There has been tons of confusion spread around regarding GMO’s and hybrid foods. Some folks seem to be happy to make the two appear to be the same. Sometimes, the reason behind this is clearly the push of a personal agenda, even one that might include the receiving of special attention and/or money.
Regardless of the mincing of the facts, there’s a huge difference between a hybrid, selective breeding, and what is called GMO. Contrary to what some may say, foods like bananas, seedless grapes and seedless watermelon, cotton candy grapes, and pink lady apples aren’t all hybrids, and they’re absolutely not GMO.
GMO typically refers to plants or animals that have had a gene, or several genes, from a different species, from completely different genus, family, class, kingdoms, etc. inserted into its genome. This can, and often does, include the insertion of genes from bacteria and viruses. Therefore, you can see that these are situations that could never, ever, occur in nature. Another genetically engineered type of food is a plant or animal that has had particular genes moved or shut off, through the use of certain chemicals. This is actually also called “gene edited”.
A hybrid is a cross between related species, in the same family, class, and kingdom, in which case hybridization can and does occur in nature, including many plants, animals, and even modern-day humans. Hybrid and/or seedless fruits, come about through a selection or breeding process, by cross-pollination, or by replanting plant cuttings or grafting.
Replanting cuttings from a plant skips pollination and can produce seedless plants. This is something that many people do in their own homes with various foods, not just fruits. Cutting off the top of a pineapple and putting it in soil and/or water will produce another pineapple plant, and is essentially a clone of the original pineapple. Similar is done by home gardeners with potatoes and onions also.
Cross-pollination creates hybrids, and it occurs when one species is pollinated with pollen from another, which can be done by wind, insects, and people, including home gardeners. Grafting also produces hybrids, and is the action of grafting parts of one species of plant onto, or along with, another species. Certain varieties of apples are typically produced by grafting. If you plant seeds of a pink lady apple, you will get fruit like the parent apple, instead of pink lady apples. This is also often done by seasoned home gardeners. Most likely, people learned about plant grafting from observing nature, thousands of years ago.
Click here to read about grafting in nature
The new Cotton Candy Grapes had a lot of us questioning whether they were GMO, and if they’re were, how could they be organic? Well, surprise! They aren’t GMO either, and the truth about their flavor is much less appalling than spliced genes. They are the product of hybridizing 2 types of grapes, including a concord type. They’re less tart, and higher in certain sugars, with a slight vanilla undertone from the Concord grape, giving a flavor very similar to pink cotton candy, which is just spun sugar with a bit of vanilla and food coloring.
As far as meat goes, there are companies working on bringing some GMO animals to the market, but the current issue is the animal feed, which is often corn and soy. Just like it isn’t known whether the GMO’s impact humans, the impact on farm animals certainly isn’t known either. Therefore, we have no real idea about the impact of meat from animals fed GMO’s.
It’s good practice to buy organic or from trusted local farmers, to minimize exposure to GMO’s. The best option, of course, would be to grow and raise your own food, but if it isn’t possible, you have to eat the best you can.
When it comes to GMO, It should likely be avoided, yet it’s becoming more and more difficult to get away from in the U.S. Neither the government, producing corporations, nor the general public has any idea what the long-term effects might be to human health, starting with the digestive system and the billions of helpful Flora that live there.
Although I favor fruits that have seeds, and I buy them whenever available, eating seedless varieties isn’t harmful. Hybrids aren’t going anywhere, ever. They’ve always been, and they always will be. We don’t yet know for sure, but GMO’s may cause numerous problems for our health. They’re an unknown that we might pay a heavy price for in the end.