The very mention of this blog post's title makes me cringe but couldn't find a better one for this post.
Today I contributed to the campaign fund for ballot measure I-522 in Washington state - a measure to make labeling of genetically engineered food and produce mandatory. I missed following such a ballot measure taken up and defeated in California last fall. This time, though I could not vote, I contributed to the fund fighting for the measure.
The NO campaign is backed by the usual suspects lead by - drums roll - Monsanto. These are the people "running" the food "industry". I feel the very sanctity of the word 'food' is lost by adding the term "industry" to it.
I do not buy any of the arguments from the industry against labeling GMOs. One particular thing caught my attention. Quoting here verbatim from the No-on-I522 site - "For decades, agricultural biotechnology has helped improve food crops so they resist disease, require fewer pesticides or are more nutritious. Today, 70-80% of grocery products include genetically engineered (GE) ingredients, and they’re deemed safe by the USDA, the FDA and major scientific and medical organizations."
I have to hand it to them for using the euphemistic term "agricultural biotech" in place of its more honest but gross equivalent "genertically engineered". The "70-80%" fact literally makes me puke my dinner out. But wait, their best shot is yet to come. Here they are -
"deemed safe by the USDA, FDA blah blah" - the very same toothless powerless regulatory body where the people running the show are "ex-industry insiders" and fueled by the lobbying power of the very same industry that it is trying to regulate. The sad state of affairs is that the cream of the technologists who can potentially expose the ill-effects of such reckless "biotech" sadly end up working for the same industry.
- "requires fewer pesticides" - after a generation of singing the praise of pesticides we have realized their long term effects and we are deliberately trying to pedal back. The very same USDA, FDA etc that are now backing GE/GMO foods as "safe", were the ones advocating pesticides usage a few decades ago. How on earth can we be sure that a generation from today this sad bunch wont come back and say "Oh Sorry ! we just found out GMO/GE can screw us up too"
Want to add some "goodness" to this post. Hence adding a picture of the carrot cake - home made from scratch - by my wife for my birthday. Given the "food industry's" might, I would never know for certain if the carrot or the flour is "artificial" or "genetically engineered" or has GMO, but I know for sure that in the affection of my wife who made that cake, there is not an iota of anything that is artificial or engineered. Thats enough to make the cake tastier, in spite of GMO/GE contents it might have.
Today I contributed to the campaign fund for ballot measure I-522 in Washington state - a measure to make labeling of genetically engineered food and produce mandatory. I missed following such a ballot measure taken up and defeated in California last fall. This time, though I could not vote, I contributed to the fund fighting for the measure.
The NO campaign is backed by the usual suspects lead by - drums roll - Monsanto. These are the people "running" the food "industry". I feel the very sanctity of the word 'food' is lost by adding the term "industry" to it.
I do not buy any of the arguments from the industry against labeling GMOs. One particular thing caught my attention. Quoting here verbatim from the No-on-I522 site - "For decades, agricultural biotechnology has helped improve food crops so they resist disease, require fewer pesticides or are more nutritious. Today, 70-80% of grocery products include genetically engineered (GE) ingredients, and they’re deemed safe by the USDA, the FDA and major scientific and medical organizations."
I have to hand it to them for using the euphemistic term "agricultural biotech" in place of its more honest but gross equivalent "genertically engineered". The "70-80%" fact literally makes me puke my dinner out. But wait, their best shot is yet to come. Here they are -
"deemed safe by the USDA, FDA blah blah" - the very same toothless powerless regulatory body where the people running the show are "ex-industry insiders" and fueled by the lobbying power of the very same industry that it is trying to regulate. The sad state of affairs is that the cream of the technologists who can potentially expose the ill-effects of such reckless "biotech" sadly end up working for the same industry.
- "requires fewer pesticides" - after a generation of singing the praise of pesticides we have realized their long term effects and we are deliberately trying to pedal back. The very same USDA, FDA etc that are now backing GE/GMO foods as "safe", were the ones advocating pesticides usage a few decades ago. How on earth can we be sure that a generation from today this sad bunch wont come back and say "Oh Sorry ! we just found out GMO/GE can screw us up too"
Want to add some "goodness" to this post. Hence adding a picture of the carrot cake - home made from scratch - by my wife for my birthday. Given the "food industry's" might, I would never know for certain if the carrot or the flour is "artificial" or "genetically engineered" or has GMO, but I know for sure that in the affection of my wife who made that cake, there is not an iota of anything that is artificial or engineered. Thats enough to make the cake tastier, in spite of GMO/GE contents it might have.
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