What do you get when you cross the technology of Frankenfoods with organics? The latest vegetables being created by Monsanto.
“Frescada lettuce, BellaFina peppers, and Beneforté broccoli” are either already on supermarket shelves or coming soon to a store near you all across the country. But what most people don’t realize is what’s behind the names. Each is trademarked by an “all-but-anonymous Monsanto subsidiary called Seminis,” according to an article in “Wired,” and each represents the latest in designer veggies being sold to us by none other than Monsanto.
Monsanto has been changing how agriculture grows plants for food for decades. But now, perhaps in response to America’s growing distaste for genetically modified foods and possible legislation against GMOs, Monsanto appears to be going full circle by “creating” better foods the “old-fashioned” way.
These new vegetables and fruits as well will be created by introducing “novel strains” of old familiars through crossbreeding, which has been used by farmers for millenia. By combining high-tech “…accumulated scientific know-how” with the age-old practice of crossbreeding, Monsanto is creating new “super vegetables” with “all the advantages of genetically modified organisms without (supposedly) any of the harmful GMO factors.”
So how are these new vegetables different from GMOs? It’s a technicality, but basically because the vegetables are created using crossbreeding without “…any genetic engineering” and where no one actually “…inserts a single gene into a single genome,” they’re not classified as GMO. And because of this technicality, possible restrictions and new laws regarding GMOs won’t apply to these new super vegetables.
Even though these new vegetables and fruits are “…born in a lab, technically they’re every bit as natural as what you’d get at a farmer’s market” according to the article. And if Monsanto chooses to “keep them away from pesticides and transport them less than 100 miles,” they can be “…called organic and locavore, too.”
Here’s another fun fact. With “…all the benefits of a GMO with none of the stigma,” Monsanto can actually charge more for these new super foods. Perhaps that’s the real reason Monsanto is changing their strategy or perhaps, too, it’s because “…genetically modifying consumer crops proved to be inefficient and expensive.”
Whatever the reason, Monsanto still intends to do Mother Nature one better. Move over, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter,” you have competition: “I Can’t Believe It’s Not GMO.”
LINK: http://www.gcnlive.com/CMS/index.php/component/k2/item/319-monsanto-is-going-organic
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