By Alyce Lomax, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
A meme that’s recently enjoying some frequent sharing through social media like Facebook lists well-known consumer brands and companies, stating they are “owned” by genetically modified seeds giant Monsanto and therefore, anyone who doesn’t want to consume GMO foods should avoid them. Actually, though, it’s not really accurate.
In many cases, some of the listed companies’ brands do indirectly rely on Monsanto (and other companies that make genetically modified agricultural products) for ingredients. Are these brands or companies owned by Monsanto? No: That part’s hogwash.
Here’s the skinny on Monsanto and the grocery list.
Digging deeper into that anti-grocery list
The way Monsanto indirectly sneaks into Americans’ grocery carts is simply that it genetically modifies seeds for common crops. So do other companies like DuPont, but they receive far less public scrutiny than Monsanto.
There are different variations of the anti-Monsanto social meme floating around, claiming that companies and brands like Procter & Gamble , PepsiCo , Coca-Cola, and other household names are owned by Monsanto.
This is completely untrue. Those of us who are investors know that consumer giants like these are in fact public companies, owned by shareholders and certainly not Monsanto.
One list making the rounds has some pretty overt mistakes even beyond the ownership claim.
For example, list member “Kraft/Philip Morris” no longer exists. Those two were once a giant conglomerate, and they parted ways about six years ago. More recently, Kraft split up, with Mondelez keeping the high-growth snack sector (including brands like Cadbury and Nabisco) while spinning off Kraft grocery brands, such as the iconic Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.
Some outrageous typos also tipped off a list lacking much thought or fact-checking. “Minute Made,” “Cool-aid,” and “Sweppes” aren’t exactly on shopping lists in the first place, because technically, those aren’t the products’ names.
The spirit of the list can’t be denied, though, and it’s the reason the meme gets circulated: Many consumers simply aren’t armed with the information they desire, and labels and marketing claims can be confusing. For example, brands like Kashi, Bear Naked, and Gardenburger are all owned by Kellogg ; products like these that say they are “natural” aren’t necessarily organic. So if you’re avoiding GMOs, beware.
The straight dope on GMOs in your food
The majority of American processed food likely contains GM ingredients from crops grown with engineered seeds. That’s because just about all conventional U.S. corn and soybeans now have foreign genes. These genes allow soybeans to resist a common herbicide, and engineer corn to produce its own insecticide.
A massive number of American products utilize corn or soy as crucial ingredients. Anyone who pays attention to high-fructose corn syrup has probably noticed how frequently that ingredient substitutes for cane sugar, for example. Consumers’ best way to avoid such foods is to buy organic, which by definition excludes genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.
Whole Foods Market is a safe place for GMO skeptics to shop, since so many of its products are in fact organic, and many of its
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
In an industry first, 
In the 1990s, environmental activist Mark Lynas helped start the anti-GMO movement, fighting against genetically modified food crops. But now he’s done a complete 180, telling the Oxford Farming Conference earlier this month that he was wrong to “demon[ize] an important technological option which can and should be used to…