Frankenstein food ... why I want every supermarket to ban it

EAT your, greens. They're good for you, aren't they? Possibly not. If US scientists get their way, unbeknown to us, most of the food we buy in the supermarket each week will have been tinkered with by genetic engineers.

That's why we're leading a drive to say No to this crazy scheme.

The Soil Association have contacted all UK supermarkets asking them to tell us, the consumer, what's going on.

Further, we've set them a challenge: To guarantee that these experimental foods will be banned from the shelves until they can be proved safe. Some have agreed to meet with us next week, but they say there is little they can do.

The giant chemical companies behind these genetic experiments on our food promise all sorts of things, an end to famine, cheaper prices, food that will last longer and look better.

But you don't need to be a scientist yourself to know that in the case of Mother Nature, you simply can't cheat the system.

It's not that long ago that a man said, "I am happy to confirm that British Beef is entirely safe. This has been confirmed by British scientists."

That man was John Major and it was his government that allowed our food chain to become contaminated and a threat to our health.

If Tony Blair doesn't act quickly, we could be faced with a disaster that will make the BSE crisis look like a common cold.

This week frozen food retailer Iceland announced that it would no longer allow these experimental ingredients in its shops. They simply couldn't take the risk.

Backed by the Consumers' Association and a leading biotechnologist they spelt out the dangers of introducing these unnatural organisms into our diet.

With BSE you can slaughter the herd and dispose of the problem. Once genetically modified organisms are introduced, there is no turning back.

What you might not know is that you and your children are already eating these foods. That makes you a guinea pig, and with no labels to tell you what does and doesn't contain these potential time bombs, you have no choice.

The scientists talk about genetically modified soya beans. You might think that you don't eat soya beans, who does?

The fact is that 60 per cent of our prepared foods - everything from ready meals to baby milk, even beer - contains soya, most of which comes from America.

Next year a third of these beans will have been engineered to resist the effects of harmful pesticides. This will allow farmers to spray more and more chemicals on the food we eat and feed to our families. But because the technology is unproven, it might have all sorts of other harmful side-effects.

Commercial development of soya beans containing a gene from a brazil nut had to be stopped when it was found that the beans caused a reaction in people allergic to nuts.

But it's not the risks we know about that really worry the experts, it's the ones that will appear in five or ten years' time that concern them. And by then, it will be too late to turn back the clock.

So who's behind this madness? It appears that the scheme is little more than a bid by a handful of multi-billion-dollar companies to control the world's most important commodity, food.

This could be the gold rush of the new millennium. But few people have picked up on a very interesting fact. The company that sold nearly pounds 1billion of a pesticide called Roundup last year is the same chemical giant behind the push to sell these modified crops.

What's more, if you're a farmer, the same company will sign a contract with you to buy the finished product.

With investors pouring in millions of pounds in the hope that this will be the next oil boom, how can they fail?

Simple, we must not allow the supermarkets to fob us off with a guarantee of safety.

The examples of what the food giants are trying to do "for us" sound like the film script of Jurassic Park. Last year they tried injecting DNA from a flounder fish into strawberries. The thinking was that as the fish lives in freezing cold water, the fruit wouldn't freeze on cold nights if the strawberry's chemical make-up was altered.

Commonsense tells us that these Frankenstein foods may have potentially deadly side-effects.

A case in the USA in 1989 should have taught us some lessons. Thirty- seven people died and 1,500 were permanently disabled after the introduction of a "health food supplement" called Trytophan in just this way.

Work is already advanced in taking this deadly technology to alter the characteristics of animals.

In the laboratory, pigs sheep and cow genes are being "adjusted" to meet the demands of the food processing industry.

Outbreaks of salmonella, E-coli and BSE should have taught us some kind of lesson, but we carry on looking to get something for nothing. There is always a price to pay.

Currently, the only way to be sure that you're not eating genetically-modified food is to buy products labelled organic.

UK regulations do not allow experiments on organic foods, but they are more expensive. From May 1, you will also be able to shop with confidence at Iceland, but until now none of the big supermarkets most of us visit every week, have given us the same guarantee.

But not everyone shops at Iceland! The Soil Association believes it should be the right of every UK citizen to have access to safe, naturally- produced food - not only the privileged minority.

That is why we've decided to take action. We have launched a campaign to make Britain a Genetic Engineering Free Zone and to persuade Prime Minister Tony Blair to introduce policies to encourage most of our farmers to switch to organic methods.

The green lobby, including Greenpeace, Friends Of The Earth and the Soil Association have all backed a call to Just Say No' to these cyberfoods. I have had extensive discussions with Prince Charles about this who is equally concerned.

The real power, though, is with you. If you say No at the supermarket, then it will say No to the supplier and the scheme will be shelved.

But with no labelling to tell us what we are or aren't eating, we have little choice but to take part in an experiment that could cost us our health.

A pipe dream? I don't think so! We believe we have the power to reverse the last forty years of intensive farming - with the help of Sunday Mirror readers.

The supermarkets will only worry about this issue if they know you are. If you don't want your daily diet to be filled with this untried food, talk to your supermarket manager. Write to him or her, or to their headquarters and let them know.

Don't forget, it's your health, the health of your children and of the environment which may be at stake.

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