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Ethos Chocolate promotes GMOs

A pro-GMO promotion in the form of free chocolate is being considered a success. A Fresh Look started giving away Ethos Chocolate the week before Valentine’s Day (and ran out the day of).

Cocoa farmer Eric Reid provided the chocolate from his vertically integrated farm in the Dominican Republic – which was paired with GMO fruits and sweetened with beet sugar from GMO sugar beets, “I think this is one way to really open the consumers’ eyes and heart – particularly from chocolate – and they can gain a better understanding of GMO.”

And Reid says genetic engineering could save cocoa plants, already threatened by diseases, from going extinct, “It’s known in the industry based on climate change that, in the near future, the possibility of the cocoa crop itself could go extinct.”

Reid says it’s important for consumers to do their research about the safety and importance of GMO foods. The fruits used in three of the four Ethos chocolates were papaya (saved by GMOs in Hawaii), oranges (where GMO research is trying to fight citrus greening disease), and apples (a GMO variety of which prevents browning and food waste).