![Jim Hightower](https://city-countyobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/jimhightower-300x200.jpg)
Some people are too smart for your own good.
Food geneticists, for example. These technicians have the smarts to tinker with the inner workings of Momma Nature’s own good foods — but not the smarts to leave well enough alone.
In fairness, much of their scientific tinkering has been beneficial. But during the past half-century, too much of their work devolved from tinkering into outright tampering with our food. This is mostly the result of money flowing to both private and public research centers from big agribusiness corporations that want nature’s design altered in ways that fatten their bottom lines. Never mind that the alterations created by these smart people are frequently not good for you and me.
Take the tomato, truly a natural wonder. Agribusiness profiteers, however, wanted it to do unnatural things, so — voila! — the genetic tamperers in the 1960s and ’70s dutifully produced the Amazing Industrial Tomato. It’s a techno-marvel made to endure long-distance shipping, be harvested while green and then artificially ripened to appear tomato-y red and last an ungodly amount of time without rotting.
But taste? Forget it. There’s more flavor in the carton. This led to the “Upchuck Rebellion” — a grassroots movement of consumers, small farmers and local food artisans. In the last couple of decades, they’ve spurred phenomenal growth in farmers markets and stores that offer nature’s own locally produced and heirloom varieties untouched by the smart ones.
But, look out, the tomato tamperers are back in the lab! They’ve discovered that a mutated gene they had bred into the corporate tomato switches off other genes that would cause the fruit to develop flavor. The answer, they say, is not less technology, but more. By artificially re-engineering the DNA structure of the plant, they can bypass that naughty mutated gene and switch on some of the flavor genes. But do we really want to eat genetically engineered tomatoes?
Still, you can expect them to push the latest alteration of nature’s marvel. I can just see the agribusiness ad: “Buy our industrial tomatoes — Now genetically flavored!” Better yet, buy the local tomatoes, which don’t need a smart geneticist or an ad to deliver real flavor.
Unfortunately, it’s not just tomatoes they’re tampering with. For instance, if you are parent you may be worried about the plethora of highly questionable bio-engineered organisms that the profiteers have quietly been slipping into everything from snack foods to school lunches.
Well, perhaps your own children can put your mind at ease, for science teachers around the country have been assigning a book called “Look Closer at Biotechnology” to the kiddos in their classes. It’s filled with colorful images, friendly cartoon faces, puzzles and more!
The very first page makes clear that the scientific wonder of genetically engineered foods pose no worries at all. “Hi, kids,” it begins. “This is an activity book for young people like you about … a really neat topic.” Why is it so neat? Because, say the authors, “as you work through the puzzles in this book, you will learn more about biotechnology and all the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world. Have fun!”
Fun? With genetically engineered food? That’s not fun, it’s serious business — and look who’s behind this book of fairy tales: the Council for Biotechnology Information.
Exactly what and who is CBI? It’s a PR and political front for the biotech industry, financed by such multibillion-dollar giants as Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont and Dow. It’s also now funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into the industry’s deceitful political campaign to kill a California “Right to Know” ballot initiative that finally would require food giants to label all products containing genetically engineered organisms.
This raises an obvious question for those of us who prefer food from nature, not from engineering labs: What are we to do about corporate powers that are so avaricious and arrogant that they’re willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids’ minds and our basic consumer rights? Defeat them, that’s what!
Here are three good sources for information and action: JustLabelIt.org, NonGMOShoppingGuide.com and OrganicConsumers.org.
To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
The offending gene is the uniform ripening gene which gives the tomato a uniform light green cast without the traditional darker green shoulders. The uniform ripening gene is naturally occuring in tomatoes, has been around for a long, long time, and is a recessive gene, so is easily masked or overcome by the dominant green shoulder gene.
Tomato breeders have created many true breeding line specifically selected, developed, and stablilized to express the uniform ripening characteristic because American shoppers prefer the large, round, uniformly bright red tomatoes typically found in supermarkets nowadays. Unfortunately, when the uniform ripening gene becomes heterozygotously expressed, it switches off other genes that otherwise would cause a higher flavor profile in tomatoes.
All this can be overcome by traditional breeding techiques, and no genetically engineered tomato lines are necessary to accomplish a reversal of the flavor loss. The chloroplast development expressed in the green shoulders of a tomato bleeds downward into the fruit, and appears to stimulate production or conversion of other flavanoids. So, all we have to do is begin demanding “old fashioned” style tomatoes with the traditional darker green shoulders. Tomato growers actually prefer green shoulder tomatoes because it’s easier to tell the best time to harvest, pack and ship green shoulder tomatoes.
Fact is, there are many modern commercial hybrids, as well as older open pollinated standard types that have the green shoulder characteristic. Folks just have to wean themselves off the “perfect” big, round, red, rock hard modern shipping tomatoes.
Don’t buy tomatoes at your local grocery. Never. If these genetically altered tomatoes don’t sell, they won’t continue to be stocked. Consumers can make a difference. It is true in all cases that GMOs, and the frequent use of pesticides along with other farming practices used today in big ag are not necessary and also not healthful. This is not only about tomatoes but corn, soy beans and other highly produced crops that are genetically altered and overly sprayed. Make the right choice for you and your family and make sure you know where you food is coming from. Read labels. Ask questions. It is your health and your body.
There are no genetically engineered (GMO) tomatoes currently available for sale as seed or as fruit. None are grown for commercial sale, period. There are a few GMO tomatoes still being tested, but none have been released for public sale.
The tomatoes we are speaking of that have the “u/u” uniform ripening gene pair expressed are hybrid tomatoes produced by the traditional breeding methods whereby two pure breeding lines are developed for specific traits, then crossed to produce hybrid F1 seeds which commercial growers then grow in fields or greenhouses for sale to supermarkets and packers. There is nothing genetically modified in the lab about these tomatoes.
I understand. However I am most concerned about how tomatoes are grown, what is sprayed on them, what is happening to the soil in which they are planted, and their lack of nutritional value. Also we should consider the small farmer and his/her survival and the rise of organic farming. And this does not only apply to tomatoes. Our big ag system in the U.S. is not designed for the health of the public but rather the monetary health of Monsanto, Dow Elanco, and others.
As an aside, there is an article in the May 2012 Discover magazine, page 10 that might interest you. The title is “Going Old School to Fight Hunger.”
I share your concern. However, it seems a bit late in the game to turn back, although I greatly enjoy breeding my own improved lines of tomatoes, blending old fashioned types with newer, more disease and heat resistant types. And trying to stay ahead of the curve in other ways.
Unfortunately, about 80% of the grain we consume in the U.S. is genetically modified, mostly to enable farmers to spray Roundup right over top of corn, soybeans, and rape (canola oil seed). And now sugar beets are RoundupReady, again by genetically modifying the beet DNA with DNA taken from wild species.
Even sweet corn is genetically modified to incorporate bT bacteria DNA into the plant to kill the caterpillars that chew into the ears.
If you eat anything from a package, you cannot avoid GMO grain or sugar, because everything packaged has some form of corn, soy, canola, or sugar made from beets or corn. They’re even messing with genetically engineering coffee.
Best of luck avoiding GMO unless you move to a European country that’s banned it all.
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