Food Myths vs. Food Truths: GMOs, Hormones, Pesticides & More

Food myths, food bullying, & food truths: What the science actually says about what you're eating

By Michele Payn, CSP  |  causematters.com

You are standing in the grocery store aisle, reading a label, feeling guilty and very confused. Cage-free. Hormone-free. Non-GMO. All-natural. You are not sure what any of it means – but you are pretty sure that if you buy the wrong thing, you are failing your family.

That feeling is not an accident. It was engineered.

There are more than 200,000 label claims in a typical grocery store, and each is designed to make you feel that your food choices are wrong, so you will pay more for the ones that "feel" right. Fear sells. Guilt sells. Confusion sells. Someone at the intersection of $28 hot dog water, five million Google results for understanding food labels, and a wellness influencer's latest documentary is making a great deal of money from your anxiety

I have been a Holstein breeder since I was nine years old, and have spent 25 years working at the intersection of farm and food – writing four books, interviewing hundreds of farmers and scientists, and speaking to dietetic associations, farm groups, and agribusiness audiences.

My mantra has not changed: know the farmer, know the science, or know the system. In other words, do you have firsthand perspective on how your food is raised? Do you know the science well enough to evaluate the claims? Do you understand the regulatory framework that governs what ends up on your plate?

This article is a plain-language, science-grounded guide to the food myths that are costing consumers money, costing farmers their reputation, and costing all of us the simple pleasure of eating without guilt.

Food should be about celebration, nourishment, and family tradition. The side effects of food fear – confusion, guilt, higher prices, a growing disconnect from the farm – show up in your health and well-being. Let's fix that.

What food bullying is – and why you're probably a victim

Food bullying is when marketing language, peer pressure, celebrity claims, or misleading labels are used to make you feel judged or afraid about your food choices – not to inform you, but to sell you something or advance someone else's agenda.

I did not invent the term. I documented the phenomenon after watching it spread for 18 years before wrote a book about it. The six levels of food bulying range from a zealot physically stripping a box of cereal from a mother's grocery cart, to the keyboard coward who called a small-business cattle rancher a murderer on Facebook and then went after her cat for good measure. In between: the mom groups that shame other mothers for not buying organic, the wellness influencer whose curated fruit plate posts are linked by nutrition researchers to orthorexia – an obsession with eating only foods one considers healthy, with genuinely harmful health consequences. The judging, the evangelizing, the taunting, the shaming. All of it designed to remove your choice, create emotion, and force groupthink.

The side effects are real and measurable. Dr. Adrian Chavez – a PhD nutritionist and former food fear convert himself – told me on the Food Bullying podcast that pesticide fear-mongering and seed oil panic are literally causing people to eat fewer vegetables. That is not a theoretical trade-off. It shows up in population health data. Food fear is a public health problem masquerading as consumer advocacy.

Food marketers depend on consumers believing some food is dramatically superior. That requires making other food seem inferior – or dangerous. This is not conspiracy. It is capitalism applied to your anxiety.

GMOs: one of the most studied questions in food science

Are GMOs safe to eat? Yes. This is one of the most thoroughly studied questions in modern food science, and the answer has been consistent for more than 30 years.

Every major independent scientific body that has reviewed the evidence – the National Academy of Sciences, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association – has reached the same conclusion: GMO foods currently on the market are safe to eat. Hundreds of studies across multiple decades support this consensus. The legitimate debates about GMOs involve specific environmental applications, intellectual property, and agricultural policy. Whether the food is safe to consume is not among them.

The Non-GMO Project Verified butterfly on a package is one of the most effective marketing devices in the modern grocery store. It signals safety without making a safety claim. It implies superiority without providing evidence. Table salt, bottled water, and cat food carry this label. None of those products have ever had a GMO version. The label is not lying, technically. It is simply using your fear to charge you more. And companies pay to have that butterfly put on their food products because of the perceived health halo.

Food truth:  Bringing a GMO crop to market takes approximately 16 years and costs around $150 million in safety studies. The food on your plate is among the most regulated products in the US economy. It is safe - and it also helps farmers be more sustainable.

Hormones in food: the misnomer of early development

Here is a fact food marketing does not want you to know: there are hormones in every food you eat, unless you are having salt for dinner. Vegetables have hormones. Maple syrup has hormones. Meat has hormones. Every living thing contains hormones.

