Non-GMO tofu restaurant in San Francisco

Today I was happy to learn that a company in my city which makes tofu and supplies it to the restaurant I was eating at does not use genetically-modified soybeans.

Sometimes it is difficult to ask a restaurant if the tofu they use is non-GMO. I have learned that the following questions are useful:

Is the tofu not genetic?

Is the tofu not GMO?

One of the issues is that if someone were to ask a non-native speaker of English something like “Does the tofu you use come from genetically modified soybeans?” the likelihood is very high that they will not even understand the question. But if you ask if it is “not genetic” or “not GMO” it is something clear that they will at least understand the question.

“Not” is a basic English word that even an only partially-fluent non-native speaker will immediately understand. Keeping the construction of the sentence basic and straightforward also helps. A non-native speaker should be familiar with a question form like “Is X Y?”. “Is the book green?” “The book is green.” “Is the flower yellow?” “The flower is yellow.” Etc.

The word “genetic” or the acronym “GMO” is where the other person will probably be thrown off. But because the rest of the question was simple and straightforward, they will understand the general context of the question: it is an inquiry about an attribute of something.

Another thing about the question process extends beyond language. It has to do with how the question is asked. If it is asked in a pleasant, polite way by a person who the server or other restaurant staff has a good impression of, then they may form the idea “This person seems like a good, nice, kind, intelligent person. They are concerned about X (genetic, GMO). I am now curious about what X is because it is something which is clearly important to this person.”

Many tofu packages clearly state something like “not from genetically modified soybeans” so if one were to ask “is it not genetic” there’s a good chance that they will at least remember seeing it on the package.

In the case of the restaurant today, she checked but apparently the packaging did not indicate that it was not genetic. She gave me the name of the tofu company and when I called them they confirmed immediately that their tofu comes from non-GMO soy.