GE Salmon--what is our food supply coming to?!

Hey, hey, hey, everyone!

Today, I wanted to write about something that I'm sure many of you have seen blasted on Facebook or other social media, as well as other news and political sites you may frequent. A salmon with two heads? A picture of a salmon next to a picture of an ocean pout, an ugly, slimy eel? Ring a bell!? If not, what I'm talking about is the huge controversy surrounding FDA-approval of genetically-modified salmon. 

A huge agribusiness called Aquabounty has developed a way of manipulating the genes of a common salmon with those of an ocean pout to breed what's being labeled a "frankenfish" that will grow twice as fat, twice as fast as conventionally-farmed salmon. Now, not that there's nothing wrong with that way salmon are currently farmed, but if this new breed of salmon is approved for distribution in grocery stores, it will be the first "transgenic" animal allowed into our food supply. Check out the Youtube video posted by the public interest organization, Food and Water Watch, talking about the risks of this "science experiment": 

Obviously, this is frightening for many reasons. Number one: The FDA does not rely on tests and studies completed on such a GMO food by a third party; it takes the agribusiness's "word" for it. This means that all the studies that the FDA will be reviewing in its deliberations have been paid for by Aquabounty itself! How accurate could those POSSIBLY be?! So we don't really know whether or not  GMO salmon is safe for human consumption because the tests are so obviously skewed. 

Number two reason why this is a scary proposition: none of these players (Aquabounty, the FDA, farmers, etc.) can guarantee what affects GE salmon might have on our ecosystems if they escape, even in very small numbers. In salmon farming, fish escape from captivity all the time, so who's to say these GE fish wouldn't jump on that band wagon? Aquabounty spokespeople claim that such an event would be harmless because these GE salmon are bred to be sterile, but that's only one side of the story. How might they alter the food chain? How might their foreign genes contaminate our rivers and lakes? OUr ecosystems are fragile already, and something like this could be a disaster of drastic proportions!

The final reasons that that I think bears mentioning is that it's likely that GE salmon won't be labeled as such, so you might not even know you're eating it. You could purchase it in your local grocery store or order it in a restaurant and never be the wiser. This is why it's so important to know where our food is coming from, and to buy locally to the extent that it's physically and economically possible. 

I'll be back tomorrow with tips on how to be a more socially-conscious food consumer, and how I try to eat "green" whenever I can. It's worth the effort, I promise!