M is for Muscle Crops
Shocking as it may sound, even the mainstream environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in the area of GMO. Although the benefits of organic farming are plentiful, the acknowledgment that land-based management will serve to preserve our wilderness while giving higher yield with less use of pesticides can’t be ignored. Joined is the fact that the horrors of factory farming can no longer be stomached. There’s mad cow disease, swine flu, e-coli, the global warming effect of animal methane waste, the allegations of slave labor, and the prison treatment of helpless animals unable to ruffle their feathers as our society moves forward obese-starving for nutrients. Linked to this pitiful scenario is corn. Although not apparent, corn is abundant and cheap and in everything we eat, with high fructose corn syrup being the essential ingredient to every value-added processed food and beverage in the market. In fact, since our diabetes epidemic continues to loom, studies are underway at institutions such as John Hopkins to stop this children-of-the-corn feedback loop and measure the actual percentage of HFCS in the human body. Now that agbiotech can harness the power of the sun and manipulate the biochemical processes of plants to grow super crops, we will not only be able to genetically engineer plants that could grow silicon plates turning sunlight into chemical fuels directly, but design crops that will never require pesticides at all. Likewise, with the advent of “cultured meat,” the molecular artistry of food may stop today’s unhealthy, unethical people-creature-planet times. Dubbed “carniculture,” the movement calls to stop farming animals and start growing meat, and is so enticing that even PETA is offering one million dollars to the first organization that can launch commercial quantities of in vitro meat by 2012. What’s next? The only possible scenario: Laughing robots skipping through gardens pulling muscle meat off trees.