More than 90 percent of the nation’s annual import of soybeans, estimated at about 2.3 million tonnes, are genetically modified, industry representatives and experts said.
In addition, about 10 percent of them are processed into all kinds of soybean-based foods, drinks and condiments that are not properly labeled as containing genetically modified organism (GMO) materials or are labeled, but still favored by ill-informed consumers, they added.
According to statistics from the Council of Agriculture, Taiwan’s major suppliers of soybeans are Brazil and the US.
Because imported Brazilian soybeans are not made for processing, Taiwan’s soy food products are mainly made of soybeans imported from the US.
However, experts at a forum on genetically modified foods on Thursday said 90 percent of the soybeans imported from the US are genetically modified, and are grown to be sold and used as livestock feed in the US’ domestic market.
Most Taiwanese consumers are not aware of the health risks of genetically modified foods, the Chinese Tofu Association director-general Chan Wu-hsiung (詹武雄) said.
“Our neighboring countries including Japan, South Korea, China, Malaysia and Vietnam have all been weaned from GMO soybeans and started to consume non-GMO soybeans. Why is it that our government has been so hesitant about setting up rules and changing the habit?” Chan said.
National Taiwan University agronomy professor Warren Kuo (郭華仁) presented a research study by French scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini and his co-authors on the effect of genetically modified corn on laboratory rats, which concluded that rats fed corn genetically modified for herbicide resistance developed tumors.
Kuo urged the public to take heed of the potential risks accompanied by the consumption of genetically modified foods and called on the government to establish clearer regulations to rein in the genetically modified food industry.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching