Genetically Modified Foods

Okay.  First off, that term makes me snicker a little on the inside, all because of what I know about farming.  We were genetically modifying foods before we knew what genes were.  In fact, these unnatural foods are the only reason anyone is alive on the planet today, as they increased the needed nutrients in our diets.

Don’t believe me?  I have two examples: Strawberries and Corn. 

Have you ever seen a wild strawberry before? No?  Well it’s about the width of a dime, and less than half an inch long.  In other words, it is incredibly tiny, and smaller than a blueberry. I’m not certain about the first person who started growing wild strawberries on purpose.  Looking at them, I can’t imagine how he even tasted them.

Over the years however, strawberries have been cultivated on purpose to be larger, and larger.  In effect, they were selectively mutated.  I’m calling that genetic modification my friends, because these mutations were not necessarily for the best for the strawberry.  Strawberries even look different from wild strawberries entirely because of this selective breeding.  If they were human, we’d like even use that cringe inducing term of eugenics for what was done.

This isn’t that bad.  It isn’t the genetic modifications they are doing today, that are keeping the human population worldwide from starving to death.  It’s not like they’re splicing fruits and vegetable together.  But it is still a genetic modification and it was done, as far as I can discover, before genes were discovered.

Well, you say, that’s not that bad.  Allow me to bring up exhibit two: Corn.

Corn is not a natural plant, at all.

You are looking at Teosite, which looks, as you can see, nothing like modern corn.  In fact, it doesn’t look like anything you see today.  Yet, 7000 years ago, it was modified through selective breeding to become corn.  It is the reason for how vast and huge the nations of the Americas were before they were thoroughly wiped out due to famine.  


Look at that.  It went from six of even widely spaced kernels, to around one hundred closely packed kernels.  The male plant grew closer together and thicker as well.  Both became larger, tighter packed, and instead of one ear per stalk, there are now multiple ears per stalk of corn.

Corn, in other words, is a man-made plant.  I don’t want to hear anything at all about GMO corn.  All corn is GMO.  And you should all thank your lucky stars it is.

If it weren’t there would be a lot less people in this world, a long time ago, and some of those less people who have been colonist and your ancestors.

One Final Byte: Bite your tongue about things keeping you alive.