GMO OMG

1

The Peace of Wild Things.

"When despair for the world

grows in me

"and I wake in the

night at the least sound,

"in fear of what my life

and my children's lives may be.

"I go and lie down

where the wood drake rests

"in his beauty on the water,

and the great heron feeds.

"I come into the peace

of wild things

"who do not tax their lives

with forethought of grief.

"I come into the presence

of still water.

"And I feel above me

the day-blind stars,

"waiting with their light.

"For a time, I rest in

the grace of the world,

and am free."

Having children

makes you start seeing

everything differently.

It's the first time

that either my wife, Jen, or I

had to feed someone

besides ourselves.

You have a little life to

nourish and look out for.

And that responsibility made us

think more about food

than we ever had before.

And so did my son,

Finn's obsession with seeds.

When he was 3 years old,

he thought himself

how to write letters

by copying seed names

out of a Seed Savers

Exchange catalog.

He's 6 now and has

been collecting seeds

for half his life.

Finn helped me take my

first real look at a seed.

He taught his

little brother Scout, too,

and I know he'll share

his love with his sister, Pearl.

His wonder filled me

with wonder.

Which plant will make

a lot of seeds?

That's how simple it is.

It's like every time you

just plant one seed,

it will like grow into a plant

and it produces like

thousands of seeds.

It's crazy.

It's hard enough

just raising a family,

but then, all these

unexpected issues complicate

what's already so exhausting.

You find out about toxic

chemicals in your house,

asbestos in the walls,

BPA in baby bottles,

methyl iodide on

strawberries, lead in toys,

arsenic and heavy metals

in tap water,

antibiotics in meat,

flame retardant from furniture

and breast milk.

Everything causes cancer

and it's all subtle,

hidden, latent.

We tried to be awake and

make good decisions,

to look out for our children

and do our best for them,

but one thing we totally missed.

We just never heard about it

was GMOs,

genetically modified organisms.

Seeds much like

my son Finn's seeds

but with altered genes

and they are in our food

for either good or ill,

I didn't know,

but it bothered me

that we are eating them

and didn't even know

what they were.

I decided to see if anyone

else knew about GMOs,

and that was the beginning

of a very long journey.

We're doing a

documentary on food.

- Okay.

- What people eat.

I'm wondering if you eat GMOs?

I don't even know what that is.

Give me one second.

Hey, girls.

How are you doing?

I got henna tattoo

right over there.

GMO, what's that?

I don't know what they are.

What is that?

I don't even know what it is.

What the hell is that?

What is it?

GMO?

What's that?

Genetically modified organism.

Oh.

So, you don't know.

They don't know.

I don't know.

Nobody knows.

Like, cattle, chicken?

I eat anything.

Any hot chicks eat them?

No, I'm not sure because

I don't know what they are.

Does it taste good?

What are GMOs?

GMO, I don't know what it is.

That would not help me.

I don't know.

Don't ask me that stuff.

Like, I don't know.

Ask her.

Do you eat that?

What are they?

Genetically... um...

Man, I'm lost.

OK, how do we know

if eat it or not?

I heard something about

strawberries with fish

or something like that.

It's like gen... genetically

made something,

I know, but I don't

know what the O is.

I don't know what they are.

I don't know what that is.

Genetically modified... organic?

No, gen... genetically

modified...

- organisms.

- Organisms.

How is it possible

that we are also clueless?

It felt weird not knowing

something so basic

about one of the most

essential things in our lives.

I suddenly felt uneasy about

all the food we are eating.

So, I did some research to

answer a very basic question.

What is a GMO?

According to the World

Health Organization,

GMOs are organisms in which

the genetic material

has been altered in a way

that does not occur naturally.

But what does that mean exactly?

It gets complicated

pretty quickly.

They involve Agrobacterium

tumefasciens

and vectors and Ti plasmids

and Cry1Ab genes

taken from soil-dwelling

bacteria called

Bacillus thuringiensis.

They are glyphosate resistant

enzymes called EPSPS

and my favorite gene gun with

protoplast electroporation

bombarding cells with

gold particles

coated with DNA encoding,

but in plain English, there

are two basic types of GMOs,

pesticide producers

and herbicide resisters.

Apesticide producer kills

insects like Monsanto's Bt corn.

A gene from a naturally

occurring bacterium

is inserted into

the DNA of corn.

The modified corn produces

a toxin lethal to insects.

An herbicide resister is

immune to weed killer

like Roundup Ready soy.

The DNA is altered with a

soil bacterium's gene

to make the plant immune to the

weed killer called Roundup.

Farmers douse their fields with

Roundup to kill every weed

and unwanted plant,

but even when coated

in herbicide,

the soy plant remains unharmed.

I couldn't find anything

definitive

on the health effects of GMOs.

Most studies were only

three months in length,

done by the same company

selling the GMOs.

The studies aren't peer reviewed

and they refused to release

the raw data to the public.

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