Welcome to the blog for Colgate University's interdisciplinary course on food. This is the place to keep up with what students in the course are experiencing in their work at Common Thread Community Farm and through their everyday encounters with food.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

GMOs You Didn't Know!

I know that we've talked a little bit about GMOs in class so far, but I found this list online that may SHOCK and/or ASTONISH you. Here's a few foods that are genetically modified that you may not have ever realized:

-Salmon...wow first FDA approved-for-human-consumption animal! This concept is a little weird and icky to me, but I can't say that I'm surprised. I hear that farm-raised fish is sort of gross to begin with, though--lots of disease, they eat cheap/crappy food, etc., so maybe we should be more worried about that?
-Milk! Not super surprising to me, although it's also a pretty gross idea. They inject cows with hormones to produce more milk. The weird part is that we drink it...and we're not baby cows!!
-Soda...because of the corn! Most corn is genetically modified and high fructose corn syrup is probably pretty high on the ingredients list for most sodas.
-Soup/corn starch-containing products. Again, corn!
-Squash! Imagine that, after all that squash we picked...complete vegetable betrayal!!! Most squash in the U.S. isn't GM (yet), so don't worry too much (yet), but there are certainly varieties that are.
-Soy. There's lots of GM soy in the U.S. and it pops up everywhere! (I know I love soy...soy milk, edamame, even fake meat...mmmm protein) It's usually the main "vegetable" in vegetable oil, so look out! Oil isn't good for you anyways, though!
-Chips. Cotton, used to produce cottonseed oil, is a common ingredient in chips. I was not aware that there was cotton in chips, so that's weird, but they're also not good for you anyways so steer clear!
-Papaya! (sort of random) most U.S. produced papaya comes from Hawaii, and is GM to be immune to a virus that would have otherwise destroyed HI papaya crops. I think I feel the most okay about this one?

Overall, don't eat the processed things and you might be able to avoid most fake foods! (It's like that book, eat food not "food-like edible substances" or whatever it was!)

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