There are no growth hormones approved for use in poultry or pork production. None. They have been illegal since the 1950s. That means every package of chicken and pork labelled hormone-free is using a claim that applies equally to every other package on the shelf. Chickens have larger breasts today not because of hormones, but because of breeding to meet consumer demands The label is marketing nonsense.

Beef cattle can be raised with or without supplemental hormones. The FDA sets safe residue levels based on extensive toxicology research. Also of note: a serving of beef from a hormone-supplemented animal contains less estrogenic activity than a serving of cabbage. That is not a talking point but peer-reviewed science. It also helps beef be raised more sustainably because they grow faster with less feed and water.

If hormones in food reflect a genuine personal value for you, buy accordingly. But understand what you are actually paying the premium for – and what the label is engineered to make you feel rather than what it is actually telling you.

Food truth:  Hormones in food are not causing early development in children. Increased calorie intake at a younger aging is cause bodies to develop faster.

Pesticides and chemicals in food: hazard is not the same as risk

Dr. Liza Dunn is an emergency physician and medical toxicologist – someone who spent her career treating actual chemical and biological exposures. As she clearly noted on the Food Bullying podcast: glyphosate does not cause cancer. She traced the history of pesticide regulation from DDT to modern GMO herbicides through a public health lens that no agricultural advocate could replicate, and she made a point the food fear industry depends on consumers not understanding: there is a critical difference between hazard and risk.

Hazard is whether a substance can cause harm under any circumstances. Risk is whether the amount you are actually exposed to causes harm in real-world conditions. Water is a hazard in sufficient quantity. The presence of a chemical compound in a food sample is not the same as a risk to human health – and fear-based food marketing collapses that distinction deliberately.

The USDA and FDA test produce residue levels regularly. The vast majority of conventional produce tests well below the EPA's allowable safety thresholds, which are themselves set conservatively. Much of it shows no detectable residues at all. The Dirty Dozen list gives the theoretical presence of residues without any context of actual risk levels. Fear-based, not evidence-based.

Meanwhile, Dr. Chavaz's finding bears repeating: seed oil panic and pesticide fear-mongering are reducing vegetable consumption. If the choice is between conventionally grown broccoli and no broccoli, the science is unambiguous about which is better for human health. Eat your broccoli!

Food truth:  Bringing a new pesticide to market takes approximately 11 years and costs around $300 million in safety studies – including impact on humans, animals, and non-target species. The EPA sets residue limits conservatively below any level at which adverse effects have been documented.

Animal welfare and industrial agriculture: what the labels don't tell you

Let's talk about what industrial agriculture actually is – because I have stood in a barn crying over a sick cow, and I have never seen an animal rights activist do the same.

96% of US farms and ranches are still family-run. The "industrial agriculture" narrative was not built on observation – it was built on footage selected to provoke outrage.

Cage-free, free-range, humanely raised: these terms have specific regulatory definitions that vary in rigor. Some carry meaningful welfare standards. Others are primarily marketing language. The most important question to ask about any animal welfare claim is: what specific practice does this standard actually require, and who is independently verifying it?

Farm size does not determine the quality of animal care. A California beef producer I interviewed for the podcast upcycles brewery waste through her cattle, has restored wildlife biodiversity on her ranch through rotational grazing, and raises animals whose nutritional profile she can defend to any dietitian. None of that fits the industrial agriculture narrative. It fits the reality of modern ranching – which is more diverse, thoughtful, and science-driven than the documentary version suggests.

People who care for animals do so with a conscience – we consider it an honor and privilege to care for animals that provide food.

Food truth: Farm size does not change the care, concern, and human conscience that goes into animal welfare. There are excellent small and large operators.

Antibiotics in meat & milk are heavily regulated

Antibiotics are used in livestock production. In most cases, antibiotics help an animal not suffer from an illness that causes pain or expose the rest of the animals.

This is not a secret, though "antibiotic-free" labels and advertising have made it confusing and moms afraid of feeding their kids drugs. What the fear-based conversation consistently omits is how the regulatory system works – and keeps food safe.

Antibiotics used in food-producing animals are heavily regulated by the FDA. Withdrawal periods – the time required between the last antibiotic treatment and when an animal can enter the food supply – are established by pharmacological research to ensure residues are below detectable thresholds by the time meat reaches processing. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service tests for residues. Meat that tests above tolerance is condemned and never enters the food supply.

