Saw this little conundrum on the news earlier and thought it was an appropriate conversation to open up to my [semi understanding, but educated] blog audience.
The Cliff Notes:
Scientists have figured out a way to grow salmon twice as big, twice as fast through altering their genetic make up
- Scientists: more salmon for everyone, and maybe salmon prices will go down (leave it up to Americans to figure out how to supersize yet another food group)
- Health Conscious Public: haven’t Americans learned that when we change things from natural to, well, unnatural, there is always a greater danger down the road? Fake boobs pop, diet soda is so bad for you [insert current cultural freakout], and diet pills now cause you to grow a third leg.
The FDA isn’t sure if it is safe for the American public to consume next to natural Atlantic Salmon
- Scientists: Salmon is salmon. Scientist claim that the fish haven’t been chemically altered, merely just genetically tweaked.
- Healt Conscious Public: This superhuman salmon might cause some awful side effect/cancer/other cultural freak out somewhere down the road. The American public will only learn about the epidemic when the modified salmon start growing in our stomachs and someone gives birth to one out in Utah somewhere, claiming to have been impregnated by Poseidon.
The FDA is concerned about the reproduction of mutating fish
- Scientists: Don’t worry, we will keep all genetically altered fish completely separate from natural Atlantic Salmon. There will be no way for them to reproduce with unmodified fish.
- Health Conscious Public: a) what happens if some get loose and then start reproducing with normal salmon, what happens when it becomes a situation like the North Dakota genetically altered canola plant that is resistant to weed killer, which has now been carried by the wind and is creating a superweed across much of middle America. Freakoutfreakout! b) If this salmon is as safe as you say it is, then why isn’t it alright for the fish to reproduce with “normal” fish. Stop contradicting yourself, fools!
This fish really isn’t fish
- Scientists: yes, it is
- Health Conscious Public: what if there is a mysterious chemical that causing some Americans an allergy, then what if you aren’t allergic to the natural salmon, but are allergic to the modified salmon, and what if I wont know which is which. panicpanicpanic
So after all this bickering is said and done, I ask myself: “Self, if you knew that the fish you were about to ingest was genetically mutated would you eat it?”
The answer: I still have no idea.
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