William Saletan has a very long article over on Slate about GMOs in our food — a topic which interests me greatly but which I don't know enough about to have informed viewpoints. Yes, I know that doesn't stop a lot of people in this world but I occasionally own up to that which I do not know.
Saletan makes many good points. One, which I don't doubt, is that the folks who have championed GMOs and those who want them banned have both used some misleading and perhaps phony data to make their cases. Another, also undoubted by me, is that no evidence can ever exist that will cause some folks to alter their positions on this. Yet another is that just because a food item is free of GMOs, that doesn't mean it's safe and that it can't have other things wrong with it.
Beyond that, I'm kind of confused. Saletan cites many, many instances where contradictory evidence has been introduced into the debate but that, of course, makes me wonder if anyone really knows as much as they think they do. He also convinces me that people who know far more about this kind of thing than I ever will are at odds with each other. That makes me wonder how I, a non-expert and likely to remain one, could ever arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.
Please do not send me your satisfactory conclusions. I already can't process all I've read about this topic. I'm just directing to you an article that tosses out plenty to think about with regards to what we eat.
Oh — and whatever I ultimately might decide, I do think it's wrong to not have GMO food labeled. Even if I ultimately decide it's all safe, I think you have the right to decide it's not and to know what you're getting. I think everything people ingest should be labeled. All cole slaw should have a big sticker on every container that says: "WARNING! CONTAINS COLE SLAW!"