The Food Dilemma
Shopping healthy food in the supermarket…this topic is very dear to me. As a mom and homemaker it is important to me what I feed my family and myself. However, these days, it is very confusing and increasingly hard to figure out.
Yes, I am talking about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) or GM foods. I wonder what the future holds for our children. Call me non-progressive, but it is hard for me to accept that the food, which nature has always been providing us is now slowly replaced by food that comes from a lab. Are the GMO foods safe to consume? There is a heated debate over this topic.
Motivations
There are two aspects to this, first, the science behind the GM foods and second, the corporations that use this science for commercial gains.
The scientists I have talked to clearly think that there is no harm in consuming GM foods. Their argument is that genetic modification happens in nature all the time…and there is nothing different from what they are doing in the lab. That may be so. But what concerns me is that they are so busy in their research to come up with this super crop, focusing on ‘how they can do it’ but failing to ask the more important question ‘should they do it’?
When it happens in nature, I trust it happens for a reason. When nature experiments in her lab, she has a purpose and reason. If nature goofs it up I believe she also knows how to fix it and restore overall balance. How can we as humans (scientist) fathom what the intent of nature is? How can we understand the higher perspective? When we are simulating the same process in a lab, I feel, we are looking into a rabbit-hole through a very narrow perspective.
The research is growing at such an alarming rate concerns me. The scientists are now experimenting with cross species. Do they have enough time to test these products for long term effects? I suspect not. I feel the companies sponsoring these kinds of research, are focused on the commercialisation and bottom line.
The jury is out on the affect the GMO foods have on our health. Even though there is compelling evidence of ill effects on our digestive health like colitis, IBS , autoimmune disease and food allergies to name a few, I think it may take decades for us to gather up sufficient data to convince the believers of GM foods. In the meantime, I am trying to avoid GM foods, which brings me to my next difficulty. How to tell them apart?
Know What You Eat
Corporations like Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta to name a few have monopolised and flooded the American markets with their “poison”. They have strong lobbyists who have twisted the arms of Congress against the labeling laws. This means they do not have to print it on the food label — whether GMO or not. This makes it real hard for conscious consumers like me.
These are some of the same companies that sold chemicals during World War II that have now moved to engineering our food in their labs. They have already been successful in engineering corn, soy and flooded the fields in the US with these seeds. The farmers have no choice but to grow their crops using these seeds and have to pay these corporations a premium. These corporations also claim that their crops don’t need much pesticide/herbicide, but there is sufficient evidence to the contrary. There are super bugs and super weeds popping up in the fields all over, which means one needs more pesticide / herbicide and not less. Before there was variety of seeds in nature for the same crop. Now we are moving into world of a single variety seed for each crop — which scientists call super seed — which they claim is superior.
I wonder, if these corporations become successful in selling this super seed (say wheat) to the entire world and if the crop fails any given year, for whatever reason, can we even imagine the disaster! They claim they can solve world hunger and I wonder at what cost?
