Genetically modified foods (GMOs) are a hot button issue. If you care about organic food then you are against them. If you are a corporation producing them, then of course you are trying to push them on consumers. Yet it seems most Americans just don’t know about them. They have probably heard about them in the news by now or might have an idea about them, but according to Lisa H. Weasel, the author of Food Fray: Inside the Controversy over Genetically Modified Food, 60% of Americans believe they have never eaten GMOs. This to me is shocking since almost all processed foods contain GMOs and I have yet to met someone that has never eaten processed foods.
This book is a very good roundup of the GMO controversy. It gives the background to where they started and when they started entering the food system. Weasel doesn’t play to one side or the other. As a person who is against GMOs, I was a tad bit annoyed. It almost seemed like she was defending Monsanto and their practices at times. While this book is a very good introductory book into why people are battling over GMOs, you do need some science background to understand explanations that talk about DNA and how they created certain GMOs. This book was published in 2009 so it doesn’t have any up to date information or battles that have been in the news the past couple of years, like Proposition 37 or GMO Salmon.
Some things I learned in this book that surprised me were that GMOs began in the 1970s with the Green Revolution. There were some talks of regulations for these newly modified seeds, but the most interesting part of this is that only scientists talked about regulations and came up with their own regulations, meaning they set their own standards, not the government or the public that will consume GMOs. Weasel also discussed the major issues of GMOs in other countries. It seems that only the U.S. is very accepting of GMOs. European customers demanded labeling and regulations long ago (in the mid 1990s), and guess what, they listened. Even countries in Africa have not trusted GMOs, but for some reason Americans have. I think it partially has to do with us wanting the cheapest food available and GMOs help make our food cheaper.
This book is good since it gives a big picture view of what has happened with GMOs up to this point (2009). I just hope from here on out we are a bit more suspicious of companies trying to push GMOs on us. They are only in it for the money since all GMO seeds have to be repurchased each year, farmers are not allowed to save seeds. It is constant profits for companies, they could care less about the possible health effects on humans and the issues of diversity it is causing.
If you are interested in our food system or GMOs I would recommend this book. It is a quick, easy read, which is not always the case for non-fiction science books. It helps you understand how we got here today in the GMO battle and may shed some light on how to fight it in the future.