Friday, September 17, 2010

Food, Inc.

I have just read Food, Inc. by Peter Pringle

I know there has recently been hype about the movie of the same name, but this book is about the good, bad and the ugly about Genetically Modified (GM) foods.

This book was an eye opener for me, I was in high school when all the media exploded with the dangers of GM foods, and how the government should ban it etc. So, I thought I was against GM foods, but more ambivalent than passionate.

And the premise of the book is:

GM foods have a great potential to improve and save the lives of those in developing nations, but this has not been done as the Western world is the one with the money and scientists to modify foods.

United states agriculture has become genetically uniform and therefore is potentially vulnerable to diseases, more so than before when the crops were more genetically varied. But the crops have become genetically uniform because scientists have developed crops that produce more and are less suseptable to damage from the machinery used in farming.

So, I am not sure about GM foods now, but I am better informed. I am going to keep my eye out for more information and keep looking into what is happening to our foods.

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