Genetically Engineered Food: Changing the Nature of Nature

The book that exposes the threat to our food supply from genetic engineering.

* Explains the dangers of these foods in easily understood terms. * Provides a comprehensive guide to actions you can take to safeguard your food supply.

Picture a world where the french fries you eat are registered as a pesticide. Where corn plants kill monarch butterflies. Where soy plants thrive on doses of herbicide that would kill any normal plant. Where multinational corporations own the life forms that farmers grow and legally control the farmers' actions. That world exists. The above events are happening, and they are happening to us all. Genetically engineered foods-plants whose genetic structures are altered by scientists in ways that could never occur in nature--are already present in most of the products you buy in supermarkets, unlabeled, unwanted, and largely untested. The threat of these organisms to human and environmental health has caused them to be virtually banned in Europe, yet the U.S. government and a handful of biotech corporations, working hand-in-hand, have actively encouraged their use while discouraging labeling that might alert consumers to what they are eating.

Genetically Engineered Food: Changing the Nature of Nature is the first book to take a comprehensive look at the many ramifications of this dangerous science. Authors Martin Teitel and Kimberly Wilson explain what genetic engineering is and how it works, then explore the health risks involved with eating newly created lifeforms. They address the ecological catastrophe that could result from these modified plants crossing with wild species and escaping human control altogether, as well as the economic devastation that may befall small farmers who find themselves at the mercy of megacorporations for their livelihood. Taking the discussion a step further, they consider the ethical and spiritual implications of this radical change in our relationship to the natural world, showing what the future holds and giving you the information you need to act on your own or to join others in preserving the independence and integrity of our food supply.

Martin Teitel, Ph.D., is the author of Rain Forest in Your Kitchen and Executive Director of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a national nonprofit organization of concerned scientists, doctors, and activists founded in 1983 to foster public debate about the social, ethical, and environmental implications of genetic technology.

Kimberly Wilson directs the council's Program on Commercial Biotechnology and the Environment.