As if we didn't know, today's survey by the Food Standards Agency shows when it comes to food, gut instincts rule. Scientists may tell us that GM foods are just as safe, or just as risky, as non-GM foods, but we don't believe them and the "Frankenstein" creations are consigned to outer darkness - or dumped in the rubbish. Advice from experts that chicken, if properly cooked, is safe to eat even when it comes from a factory infected with bird flu is rejected in favour of neighbourhood gossip that says don't touch it with a barge pole.
In the food debate, the opinion of friends and family often carries more weight than the science and worries about safety outrank worries about health.
I remember a decade ago at the time of the BSE scare arguing with my family that it was pointless banning beef from the table because we were shutting the stable door far too late - if we were going to be infected the likelihood was that it would have already happened, when BSE was at its height in the British herd in the late 80s and early 90s and before the controls on specified bovine offals (brain, spinal cord, etc) were introduced. But I lost that argument and we substituted lamb mince for beef mince, ignoring that fact that lamb contains at least twice the fat of beef and we were all likely to succumb to heart disease long before vCJD. The ban didn't last and, like much of the country, we are now back to eating beef as before.
We worry too much about food safety (food has never been safer) and too little about whether what we are eating is healthy. It is the fat, salt and sugar content that matters - far more than the sell by date.
Was this posting sponsored by Monsanto?? It entirely (and deliberately) misses the point.
I don't think it would be a copyright breach in the Independent to reproduce what the paper's own Environment Correspondent wrote in 2004??
------%<---------------------------------------------
Revealed: Shocking new evidence of the dangers of GM crops
Genetically modified strains have contaminated two-thirds of all crops in US
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
07 March 2004
More than two-thirds of conventional crops in the United States are
now contaminated with genetically modified material - dooming
organic agriculture and posing a severe future risk to health - a
new report concludes.
The report - which comes as ministers are on the verge of approving
the planting of Britain's first GM crop, maize - concludes that
traditional varieties of seed are "pervasively contaminated" by
genetically engineered DNA. The US biotech industry says it is
"not surprised" by the findings.
Because of the contamination, the report says, farmers unwittingly
plant billions of GM seeds a year, spreading genetic modification
throughout US agriculture. This would be likely to lead to danger
to health with the next generation of GM crops, bred to produce
pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals - delivering "drug-laced
cornflakes" to the breakfast table.
The report comes at the worst possible time for the Government,
which is trying to overcome strong resistance from the Scottish
and Welsh administrations to GM maize.
(etc, the rest of it appears at http://www.gmfoodnews.com/in070304.txt )
Posted by: Neil McGowan | Monday, 10 March 2008 at 12:59 PM
So they're safe to eat but they contaminate neighbouring crops. I don't see the contradiction here.
You seem to want things like GM to be either "entirely good" or "entirely bad". welcome to the real world.
Posted by: pat | Monday, 10 March 2008 at 10:07 PM
I agree with Pat - the danger from GM crops to the environment is a separate issue, and one of real concern. I was writing about the danger to health - which is non-existent.
Posted by: jeremy laurance | Tuesday, 11 March 2008 at 05:33 PM