Saturday, June 4, 2011

GE Pigs & Salmon...eeww.

The Art of Persuasion...Creative Capitalism...hmm...The Power of Food Companies

*inspired by Alive Magazine's article Genetically Engineered Pigs and Salmon by Lucy Sharratt

Genetically modified, or Genetic Engineering is happening all around us. Most of our canola is GM. And lots of soya & flax is too.

Canadian researchers have come up with genetically engineering Atlantic salmon to have faster development times, and pigs engineered to carry less phosphorous in its feces. They could be approved for your consumption here in Canada any day now. It's scary & it's sad...one of these will be the first genetically engineered animals in our food system. What about GE food labelling? What about the health risks?

Have you heard of AquaBounty? They're the company that first asked approval in the US for it's genetically engineered salmon that grows faster than other farmed salmon. Their product would be used in industrial farming. It's now preparing to apply to Health Canada. It even wants to grow it's eggs on PEI, where the eggs would then get exported to Panama to finish growing and for processing. This avoids any full environmental assessment in the US or Canada.

The name of this pig experiment is 'Enviropig'. A misguiding marketing tool. The pig's actually engineered with genetic material from E.coli bacteria and a mouse. Why not fix the problem of factory farming, not alter the pig itself!

There is no mandatory labelling required of any  GE foods here in Canada. Certified organic would be the only way to know for sure that what meat you're eating is not GE.

No comments:

Post a Comment