GMO Super Chicken
Quick Quiz: you go to your grocery store and get a package of chicken. The Nutrition Facts on the label look exactly the same as for all the other packages of chicken. Is it genetically modified chicken?
Answer: no, not yet. But if the plans of the Food and Drug Administration are carried out the way they have stated them today, the answer in the relatively near future will be… maybe. There will be no way of telling. Because the FDA announced Thursday that it will start hearing proposals from food companies that want to market GMO meat. Fish, chicken, cows… everything.
GMO coffee is a legitimate concern of this blog. And therefore GMO agriculture is an adjunct. I admit GMO meat is not really in my portfolio, but frankly I just can’t help it.
The people who publish Consumer Reports magazine apparently feel the same way. Their Director of Food Policy asked editorially if this meant that the pork for sale at our markets in the near future could have mouse genes in it… but will not be labeled in any way to warn the consumer?
As Dezi Arnez said to Luci on more than one occasion, “You got some ’splanin’ to do’. Translated to the present time and the current situation, I think the FDA has some serious explaining to do to the American people. But they have no intention of explaining anything to us. GMO meat is on the road to appearing someday soon in your grocery store, unannounced.
Lest you think this future is far away, an East Coast aquacompany called Aqua Bounty Technologies said they hope to apply for approval within a few months for their genetically altered salmon. They say it tastes exactly like any other farm-raised salmon. Of course, that is not the point. There are several things that taste just fine, like trans-fats in pastry. But we all know what kind of total health disaster that man-made food component has turned out to be.
Let me go down a sidestreet for a moment to mention that farm-raised salmon (shrimp too) are not the pleasing pink color you see in your supermarket’s fish department. They are pasty white. The farms feed them a coloring agent called astaxanthin (ass-ta-zan-thin), or absolutely no one would buy their product. How do I know this? In the USA, astaxanthin is produced primarily right here in Kailua Kona, at NELHA, the economic zone that was created to help companies make sea-oriented products. I also know that the company producing this carotenoid pigment in great vats of sea water heated by the tropical Kona sun, huge paddles constantly churning oxygen into the brew of microalgae … sorry, got swept away by words for a second… anyway, they make a precisely printed book of color swatches for the farms that show exactly what color the salmon or shrimp will turn if they feed them a certain quantity of astaxanthin just prior to sending them to market.
Back to GMO meat. It is not too late. But it almost is. Thursday’s proposals are open for public comment for 60 days before they seep into the marrow of the agency’s infrastructure and GMO meat is, for all intents and purposes, a done deal in the United States of America. I personally do not know how to comment in such a way that would change their minds. But maybe, just maybe, you do. It is possible that someone is reading this who is expert and knows how to make such a comment. If so, please take a look at the FDA release and take it from there. You would have the gratitude of a great many of us who stand firmly opposed on this issue.
