How many acronyms can I use in one post?! LOL. There's one more.
But WTH is GMO? I have a friend who also struggles with auto-immune problems. We have been conversing recently and he mentioned that avoiding GMO foods seemed to help with inflammation.
Now, I've been to enough health food stores lately that I've seen the phrase "non-GMO foods" on lots of packaging. I kept forgetting to Google this 'GMO' and educate myself (probably because I've had enough of these scary stories about what we're eating these days...), but I finally did it since my friend had mentioned it.
Here's what I found on good ol' Wikipedia: "A genetically modified organism (GMO) or genetically engineered organism (GEO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. These techniques, generally known as recombinant DNA technology, use DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes. This DNA is then transferred into an organism, giving it modified or novel genes."
Um...what the HELL!? Shouldn't we be informed if the food we're eating has had gene therapy? I get the technology and I understand how amazing this is. Farmers are probably jizzing in their pants everywhere. (I apologize. Blame DH for my development of such crass humor.) It probably saves everyone money and makes it possible for crops to survive infestations of all sorts of nasty critters.
And yet. I would really like a package of corn or soy or whatever the heck it is to say, right on the outside: "GMO product. We messed with the DNA in a lab, we know it scares off bugs now, but we have no idea what the hell it will do to YOUR DNA. But it tastes just like regular -insert food here-." Thank you, great, now I am fully informed and should I choose to eat GMO food and I get cancer, well, I knew what I was eating.
Up till now I can honestly say I had no idea. How foolish of me.
Later on in the Wikipedia article it breaks down exactly how they've changed some corn: "In the corn market, Monsanto's triple-stack corn—which combines Roundup Ready 2 weed control technology with YieldGard Corn Borer and YieldGard Rootworm insect control—is the market leader in the United States. U.S. corn farmers planted more than 32 million acres (130,000 km2) of triple-stack corn in 2008,[14] and it is estimated the product could be planted on 56 million acres (230,000 km2) in 2014–2015."
Yum! Pesticides and corn all in one. :) It's a wonder there are still bugs coming into my house...
A good article on GMO foods:
"http://www.rrdailyherald.com/online_featureshow_to/gmo-what-you-need-to-know-about-genetically-modified-foods/article_7184138f-d628-558e-89ac-d0036bd4a70d.html A great quote from this, particularly apropo for me: "What we do know is that anyone eating GMOs is, in effect, a guinea pig in a very large health experiment."
Good article on GM wheat, discussing the 'integrity of food': http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/genetically-modified-wheat-has-no-place-on-the-menu-20110718-1hlhq.html
This is one of the major reasons we get our produce through a local, organic CSA (add that to your acronyms! -community supported agriculture).
ReplyDeleteI guess! I am always surprised at the new and crazy things they're doing to food these days...I guess I shouldn't be so surprised anymore. We're eating more chemicals and less 'food'.
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