New Zealand is an amazing country with rolling hills, majestic mountains and crystal clear blue lakes but what is even better is that to date no fresh fruit, vegetables or meat grown there is genetically engineered.

Although some imported products, which are strictly regulated, are allowed into New Zealand (soy, canola, corn and cotton) every product has to be labeled in order to give consumers the choice of wether or not they want to consumer GMO’s in their diet. The Ministry of Environment in NZ requires any food, food ingredient, food additive, food-processing aid or flavouring that contains genetically modified DNA or protein to have this fact noted on the label.

The only caveat to this ruling is that foods do not have to be labeled if

• it is a flavouring in the food and makes up less than 0.1 percent of that food
• an ingredient unintentionally contains genetically modified material at levels of less than 1 percent of that ingredient.

But this beats the United States in a long shot where genetically engineered products can be in your foods and they do not have to label it!

Genetically engineered foods covers a wide variety of techniques. Techniques as simple as cross pollination is now in the same category as plant gene splicing and PIP (plant incorporated protection)  a food that contains a pesticidal substance. So if you are buying processed foods or snacks make sure your opting for the best quality and most traditionally grown by reading up and finding out where your products are from. Provide your family with highest quality foods by buying Organic, GMO free and NZ made foods! Check out the New Zealand GMO free Potato chips from Pacific Resources, a tasty snack for the family.

Sources

http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/Search/pages/results.aspx?k=GMO

http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/GEPlants/