Inside D.C.

I’ll have the GM burrito, please

It’s rare I agree with just about anything on the Washington Post’s editorial page.  However, this week I found myself in total sync with an editorial headlined: “Chipotle’s GMO Gimmick is Hard to Swallow.”  The Post’s editorial board took on the fast food chain’s latest feel-good marketing ploy this week as Chipotle announced its menu is going “GMO free.”

Chipotle is perhaps the most cynical of food entities, running a close second to Whole Foods. Both companies are accomplished at pandering to consumer fears.  Perhaps this is because both company’s have CEOs who can smell a millennial market opportunity a mile away.  For Chiopotle’s part, it touts its antibiotic-free meats, its grass-fed beef as the “finest ingredients” it can serve.  “Chipotle should be a place where people can eat food made with non-GMO ingredients,” it says.

The trouble is, with the exception of the corn and soy flour it uses to make tortillas and the soybean oil in which some offerings are cooked, the operative word in that statement is “should” because, truth be told, those pesky GM ingredients still abound at Chipolte’s Mexican Grill.

Its website reports of trying to source meat from animals not fed feeds containing GM corn or soybeans.  On its website, when it comes to non-GM feeds, it says, “We are working hard on this challenge…for example the 100% grass-fed beef served in many Chipotle’s restaurants are not fed GMO grain, or any grain for that matter.”  No mention of imported products, by the way.

In an email response to one ag publication seeking clarification of the company claims, Chipotle said the following:  “All of the ingredients we use to make our food are non-GMO.  That does not include soft drinks (which we do not make) and it does not include animal feed.  Given that the vast majority of grains used for animal feeds are genetically modified, it would nearly impossible to ensure the use of GMO feed without buying organic.  Buying organic presents another set of challenges, both in terms of cost and available supply.  Organic meat sells at an even greater price premium than the Responsibly Raised meat we currently serve, and there is considerably less of it.”  The soft drink issue, by the way, is corn syrup – “nearly all made from GM corn.”

So, Chipotle’s brand of social responsibility extends just as far as the bottom line.  It appears at the point profits weaken, so does the fast food chain’s brand of “sustainability.”

The web site talks about a “lack of consensus” on the long-term safety and environmental impacts of biotechnology as used in food production.  The fact government-approved GM crops have been cultivated in the U.S. for over 30 years, that there is no horrific body count of folks who’ve died or even been sickened from eating the grains, oilseeds and fruits produced therefrom, that the country has not turned into a dustbowl or given birth to monster bugs, should be sufficient testament to the food and environmental safety of GM plants and the foods they eventually become.

Chipotle’s quest for the millennial dollar and a tighter grip on that fuzzy, warm place in the hearts of those who disdain technology, panders to the fearmongers and exacerbates the dangerous ignorance surrounding biotechnology.  In short, the bandwagon on which Chipotle has jumped – and the credence its leap conveys – is keeping a lot of people around the planet hungry by demonizing the very technology that holds the best hope of feeding them.

The Post said it better than I:  “In nevertheless validating the panic that has led to limits or bans on GMOs in developing nations, Chipotle says ‘we decided to remove the few GMOs in our food so that our customers who choose to avoid them can enjoy eating at Chipotle.’  In other words, the anti-GMO lobby has scared people, and burritos can only be sold by pandering to these fears.”