The genetically modified labeling proposition was frivolous. I'm glad it failed. Here's a fun fact, the vast majority of food you eat is genetically modified, and if it's not, it's probably stated in some way or another on the package. And genetic modification is not a bad thing for many reasons, including increase in food size and taste, increase in progeny or fertility in foreign or harmful soils.
That's the scary thing: The vast majority of food produced is genetically modified,
but the majority of people don't know it. And I firmly believe that people absolutely have a right to know what's in their food. Let people make their own decisions about GMOs. What's frivolous about a truth-in-labeling scheme? Why should we stop a law like this just to protect Monsanto, a company terrified that their sales will fall through the floor when the public realizes what goes on behind the food curtain?
Genetic modification can be seen as a good thing -- it certainly has cut the food cost for the average family in half over the last generation. It's why starvation is not a major problem in this country. But at the same time, genetic modification has led to insanely large harvests -- more, certainly, than the country has use for. And since most farmers don't actually make money off growing, the federal government needs to provide large subsidies to farmers. It's led to the obesity crisis, since we needed to manufacture a new way to deal with absolutely insane corn harvests: High-fructose corn syrup.
Oh, and as for taste, I can assure you that genetic modification seldom improves the quality of the food you eat. The bulk of the effort is to increase yield at any cost to quality, and to improve the food's shelf life, again, at any cost to quality. Ever wonder why most apples taste like mealy garbage? Because it's been bred to -- an unfortunate side effect of allowing them to be stored for up to a year without going bad. Think that food at McDonalds uses "high quality ingredients?" Freshness no longer matters, and if you think that doesn't show up in the quality of the food you eat, you're crazy.
Please don't be distracted by the "Frankenfood" / "Fishmato" brigade. They're terrified GMOs are poison, and they're not. But that doesn't mean the public shouldn't have the right to make a decision about whether or not they think buying a box of cereal made with GMO grain for $4.99 is better than buying a non-GMO version of $5.99.
