Posted by Meg
When I was in middle school, I was really into drawing comics. One of them was called Super Carrot, and featured an orange caped carrot saving the world from…actually, I don’t remember. But still, saw this article about new GM supercarrots in BBC and thought of *swoon* my hero.
Posted by Meg
2007 has been a less than stellar year as far as food safety is concerned. Seemingly every week we’ve faced yet another recall: beef, chicken, pork. An article in the New York Times this morning talks about what Tyson is doing to change their beef processing. They’re changing the way they steam, vacuum, and treat a carcass. But Dean Danilson, the man in charge of food safety at Tyson, hits on something interesting in one line of the article. He says, “Keeping the dust down [at cattle ranches], knocking some of the caked-on mud and things off, any little bit helps.”
The way I see it, there are two distinct parts to the meat process: the part where the animal is alive, and the part where the animal is dead. Why put all the burden on the meat processors? Why not share the burden of food safety with ranchers? Mass ranching is a brutal and disgusting process. If we make it a little cleaner, a little more humane, a little less crowded, maybe we’ll have fewer problems with extremely dirty, damaged carcasses coming to the meat processors. Same goes for chickens and pork.
Maybe I’m beating the PETA drum a little too hard, but I think it could make a difference. Many consumers are responding well to cage free eggs, and the commercials about “happy cows” for California cheese were somewhat successful. Why not expand into meat production? Furthermore, a less crowded method of farming will leave a smaller ecological footprint. Green is in, and hey, not getting food poisoning is always a winner. Let’s go with it.
Posted by Meg
This morning, I was listening to BBC World Service and their weekly science program (whose name escapes me) was on. While the first unintentionally hilarious bit was a scientist with a lisp talking about speech and language evolution, the next part was about food. Apparently there is a new strain of stem rust, UG99, spreading at an alarming rate through the wheat crops of the East. It originated in Uganda, and has been spreading steadily through Africa, the Middle East and now South Asia. Already a huge problem, the concern is that UG99 will spread northwards next into Northern Asia, Russia and eventually Europe.
The Global Wheat Trust Initiative is working on finding a solution to the problem. Other wheat problems have been solved before. Norman Borlaug engineered dwarf wheat that wouldn’t fall over and die under it’s own weight. I heard about it on the West Wing and it’s in Wikipedia: it must be true. But, all of these lovely, famine stopping, hunger preventing measures are gasp genetically modifying food.
Where is the line with GMO (genetically modified organisms)? What constitutes a problem that’s worth being solved with modification? What happens if everyone doesn’t agree on a standard? What happens when the wind blows, and seeds from crops that we and weren’t modified mix? Who’s idea was the Grapple? (Seriously, worst fruit EVER!) I think about it a lot (because I think about food constantly), but it’s more than just a meal. If you are what you eat, what are we becoming?
All that thought made me hungry. Despite having had the Famous Avocado from Café Recess on the Hill for lunch (the best sandwich in DC, no contest), I could go for another tasty morsel.