Milk is not allowed in the bulk tank when a dairy farmer has to treat a cow. If it enters any part of the processing system, there are severe penalties and costs for both the farmer and veterinarian. All USDA Grade A Milk is tested for antibiotics 7-9x prior to bottling .

The farmer responding to the viral claim that farmers are pumping antibiotics into chicken is not hiding something. He is trying to explain a regulated, monitored, science-based system to an audience that has been told the system does not exist. When a bird is sick, withholding medicine is often the crueler choice. The regulatory framework governing which antibiotics are approved, when they can be used, and how long withdrawal periods must last is more rigorous than most of the people criticizing it have taken the time to read.

Food truth: All USDA-approved milk and meat are tested for antibiotics. The science and the regulatory record are consistent on this. The antibiotic-free label is meeting a preference, not correcting a safety problem.

Organic vs. conventional: what the research actually shows

Organic food is not more nutritious than conventional food. This is the conclusion of a major Stanford meta-analysis and consistent across comprehensive reviews of the nutritional literature. It is not a fringe position or simply a talking point.

Organic farming is a certified regulatory standard with meaningful distinctions: different rules around synthetic inputs, different certification requirements, and in some cases different environmental outcomes. These are legitimate reasons to choose organic. Some consumers value the practices associated with organic farming, the relationship with a specific farm, or the environmental outcomes they believe organic methods support.

However, the premise that a family unable to afford the organic premium is feeding their children inferior food is not supported by research. That premise drives the most worst form of food bullying – the parent group that determines organic is the marker of a good mother, and applies social pressure accordingly. Bullying does not need words.

Food truth:  The Stanford meta-analysis reviewed 237 studies comparing organic and conventional produce. It found no strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional. Both provide safe, nourishing food for your family. And both are a viable farming practice.

Gluten, wheat, and the myth that changed the market overnight

The gluten-free market is valued at over two billion dollars. The question worth asking is how much of it is warranted.

Dr. Brett Carver is a wheat breeder at Oklahoma State University who has spent his career studying wheat genetics. He confirmed with published research that wheat has not been fundamentally altered by modern breeding. Gluten content has not changed in centuries. The sensitivity many people attribute to gluten may actually be a FODMAP response – a reaction to fermentable carbohydrates present in many foods beyond wheat, with nothing to do with gluten specifically.

Celiac disease is real. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is real for a subset of the population. For the majority of the two billion dollar gluten-free market, the restriction is driven by a marketing narrative that was non-existent before Wheat Belly was published in 2011 – and that has been contradicted by agronomic and medical research ever since.

Carver had to rebuild his entire communication strategy to counter a book whose central scientific claim had no basis in the published literature. He was fighting downstream of a story told without him. That is what food misinformation/disinformation does at scale: it moves fast, and the people with the actual knowledge are always playing catch-up.

Heidi Wells is a Kansas farmer who grows wheat and also holds a dietitian's credential. When she came on the podcast, she observed that she grows the wheat her own patients are afraid to eat. The gluten myths she encounters in her clinic ripple all the way back to the fields she farms. Misinformation moves in both directions across the food chain.

Food truh: Gluten in wheat has not changed. There is no GMO wheat commercially available in the U.S. or Canada. Grains are a necessary part of diets.

How food labels work – and manipulate your brain

All-natural means almost nothing. The FDA has no formal definition for the term, which means a manufacturer can apply it broadly – including to heavily processed products most people would not consider natural. It sounds authoritative while carrying no regulatory standard.

Free-range requires that chickens have access to the outdoors. It does not specify the size, quality, or accessibility of that outdoor space. A door to a concrete slab technically satisfies the standard.

Hormone-free on poultry or pork is meaningless – there are no approved hormones for those species. On beef, it means something specific and regulated.

Dr. Chen Zhen, a food economist at the University of Georgia, offered a finding on the podcast that reframed how I think about the whole system: 40% of the effect of nutrition labels gets quietly erased by retailer pricing. Premium labels on premium-priced products are not primarily a nutrition intervention, bu are a revenue model.

The question to ask about any label claim is the same one you bring to any other marketing claim: what does this standard specifically require, and who is independently verifying it? The Nutrition Facts Panel – the actual data on the back of the package – is the one label required to be accurate. Start there.

Truth simplifies food. When you know the farmer, know the science, or know the system – you stop needing the label to tell you how to feel about what is in your cart.

