>>>Shoppers’ Guide to Avoiding GE Foods >>>GE Crops >>>GE Animals >>>GE Fish
The genetic engineering of plants and animals is looming as one of the greatest and most intractable environmental challenges of the 21st Century. Already, this novel technology has invaded our grocery stores and our kitchen pantries by fundamentally altering some of our most important staple food crops.
By being able to take the genetic material from one organism and insert it into the permanent genetic code of another, biotechnologists have engineered numerous novel creations, such as potatoes with bacteria genes, “super” pigs with human growth genes, fish with cattle growth genes, tomatoes with flounder genes, and thousands of other plants, animals and insects. At an alarming rate, these creations are now being patented and released into the environment.
Currently, up to 85 percent of U.S. corn is genetically engineered as are 91 percent of soybeans and 88 percent of cotton (cottonseed oil is often used in food products). It has been estimated that upwards of 70 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves–from soda to soup, crackers to condiments–contain genetically engineered ingredients.
A number of studies over the past decade have revealed that genetically engineered foods can pose serious risks to humans, domesticated animals, wildlife and the environment. Human health effects can include higher risks of toxicity, allergenicity, antibiotic resistance, immune-suppression and cancer. As for environmental impacts, the use of genetic engineering in agriculture will lead to uncontrolled biological pollution, threatening numerous microbial, plant and animal species with extinction, and the potential contamination of all non-genetically engineered life forms with novel and possibly hazardous genetic material.
Despite these long-term and wide-ranging risks, Congress has yet to pass a single law intended to manage them responsibly. This despite the fact that our regulatory agencies have failed to adequately address the human health or environmental impacts of genetic engineering. On the federal level, eight agencies attempt to regulate biotechnology using 12 different statutes or laws that were written long before genetically engineered food, animals and insects became a reality. The result has been a regulatory tangle, where any regulation even exists, as existing laws are grossly manipulated to manage threats they were never intended to regulate. Among many bizarre examples of these regulatory anomalies is the current attempt by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate genetically engineered fish as “new animal drugs.” Yet, at the same time, the FDA claims it has no jurisdiction over genetically engineered pet fish like the Glofish.
Tell me what I can do to help.
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I can’t believe what I have been reading! Thank you for the shopping list; I will be using it all the time. I want to tell all my family about what is going on in the food industry.
I was wondering if you could point me to your sources for the information in paragraph three of this article. I am doing research and I like these stats, but I need the actual agency or research from which they were pulled.
Thanks,
Thanks to our successfully industrious forebears, all grains are genetically engineered, no?
The GE fear is not clear to me. All of our grains were engineered by early agriculturalists, no? Humans invented corn, right?
I wouldn’t say “invented” but “domesticated” is commonly used to describe such crops in human history. Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel covers this in some detail. On this website, however, they begin with superpigs and then suggest that they may be in our sodas. I think the result is a sort of mild agro-Luddism.
I doubt they seek to contain and reduce domesticated plants such as rice and potatoes, but just as legislators have trouble specifying practical items of concern, so do advocacy groups. Follow their links for more info (top right of page) but do your own research before you decide…safe advice in any forum. Fishberries, for example, are myth although presented by this site as reality.
Food for thought!
I recently saw the movie The Future of Food and it was very informative and made me realize what we are putting into our bodies. I would like to know if there is anything that I can do to bring much needed awareness to this issue. I just had a baby and this is too important to let this happen. Although it already is.
I would love to know what I can do to get the message out to people. Recently, I’ve had some thyroid issues and unexplained weight gain despite working out everyday and eating healthy. After hearing a Dr. on the television talk about the dangers of soy, I realized that was where I was going wrong. Immediately, I needed to stop taking soy products of which I was consuming on a daily basis. This superfood and others are not what we think and the word needs to get out.
I watched the same movie in horror. I have been sick for a long time and this explains it. Corn goes right through me can’t digest it and i have issue with wheat but i never tested allergic to these foods. These food also make my sugar test high. But now that I know I will now shop at whole foods and local farms as long as they don’t use that bad seed. Shame on all of the people from the seed pushers to the food makers to the supermarkets — who allowed this to happen just to make money… we have a right to know what is in our food. I was also wondering is autism and birth defects could be caused by consuming GE foods?
I am writing a report about GM food. I have found very useful information in it. For example, Currently, up to 85 percent of U.S. corn is genetically engineered as are 91 percent of soybeans and 88 percent of cotton. But I need to get the date to back up. So, could you kindly let me know the date, this article was researched. Thank you very much.
These figures are from the USDA Economic Research Service, updated July 1, 2009: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/BiotechCrops/adoption.htm
This information is alarming but is it true? For example can you give specifics of who has inserted flounder genes into tomatoes? Which brand of tomatoes in market are such tomatoes? Or human genes in pigs? It would be more convincing if you have specific proof otherwise it appears to be mere fear mongering.
Has anyone tried the approach of a class action lawsuit (counter suit) on behalf of Organic farmers/consumers against Monsanto and the like for adulterating their/our crops/food? If not, why not? Thanks in advance!