GM sugar beet: Trick or treat?
Sugar from GM sugar beets will soon be unlabeled and widespread
Posted by Lisa J. Bunin

The scariest thing next Halloween might not be the monsters, zombies or witches trolling our streets -- it might be the candy. Those colorful, tin-foil-wrapped Hershey's kisses and dark chocolate pumpkins could contain sugar extracted and processed from the roots of genetically modified sugar beets.

Sugar in Halloween candy comes from several sources, including sugar beets. But this year, farmers are planting Monsanto's Roundup-Ready GM sugar beets for sale to food producers for the first time. This beet is genetically engineered to survive multiple, direct applications of the weed killer, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate. What's particularly appalling about the approval of this GM sugar beet is that at the time of its approval, Monsanto convinced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to increase the glyphosate residues allowed on sugar beetroots by an astounding 5,000 percent. This opens up the possibility for excessive pesticide spraying on GM sugar beets. Now that's scary news for our precious ghosts and goblins!

So how would you know if the treats you bought contained GM sugar? The short answer: You wouldn't. That's because sugar from GM beets like all other GM foods would not be labeled.

Link to con.