There's a Flounder in My Tomato!

Do you like tomatoes? Did you know food engineers have experimented with adding flounder genes to tomatoes? Yes, it’s true. Food engineers have taken flounder genes and spliced them with tomato genes. The rationale is they “want the tomato to grow at lower temperatures, and they also want to be able to store it in freezing for a much longer time than they currently do.”(Source)

The basis for this argument is that flounder contain a gene that prevents them from freezing in cold water. This anti-freezing gene, spliced in the tomato would make a freeze-proof tomato! The flounder gene tomato was successfully grown, but, supposedly, never sold. Interesting. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are really quite out of control in the United States. Other countries don’t allow GMO food to be manufactured or sold in their country. The United States, a country of indulgence, where bigger is better, seems to fully embrace Genetically Modified foods, like the flounder-tomato.

• Allergenicity. This simply means the genetically modified food may be capable of producing an allergic reaction. The main concern with allergies is that the new, genetically modified item introduced into the environment may cause new allergies or elevated allergic reactions.

• Gene transfer. The premise behind this concern is that a genetically modified food may have the ability to transfer some of the genetically modified genes to humans. For instance, if you were to eat that flounder-tomato, you may end up with some flounder-tomato genes in your system. What impact would this have on your body?

• Outcrossing. This is basically the contamination of non-genetically modified crops / animals by genetically modified crops / animals. For instance, what happens when non-genetically modified salmon become infected with genetically modified salmon? What will this mutation be like? Or, what happens when a Roundup Ready crop somehow mixes with a non-Roundup Ready crop? Will the new crop be half RoundUp Ready???

I don’t think they are safe and I’m not really willing to take the chance.  So, I will avoid eating genetically modified food as much as possible.  For instance, take Monsanto’s Roundup ready seeds.  These are genetically modified corn and soybean seeds that are modified to be resistant to RoundUp pesticide.  This, just in premise, doesn't seem safe to me.

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• CBS 60 Minutes Covers the Gene-Food Debate
• Wikipedia Article on GMO
• World Health Organization's 20 Questions on Genetically Modified Foods