A post-modern proto-food

(Yes that is a reference to a specific book, brownie points to the person who can name it.)

So since I spent some time in Europe during my schooling years I have been interested in a complex and difficult to grasp concept of genetically modified (GM) foods (and vegetarianism with its relation to the GM foods). This post only deals with the former. The later will likely be discussed at length in the future.

Well, I will provide a couple of interesting videos about the subject before I continue. These are in general critical of GM foods (and genetic modification of our food supply) and probably rightly so, the flip side of the argument will be respected after the videos. The first video is from hulu.com. I just watched this documentary tonight, it repeats a lot that we will see in the other videos.



These next videos are from an investigative reporter in England. I have actually watched these a couple of times. They are worth watching just to see how a different culture (though not completely different) approaches the problem of food production (if not GM foods). Also the part where she goes into the chicken farm, creepy.

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and part 2:

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Finally I present a video that is a documentary about the history of corporations and the role of corporations in the current world. There is an interesting bit about Fox News, rBGH, and Monsanto in there. Definitely worth a watch as well. The playlist is here. The video is in 23 chapters. The following is the part about Fox News and rBGH.



Now all of these videos bring up a lot of interesting issues and in time I will try to come back to these issues. However I will only talk about the Food issues and specifically with regard to the GM foods. As I said these videos definitely have a slant which is worth pointing out. There is a political message in them that the actions of the corporations and the intents are in of themselves bad or poor. I think this is a slight misreading if not outright misunderstanding. If you watch the final video about the corporations in the US (and thus by extension the rest of the world) you will know that the corporation is bound, by law, to be self interested in profits for its shareholders. If it is not then the officers of the corporation are liable for the actions and can be sued by the shareholders.

Why is this important? As much as I dislike the idea of the patentability of life in any form (genes, bacteria, etc.) it is the system in which we live. In relation to crops, the companies saw a way to make money and are exploiting it. That is what they should do. Now there is a famous case in Canada (A?) about a canola farmer. The decision by the supreme court of Canada is in fact a very bad one. What happened is that some of the patented genes got onto this guy's farmland and crossbreed with his crop. So Monsanto allegedly went on his property and took samples and found this out. The supreme court ruled that it was his (the farmer who didn't even want GM foods) job to protect his crops from being cross pollinated with the patented crops. Which is a very insane judgment and completely impractical. I would direct someone with more interest to read the link or watch the entire first video. This strong arming by the corporation for unreasonable terms is not helping the corporation's cause in protecting their property. There are many examples of this happening and it huttles the real issues of government protection, corporation profit motivation, consumer's right to knowledge, and farmer's right to work.

At the heart, if the country decides that it is permissible for a corporation to own the rights to life in some way, it is important that laws are made to ensure the enforcement of zero liability in cases where the movement of the genetic material is unintended. If you are creating life there should be no expectation that you can own anything that is a derivative of that product which is substantially different. For instance if I make a butterfly and he mates with a squirrel, I should not own the flying squirrels. If this cannot be assured then there is problems (as there currently is). The question of the patentability of life is another topic for another time.

So why is this important? There is not currently proper labeling of GM foods in the United States (however there is in Europe, I mean Europe can get their act together why can't we?) and there has been a couple of times where this has caused health problems for the public. So what is the real issue in this debate? Really the european model is likely a more reasonable compromise. The government should enforce labeling of GM foods so the consumer will make intelligent decisions. However the corporations have said that customers will stay away from their product then and that will drop the price. THAT IS A GOOD THING YOU ANTI-CAPTIALIST CAPITALIST PIGS. :-) (I just had to, it was too easy.) If your product is deemed inferior then it will not get the same price as a product that is deemed superior. It would be like Microsoft saying that they should get a subsidy for all Zunes they sell so that they can get the same profit margins as Apple does on their iPod. If you produce a good product (non-GM foods) then you should be able to charge a higher price if the market will support it. It is a terrible argument to assume that it shouldn't work that way. Proper labeling will allow the customers to make wise (and healthy) decisions and if the GM foods are not what they want to eat, then well, you invested in the wrong technology and that isn't the consumer's fault. (Proceed to window two for your 'poor business decisions' bailout, you will notice the window because GM, Chrysler, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, Bank of America, among others are standing by the window.)

There is a more subtle problem with GM foods which is the big issue. What happens when the new mutations get out into the wild. What will the effect be on the eco-system. Now humans have been genetically manipulating food for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. Once mankind started farming, he took the best yielding, most resistant crops and cultivated those strains. The problem with the new GM foods is that the changes are so radical that there is no proper model for what that will do. In fact in Janurary there was a report which stated that the GM Soya product changes the genetic structure of the bacteria in the human intestines. What happens if that change results in flesh-eating bacteria? It is possible. There are flesh eating bacteria in the world. Maybe some bacteria have a dormant 'flesh-eating' protein next to a helpful 'make the food taste awesome by making it taste like mountain dew' gene. The GM company accidentally pulls both sequences into the new food and now both those genes are there. Doesn't give you a good feeling does it?

This is a complicated story which needs more rational and level-headed discussions on all sides instead of Gestapo tactics by the companies and misinformation spread by the anti-GM lobby. Has GM foods increased yields? No. Could it? Maybe. Should there be better laws? Yes. Should the courts respect a citizen's rights better? Yes (and not just in this case but in a lot of areas, like the New London decision). Should the FDA do more? Yes. Should corporations test their foods better before releasing them into the wild? Yes. Should we have better labeling? Yes. The fear, and it is a very real one, is that this issue has a possibility to completely change our world in sub-par ways before the government can work through the issues needed to properly understand and most likely regulate these issues. So, as people, it is important that we are read up and knowledgeable on these issues and developments so we can make rational and helpful decisions when it comes to the foods we eat.

So watch the videos especially the last one as it is VERY good. And just remember tomorrow when you are eating your Blueberry pancake and sausage on a stick from Jimmy Dean's, you never know if you are actually eating something made of fish guts and jellyfish, (well, I guess that was a bad example...).