PLAYING WITH FIRE "Friendly Fire" fails to mention that prescribed burns should not exceed the natural fire frequency, intensity, and seasonality, as determined by replicate studies on the ecosystem involved. If foresters burn beyond
natural fires, the impacts are generally harmful to the ecosystem. LEGALIZE IT MESSING WITH NATURE "The Hidden Life of a Bioengineered Meal" is a good primer on
how much genetically modified food products have infiltrated the food supply. If you want to get an idea of the true extent of such infiltration, check out Greenpeace's Web site, which lists food items that contain genetically engineered ingredients. There are appropriate uses of genetic engineering, and there are inappropriate uses. An inappropriate use would be the expression of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin in plants or Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" soybeans, which are herbicide-resistant. An appropriate use could be something like the beta-carotene-containing golden rice-which was developed largely by Swiss researcher Ingo Potrykus (not Monsanto, as you wrote) to fight malnutrition-or
bioremediation. Did you know that engineered plants exist that can detoxify mercury-contaminated soils? I enjoyed the colorful and informative snapshot of the biotech ingredients in a typical American meal. However, I was surprised to see no mention of the best way to avoid eating genetically engineered foods: Buy and eat organic. It was misleading to refer to Monsanto's golden rice as "rice with so much extra vitamin A." A person would need to consume huge amounts of biotech yellow rice in order to obtain the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A. The biotech industry claims this is a breakthrough, but it's more of a PR gimmick than any wonderfood at this point. Vikki Kratz's technophobic rant about bioengineering seems to stem from an understandable desire to know "whether what comes to your dinner table is what nature intended." Yet very little of what we eat today is even remotely natural.
Corn, broccoli, and cauliflower, for example, are complete abominations, created through hundreds of years of inbreeding, cross-breeding, and selection. Or take seedless grapes, navel oranges, and bananas. These de-sexed plants can only be propagated with cuttings. And since biochemical testing has become possible, everything from rice to wheat has been bred for abnormally high nutritional content. All of these unnatural plants are the result
of genetic changes brought about by people messing with nature. And most without a bit of safety testing.
But if it's a natural meal you are after, you will have to resort to hunting and gathering in the hills. How To Win CORRECTIONS In "The Hidden Life of a Bioengineered Meal" (January/February), we should have stated that cotton produces a Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin, not Bt itself. We should also note that no tomatoes with an anti-freeze gene from flounders are on the market (though research permits for this experiment were granted and used). Sierra welcomes letters from readers in response to recently published articles. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Write to us at 85 Second St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105-3441; fax (415) 977-5794; e-mail sierra.letters@sierraclub.org.Up to Top Sierra Magazine home | Contact Us Privacy Policy/Your California Privacy Rights | Terms and Conditions of Use Sierra Club® and "Explore, enjoy and protect the planet"®are registered trademarks of the Sierra Club. © Sierra Club 2019. The Sierra Club Seal is a registered copyright, service mark, and trademark of the Sierra Club. |