To GMO or not to GMO: Business Week devotes a Debate Room faceoff to whether genetically modified organisms such as certain strains of corn and soybeans are safe. Both pro and con arguments will be familiar to readers — cross-pollination, herbicide resistance, starving Africans, yada yada — and we agree with Jamie of CurdNerds that given what’s at stake, why not label GM ingredients? But the really interesting stuff is coming out in BW.com’s comments section, where a couple of pro-industry, pro-organic types are slugging it out.
Community defense: We weren’t the only ones who thought Andrew Martin was missing the point in his "If It’s Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener?" article in the Sunday Times. NYT Dot-Earth blogger Andrew Revkin believes that "most people seeking local produce are not in it to save the climate … It’s about trying to sustain the nature of a place in a world moving rapidly to big-box and mini-mall monoculture." At Gristmill, Tom Philpott boils the Martin piece down to "Don’t drive your sport utility vehicle to the farmers’ market, buy one food item and drive home again" and says "Agreed. I won’t."
Bittersweet symphony: We (heart) curmudgeonly farmer and new Culinate contributor Mike Madison, who wonders whether the trend in corn and other vegetable breeding toward sugary sweetness represent "some lowest common denominator of human taste. Cap’n Crunch. Instant gratification for a spoiled child." (Culinate)
We’re not getting anywhere: At chain supermarkets like Trader Joe’s and Wal-Mart, produce looks so perfect and seems so abundant. And with such cheap prices, why ask questions? asks Jamey Lionette in perhaps the world’s longest polemic on why good, clean, real food costs so much more than people are accustomed to paying. (AlterNet)
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