Thursday, January 29, 2009

How do you feel about GMOs? Frankenfoods?

In case you have never heard of such a thing, GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organisms and I get the sense that we are all eating them. Often. "Frakenfoods" is just another term for them. From James E. McWilliams recent Slate post:

"A genetically modified crop results from the laboratory insertion of a gene from one organism into the DNA sequence of another in order to confer an advantageous trait such as insect resistance, drought tolerance, or herbicide resistance. Today almost 90 percent of soy crops and 80 percent of corn crops in the United States sprout from genetically engineered seeds. Forty-five million acres of land worldwide contain genetically engineered crops. From the perspective of commercial agriculture, the technology has been seamlessly assimilated into traditional farming routines."

I don't know enough about this topic to decide where I stand on all of this but encourage you to learn alongside me and spend a few minutes with McWilliams' article.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The seeds are made to grow with little water and no disease. That feeds more people. Your forgeting that the world would probably be starving without GMOs. It takes less land to grow more crops.