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MINNESOTA SCHOOL DISTRICTS AIM TO REDUCE GMOs in SCHOOL FOOD

GMO Awareness Day will be paired with efforts to transition to non-GMO foods

November 3, 2014—(Minneapolis, MN) Five Minnesota school districts plan to raise awareness about genetically modified foods and take steps to reduce GMO content in school meals.

Schools in Hopkins, Minneapolis, Orono, Shakopee, and Westonka will celebrate GMO Awareness Day on November 5 by offering non-GMO menu options and communicating to students and families about GMOs.

Director-level staff at the five districts began meeting to discuss GMOs in April, 2014, and decided to hold a collective awareness-raising event to help engage their communities.

“We want to start conversations about the foods we serve and how our decision-making works,” says Laura Metzger, Director of Food and Nutrition Services at Westonka Public Schools.

“Our students will grow up to make their own decisions about the foods they eat, so this is an opportunity for education.”

GMOs, or “genetically modified organisms,” are plants or animals produced using a technology that merges DNA from different species to create new combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding.

Now that most corn, soy, canola, cotton, and sugar beet crops grown in the United States are genetically modified, it is estimated that up to 80 percent of processed foods in U.S. supermarkets contain GMOs.