The real cost of food – and who actually pays it

I was at the grocery store and heard someone in the next aisle complaining about high prices and blaming "those darned farmers and their government bailouts." In the adjacent lane, a woman was paying with a SNAP card. I held my tongue in both directions.

Farmers and ranchers are price takers, not price makers. They absorb input costs, weather events, market volatility, and regulatory compliance with no ability to set the price they receive. An unexpected spring blizzard can kill thousands of head of cattle overnight, costing a rancher hundreds of thousands of dollars. A multi-year southwestern drought drained cattle herds and pushed beef prices higher in every grocery store in the country. The farmer did not cause that. The farmer absorbed it first.

Nearly 80% of what is called the farm bill goes to food assistance programs – not farm subsidies. The premium for organic, free-range, non-GMO, and hormone-free labelling does not flow primarily to farmers. It goes to the marketing, certification, and retail infrastructure that created and maintains the label. When you pay more for a label, it is worth understanding where that money is actually going.

There is a farmer or rancher at the start of your food chain risking a million dollars and their family's agricultural heritage, pouring their heart into growing food for you. That perspective does not shrink your grocery bill. But it changes the conversation about who is responsible for what.

A practical framework to find food truths

The goal is not to become a food scientist before you can feed your family. I want you to have a simple framework that helps you evaluate claims quickly and stop letting labels decide how you feel.

Know the farmer.

Do you have any firsthand perspective on how your food is raised? A farm tour, a farmers market conversation, a podcast episode, a blog post written by an actual farmer? Even one genuine relationship with someone who grows food changes how you read a label. Katie Caputo Serbinski was a registered dietitian who had never been on a ranch until she was 25. Her first cattle production tour changed her clinical recommendations. She started recommending beef to cardiac patients with a confidence she did not have before. Firsthand knowledge does not come from a documentary.

Know the science.

You do not need a toxicology degree. You need to know who is making the claim and what their actual credential is. An emergency toxicologist saying glyphosate does not cause cancer carries different weight than a wellness influencer saying the opposite. A Stanford meta-analysis carries different weight than a brand-funded study. The question is simple: is this peer-reviewed research, a regulatory conclusion, or a marketing claim? They are not the same thing.

Know the system.

The US food regulatory framework – FDA, USDA, EPA – is not perfect. It is, however, one of the most rigorous food safety systems in the world. Pesticide residue limits are set well below the levels at which any adverse effects have been documented. Antibiotic withdrawal periods are established by pharmacological research and monitored by federal inspectors. GMO safety reviews involve years of toxicological, environmental, and nutritional study before approval. Trusting the system does not mean trusting every label claim. It means understanding that the food on your plate has passed through a regulatory framework that most of the people criticizing it have not read.

Know the farmer, know the science, or know the system. If you have at least one of those three, you are significantly harder to food-bully – and you can shop without fear, guilt, or confusion.

Enjoy your food

I wrote Food Truths from Farm to Table because I was tired of watching my friends confused about food, getting bullied into choices that did not serve their families or their budgets. I wrote Food Bullying because the problem got worse. The marketing got bigger. The misinformation grew. And the people paying the price were the parents trying to do right by their families on a real budget, and the farmers who spent their careers defending practices that were never actually the problem.

The food supply is not perfect. There are genuine debates worth having about agricultural policy, environmental stewardship, and food system equity. But those debates are not well-served by hormone-free labels on chicken that was never allowed to have hormones, gluten-free claims on products that were never at risk from gluten, or a wellness influencer on Snapchat who has never stood in a barn.

The truth about food is less scary and more nuanced than the labels suggest. The farmers raising your food care deeply about doing it right. The science behind what ends up on your plate is more rigorous than the fear-based marketing industry wants you to know.

You are smart enough to handle the real answers and make the right nutrition choices for your family. Eat your broccoli. Enjoy your steak. Drink milk Stop reading the front of the package.

The goal is not perfect choices. It is informed ones – made on your terms, based on your own social, ethical, environmental, and health standards. That freedom belongs to every family, regardless of budget.

About the author

Michele Payn, CSP, is one of North America's leading voices connecting farm and food. She is the author of four books including the IPPY Gold Medal-winning Food Bullying: How to Avoid Buying B.S. and Food Truths from Farm to Table. She founded #AgChat and #FoodChat in 2009 and has co-hosted 140+ episodes of the Food Bullying podcast. A lifetime Holstein breeder and conservation farmer in Indiana, Michele has spoken in 25+ countries on six continents as professional speaker.