Food Freaks of the World—Listen to This!

Dr. Marc Van Montagu, founder and chairman of the Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach at Ghent University in Belgium, has published in the Wall Street Journal of 10/23/13 an editorial entitled “The Irrational Fear of Genetically Modified Food.” This article deserves attention from large portions of our population that is deathly afraid of genetically modified (GM) food products.

I have been impressed for years with the large numbers of Americans who make food a fetish—who spend hours reading food journals and magazines looking for the boogey man in the grocery story who is lurking there just to pounce on the unsuspecting shopper trying to cause some deadly disease from improper food intake. Genetically modified food is thought to be a deadly culprit.

What these wary food shoppers don’t seem to understand is that mankind has been genetically modifying the food chain for 10,000 years, ever since the agricultural revolution. Cross breeding and hybridization is a practice that has given us gains in food production and environmental protection that is not only harmless, but infinitely beneficial to human health and nutrition. The present day practice of GM is only that same process speeded up and more efficient.

GM wheat, decades ago, developed by researchers at the Ford Foundation, allowed third world farmers to increase their yield of food substantially, thereby improving calorie intake and general nutrition of their populations. That change in farming practice was dubbed the “green revolution,” and it not only improved nutrition in the Third World, it proved very profitable to farmers and subsistence gardeners, allowing them to focus more income on other priorities, such as educating their children.

Herbicide-tolerant GM crops have stimulated no-tillage farming, reducing soil erosion and green-house gas emissions. Insect-resistant GM crops have cut insecticide sprayings by more than 25%--and as much as seven fold in parts of India. Crops in present development now include virus-resistant cassava, a starchy root otherwise known as tapioca and nutritionally enriched rice that can help prevent blindness and early death among children. Nitrogen efficient and pest resistance crops have been developed that reduce fertilizer runoff by allowing no-till farming techniques.

All these benefits of GM crops have been developed; and not one disease or other malady has ever been identified that results from eating GM food products. Yet, the western world has been spooked by advertised dangers of these GM foods. People have consumed billions of meals containing GM foods in the 17 years since they were first commercialized, and not one problem has been documented. This comes as no surprise. Every respected scientific organization that has studied GM crops—the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences, and the World Health Organization—has found GM crops both safe for humans and positive for the environment.

Anyone who cares about alleviating hunger and protecting the environment should work quickly to remove the bias against GM crops—let’s get rid of this myth of dangerous GM foods.

Everyone who worries about “dangerous food” should realize that genetically modified foods contain on hormones, antibiotics, or insecticides. GM does not include the addition of any extraneous chemicals.