Chipotle Goes GMO-Free: Facts You Need to Know About Altered Organisms in Food

Major restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill will now remove food with genetically modified ingredients from their menu.

"This is another step toward the visions we have of changing the way people think about and eat fast food," said Steve Ells, founder and co-chief executive of Chipotle, as quoted by The New York Times. "Just because food is served fast doesn't mean it has to be made with cheap raw ingredients, highly processed with preservatives and fillers and stabilizers and artificial colors and flavors."

GMOs are defined as plants and animals that went through a process "in which scientists alter the genes of the life forms with DNA from different plants, viruses, or organisms to get a desired trait, such as disease resistance or pesticide tolerance," Yahoo! reported.

Two debate sides concerning GMOs are prominent. Bioethicist Sheldon Krimsky, author of "The GMO Deception," said that one side says GMOs are needed to produce stronger crops instrumental in feeding the world, while the other side claims that GMOs are bad for the health. According to Krimsky, "both sides have extremes" and that not enough research has been made about the matter yet, Yahoo! wrote.

Chipotle started removing GMOs in their products in 2013, NPR wrote. The fast-casual dining chain's corn and tortilla chips are now GMO-free, as well as their soybean oil in the chips and taco shells, which was now replaced with non-GMO sunflower oil.

Michael Moss, author of "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us," commends Chipotle's action to remove GMOs from their food, explaining that the restaurant is responding to its customers' "concerns about food," NPR noted. Moss added that lower sales and the consumers' growing safety concerns prompted food corporations to change their products.

Rebecca Spector, West Coast director at the Center for Food Safety, also reacted positively to Chipotle's move, adding that the action is "a very big deal" and that the company is setting an example for other food establishments that serving meals without GMOs is possible, USA Today reported.

Chipotle, however, explained that the food chain will not be 100% GMO-free. The New York Times reported that "some of the soft drinks it sells are likely to contain sweeteners made from GMO corn, and that some of its meat and dairy supplies come from animals fed GMO grains."

Other food companies are also getting rid of GMOs in their product aside from Chipotle. According to NPR, Pepsi removed the sweetener aspartame in their Diet Pepsi, while Kraft announced they are ditching artificial bright orange dyes from their Macaroni & Cheese Dinner. Nestle also abandoned artificial colorings and flavorings from its chocolate candies, and McDonalds declared its move to start sourcing chickens raised with the absence of antibiotics.

Subway has also taken out the additive azodicarbonamide from its breads, NPR added. A campaign that included 40,000 Facebook posts also pushed food company General Mills to manufacture non-GMO Cheerios.