What is GMO?

I see it all the time -- GMO -- and it is always affiliated with Monsanto. But what is it and what about Monsanto?

GMO stands for genetically modified foods -- foods that have been artificially modified in the laboratory to tolerate herbicides and insecticides and allow the product to have a longer shelf life. They say that nutrition is not compromised.

Monsanto is a chemical company and known for Round-Up and Agent Orange (remember Vietnam, people!) What is important here is that Monsanto is the first company to modify a soybean to tolerate herbicides (think Round-Up). It is a chemical company, this is their job.

Is it good to have genetically modified foods? I doubt it, but, hey, people have to eat. Think of it this way - in a few short 25-35 years we are going to need a whole lot more food to feed the world population, and plants are beleaguered with insects that devastate crops. Do you allow the insects to totally annihilate an entire crop specie? That is what was being done in Hawaii with the papaya. Now, it is genetically modified, and we eat papaya. Once again, I have no clue what the long lasting outcome will be for eating genetically modified foods. Some literature says allergic reactions or antibiotic resistance.

Another example is that there are so many people starving all over the world, and many die each year from Vitamin A deficiency. Enter Golden Rice, and this genetically modified food helps here.

I think that the efforts are good in the sense that they are aware the world needs to eat and they are trying to produce the food to feed the multitudes. Today, there are around 7.4 trillion people in the world. Geohive.com estimates that by 2050 there will be 9.5 trillion people in the world. That's 2 trillion more people, but the land and the crops do not increase, so something has to be done.

Foods that have a high risk of gmos are alfafa, canola, corm, cotton (cotton?), papaya, soy, sugar beets, zucchini and yellow squash.

I don't think that you can visually see the difference in a genetically modified piece of corn or an organic piece of corn. So, how do we know what we are eating. Literature says that 80% of corn is genetically modified. 80%.

This means that many if not most of the processed foods contain at least one gmo -- think fructose or monosodium glutamate. I have a simple rule, I read the label, and any ingredient I can not pronounce or have no clue what it is is probably no good for me.

The alternative is to buy local, buy organic (should see a USDA Organic or non-gmo on the product and expect to pay big bucks, sometimes double the price of what I find on the gmo shelf), and always cook at home with products I know have come out of the ground close to where I live. But, I know that is not going to happen every day, so yes, I am going to eat gmos. Do I think it will effect me? Yes, I do. I don't know if it my body is simply changing, but I do know that when I eat, I feel fuller faster. It may have something to do with digestion. We'll find out.

And then I think of the movie "Soylent Green" and it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

For more information about GMOs, go to who.int/food safety (that's the world health organization) and nongmoproject.com

Until tomorrow...have a great day...