Does the idea of eating genetically modified stuff gross anyone else out?

 

 

 

 

 

It was all over my news feed yesterday. Okay, so two people posted about it, but one of them linked to this article/petition, and while I usually ignore things that seem designed to scare me I found myself thinking about it long after I shut my computer down. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that we were all (and some of us still are) spending entire paychecks on organic foods. After a little research and enlightenment from Penn and Teller’s television show Bullshit, I learned that organic food isn’t necessarily better. They just don’t use synthetic chemical pesticides. On the surface that sounds better, right? But some of the “organic” pesticides are actually more harmful to us than their synthetic counterparts. Nightshade and arsenic are two of the pesticides that are used in “organic” farming, which are known to be poisonous to humans. Last year they took Hyland’s teething tablets off the market because they contained microscopic traces of another human poison, Belladonna. Despite the fact that you would have to give your kid the equivalent of two pounds of teething tablets in order for them to have any kind of reaction, the shelves were cleared of this homeopathic remedy. Anyone see the irony here?

Anyway, so I found myself wondering about genetically modified foods. What are they genetically modified to do exactly? Will eating this corn make me eligible for a spot at Xavier’s School for the Gifted? If so, then I have some real hard thinking to do. Thank goodness the internet is the realization of my elementary school fantasy–the homework machine. It wasn’t hard to find information telling me that genetically modified foods aren’t designed to help ME in anyway, although there haven’t been any real long term studies to tell me that I won’t get the telepathic powers of Jean Grey, there also aren’t any studies to tell me whether or not it will contribute to my daughter getting her period at 4. In fact one of the only studies they did was on rats. Those rats, when fed some corn genetically modified with this stuff called lectin, experienced organ failure.

But those are rats. I’m not a rat. Besides, what if this food was genetically modified to make me feel fuller when I ate it, or delivered more nutrients and vitamins per kernel? Maybe the rats can’t handle all those nutrients and that’s why they go into overload. But no, the corn (along with soy products, tomatoes, squash and other vegetables) are genetically modified to be more resistant to bugs, viruses, and other threats to crops. That does spook me a little bit. Especially because the FDA, you know that government agency that’s supposed to make sure our food is safe, doesn’t have any real rules to regulate the safety of genetically modified foods. In fact, all a GMO food distributor has to do is provide the FDA with an assertion that the methods used to modify this food is safe. No tests. No follow ups. Just a bunch of dead rats.

I’m not saying that this stuff is unsafe. I’m just saying that I don’t really know, and it seems no one really knows. I’m not going to run faster, or jump higher. I won’t be able to manipulate metal or teleport from one place to another. So there’s no real personal benefit to me. The only thing we do really know is that rats get organ failure. So, until there’s more info about it all, I’m not feeding it to my kids. Really, I don’t care if Walmart decides to sell it or not. At least where I live, Walmart isn’t where you go for produce anyway, but it would make me feel just a little bit better to not have to worry about avoiding it. In fact, I rescind my last statement. I probably won’t buy produce anywhere that does sell it, just because I’m too lazy to read the non-existent fine print on the produce signs. I mean, I know that Monsanto is GMO, but there are all kinds of veggies being modified this way, and I didn’t spend the last two years on my Little G just to feed her something that could send her into organ failure. I don’t love that way.
What do you guys think about GMO?

Posted by bizzaromom on February 11, 2012

https://bizzaromom.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/does-the-idea-of-eating-genetically-modified-stuff-gross-anyone-else-out/