My issue is with the fact that until recently, the Huel website had a very different position on the subject. It did not claim to use GMO products, however, it also claimed not to be “GMO-Free” for very good reasons.
Stating clearly on your website that Huel is “GMO-Free” when you know that you do not use ingredients that COULD be GMO is a cheap marketing ploy. It has the appearance of placating unsubstantiated fears for the purpose of selling more product. I find that position unethical.
If Huel does not contain GMO ingredients because none of it’s ingredients WOULD be eligible for GMO, then I think the site should not address it either way. Otherwise you look as silly as Whole Foods who sells “NON-GMO” water.
Genetically modified organisms can be good or bad depending on what you do. For example, you can genetically engineer food that actually has more nutrition, but you can also genetically engineered food that has the word phytonutrients if you look up which apples have the most antioxidants for example, you will learn that some of the genetically modified of varieties have the lowest antioxidant counts because they were engineered night to bruise and they were engineered for other things that don’t have to do with nutrition. However, at the myth that it causes cancer and things aren’t true. As for organic versus non-organic, studies have been done that the nutritional content between both is very similar. If you are going to argue that there is more omega three in organic eggs and grass fed meat, yes, there is a very small, negligible amount, but not really enough to matter and for the most part, the nutrition is the same. I just eat regular fruits and vegetables and I have been fine. I have tried the organic ones, and in addition to being more expensive, many of them are hard and gross.
But the most common gmo vs non gmo arguments are generally concerning the modification of the plants dna injecting it with herbicides or pesticides. Yes, seedless watermelon is a gmo but clearly that’s not what the concern is. For instance, wheat, corn, soy, and zucchini/summer squash. They contain dangerous chemicals in their dna. Let’s not pretend like we all don’t know what we are talking about.
While offering organic would raise the price significantly, there is a market for it and users that are willing to pay the mark-up. Please consider offering an organic line. Who knows, if there is enough mass interest, it could actually drive the cost down to a sustainable level.
I agree with everything you’ve said here. I really enjoy Huel and have been using it for about 3 years now, but I’m also considering ending my subscription now.
It doesn’t always work like that. As an example:
Most of the wheat grown in USA is genetically modified to be insect resistant. A normal wheat plant produces an enzyme, as a natural defense, which is an irritant to the digestive tracts of insects that eat it. At normal levels, this enzyme is not terribly harmful, especially when combined with the other natural components of the plant, to insects.
The genetically modified wheat is ‘tweaked’ to produce massive quantities of this same enzyme which, when consumed by insects that would otherwise continue eating the plant, at these massive quantities, actually kills the insects by destroying the digestive tract from the inside. This works very well.
In the USA, many people who are ‘gluten sensitive’ or have ‘mild celiac disease’ routinely avoid wheat because it adversely affects their digestive tract. Of these, some find that they are able to eat wheat and wheat-based products in countries where GMO wheat is banned, and thus learn it is not actually always gluten, but rather copious quantities of a naturally occurring plant enzyme which affects them.
The point: It’s often useful to ‘fool with Mother Nature’ as Robat points out, but often we humans throw things way out of balance when we do, sometimes to our detriment. Unfettered population growth is not a sustainable thing for any species, including humans.
