Genetically Engineered Food

I was reading on the UTS (University of Technology, Sydney or if you prefer Up The Shit) SA website about their food co-op shop and the first sentence I read is about filling people bellies up with good, nutritious food. Sounds good to me. Then it goes on a bit about something that happened in the 16th century blah blah blah....and that we treat the earth as a commodity. Well der of course we do, we probably have been since the sapien species emerged from the primordial goo, which was well beyond the 16th century for example, although it is not PC, the indigenous people of Australia were burning down pine forests to get their tasty morsel leaving parts of Australia with a primarily eucalypt population.

Anyway the point of this blog is not the history of human disturbances that has changed the biosphere but the possible impact of genetically engineered food.

But what is the point of playing around with the genes of plants and animals?

Genetic engineering of plants and animals has been occuring since people pretty much learnt how to put pen to hides (I only say this because there are no records of it otherwise). The first readily accessible evidence (that comes to mind) of GE is in the Torah, Genesis 30:37-30:43 to be precise, where Jacob took Labans sheep to mate with his sheep (it looks like artifical insemination to me with the rods and all) to produce a "special" flock. Does that mean we can't get a sheep that hasn't already been interferred with?

Now we zip forward to a century after the 16th C. to whom people call the father of genetics, Gregor Mendel, who did his famous experiments with peas.

Genetic Engineering is not all Frankensteinish Flymen and mice with human ears growing out of their backs or adding bacteria to wheat to reduce the use of instecticides. It could be as simple as crossing this species of wheat with that species of wheat to produce something that could survive a sudden frost or a long drought. It is not evil, its evolution, humans are just helping it to happen faster.
Ok the former examples I used (not the flyman one) are happening and there should be a limit on what is allowed to be done, I grant you that, at least. Anyway I don't think coccus wheat is out in the market.

I guess people are scared of GE food because you don't know how it could effect the human body and to a lesser extent how it could effect the equilibrium of the environment (cause as you know we treat the environment as a commodity). Well stuff the human body, I'm sure a pharmaceutical company can come up with a drug to counteract the side effects, while giving us a few more side effects in the process.

Well so far I have not seen a major disturbance in the environment because of a GE wheat field, but I am not saying it could not happen, just we won't know until it does, if it does.

Could GE food be used to solve world hunger? Is another question people think of when it comes to GE. Well it could if you compare 100 acres of wild wheat to 100 acres of GE wheat. So UTS how many people are you going to feed with 100 acres of wild wheat? Well considering the fruit produced on one blade of wild wheat is hardly worth noting compared to hybrid wheat, not many peoples bellies will be filled and especially since wild wheat is only native to Israel, I dare you to pick it. So stop the BS about filling peoples bellies.

I guess like most food stores you sell bread products? Well the wheat they use to make the flour used for bread is a hybrid of 3 species. Ok the hybridisation happened thousands of years ago, its still GE'd.

Cultivation and Breeding:
Cultivation of wheat began around 7000 BC in the Euro-Asian region. Wild varieties were first collected and then purposely grown. Mutations and crosses led to bread wheat. Bread wheat originated from three different wild wheat varieties. It carries six times the normal chromosomal complement (hexaploid plant). Wild Emmer (Triticum dicoccoides) probably arose first, from wild Einkorn (Triticum boeoticum) and wild Spelt (Triticum speltoides). Through hybridisation with a further wild wheat (Triticum tauschii), Spelt (Triticum splelta) and bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) finally arose.

Truth is you probably wouldn't know if it is GE even if it bit you on the bottom.