Journal #3 The Future of Food

In class this week we watched the eye opening video The Future of Food. The video was an investigation on genetically engineered foods and how they have made there way into food stores in the U.S. The main point of the video was to make people realize what we have been eating without being told. The problem is we cant visibly tell whether the food we are eating has been genetically engineered or not. Personally I learnt a lot from the video it informed me of a lot of things that are going on in our country even beyond just food.

The main company in question in this video is the Monsanto Company. The company itself creates genetically engineered seeds that are "Roundup Ready", meaning they won't die when pesticides are used to protect the crops to prevent pests from destroying them. The issue is that theses seeds are patented meaning that the government has allowed them to patent a living thing. The problem here is that the plants spread through cross pollination affecting farmers crops. Farmers that have never used seeds from Monsanto Company are being sued by the company because they have "their" plants on there land. Farmers are unable to control the crops from spreading because of the environment and other factors that allow plants to spread.

We are not being told what we are eating because farmers who use genetically engineered foods are not required to put it on the foods label. In my opinion we have the right to know what we are eating. There should be labels on foods telling whether or not it is genetically engineered or has genetically engineered foods in it.

The video below gives a great overview of what the problem with genetically engineered food is.



Another video I found shows some key points in how genetically engineered foods can lead to health problems.



My favorite snack an granny smith apple. It originated it Australia but is grown in New Zealand, USA, parts of South America, British Columbia Canada and the United Kingdom. After some research it has come to my attention that a lot of theses apples can be found to be genetically engineered. Apples are grown in different areas so it come have been anywhere from New York to the United Kingdom. I was unable to find the exact amount of water needed to produce one apple as each tree yields a different number of apples.