to Purdue University from Monsanto Inc., a major food biotechnology company.

More information

This page from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives a chronology of the FDA's involvement in regulating bioengineeered foods.

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