I love tropical fruits, it's one of my major food groups. And in the good ole USA GMO tropical fruits are readily available. And there are no warning labels on GMO foods, just as there is no label for pesticides.
So I know that the GMOing of major food groups is considered a key technology we need to study, and we the people are the test subjects, like it or not.
In the US most of the pineapples and papayas from Hawaii these days are GMO. And the problem is while more resistant to viral strains, the quality as a food product is not good. How do I know? Well, I've been trying them out. Pineapples begin developing large dark areas in their flesh as they ripen to the point of edibility. I'm good at judging ripeness and as I open them up there are these relatively large dark spots, about an inch in diameter. I cut them out and eat around them, but the fruit is not delicious either.
The operation was a success, unfortunately the patient died.
And papaya's in the last year or so have very tough flesh and are basically inedible. I've almost given up hope these two foods will ever be edible again in the US. But as mentioned in the title of this blog, I have not completely given up, and several days ago I saw papayas at Costco that looked a lot like the good old days, and I picked one up. Earlier today I opened it up and the flesh looked almost normal (fairly subtle styrations riddled the flesh) and the smell was sweet. I haven't had a papaya that smelled like that in a year or so, and I was hungry, so I made a meal of it, and ate the whole thing.
Well that was a mistake, within a few hours my stomach was very irritated with me, and as the day progressed it got worse. Curious I looked up the formula for GMO papaya and there's a virus that was reeking havoc on crops in Hawaii (probably due to the pesticides used), and so the virus attacking papayas was "spliced" into the genetic structure as a kind of vaccine. Actually what is done is the viruses are loaded into some kind of "gun" that blasts the viruses into the flesh in sufficient quantity, it is thought, to get the job done. But as of yet the GMO Boyz do not know exactly where the viruses end up, or how many there are. (Billions probably...sound familiar?)
Meanwhile my stomach is still burning, but has gradually calmed down enough to post this "experience".
So we are the test subjects, and I think I am going to refrain from volunteering going forward. And somehow I doubt the GMO Boyz would be interested in my report either.
As I was looking things up I came across an uninformed perspective on GMO, which I will quote below, and my perspective below that.
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We have been selectively breeding plants for the past 12,000 years and animals even longer, and yes, technically that is also genetic modification.
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This is incorrect. Hybridized foods and GMO foods are not “technically” the same. Nature depends on evolution for "beautiful" biological changes, a process that takes place so gradually it can take hundreds of thousands of years. This is a fail safe mechanism that does not allow random species interbreeding. So when farmboy is having it off with the sheep the result is not humanoid/sheep monstrosities. Evolution is a barrier that keeps biology on track and functional as opposed to chaotic. And biology is rare - how many other planets do we know of that have it, that have life. Zero. We live in a miracle, and yet that's not good enough. GMO leaps over evolution in an "instant", as if evolution existed for no reason. Humans have increasingly destroyed earth’s biology at an accelerating pace beginning with the industrial revolution. GMO Scientists are not stupid, they know they are leapfrogging evolution, which is the point, but they do appear to be under appreciating the value and function of nature’s very slow pace of change. One, they are curious, and two the profit motive sings the siren song, and hubris cancels common sense. GMO is just the next stage of the acceleration of the destruction of biology on planet earth. Fasten your seat belts kiddies, the ride is getting bumpy.
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