Not sure how I feel about this anymore:
The Food and Drug Administration is seriously considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate.
The developer of the salmon has been trying to get approval for a decade. But the company now seems to have submitted most or all of the data the F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.
Some consumer and environmental groups are likely to raise objections to approval. Even within the F.D.A., there has been a debate about whether the salmon should be labeled as genetically engineered (genetically engineered crops are not labeled).
I used to think that the debate of GM foods was pretty silly, especially when you consider that all through history we have been genetically modifying our livestock and vegetables through selective breeding. But anymore, I am just very wary about anything like this. I guess the one area where I am truly getting more conservative is in regards to food. Having discovered the difference between organic vegetables, locally raised beef and lamb and goat, tasted the difference between wild caught salmon from a fishing trip and the crap you get at a store, it is clear that how we raise our food really matters, and this sort of thing really bothers me.
At the very least, I don’t see why it would be an issue to label these things (as well as crops) as genetically altered. Again- let the free market decide.
Personally, as far as game fish go, I eat only wild caught fish and I just eat them sparingly because of the high levels of mercury, but that is still better than all the PCBS and other substances in farm raised fish. Not to mention the taste and texture, and probably both of them are all shot up with dye.
We’ve gotten to the point in society where it is as difficult for the average person to make informed decisions about their food as it is for people to make a dollar as an individual on the stock market- there is so much you need to know, so much labeling nonsense, and so many gimmicks that you never really know if you are doing the right thing.
Having said that, I’m going to go eat some locally raised bacon and some free range eggs.