Happy EatingIt is very clever of man to be the sole god like controller of ALL things, but where does man stop. I will go a bit off beat about this week’s topic and hope it will fit in somewhere.
What caught my eye was Monsanto the U.S. based multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation and two words; genetically engineered (GE).
I recently saw Janet Tavener’s exhibition ‘Out of the mould' at Vaucluse House. I will rely on Tracey Clement’s review in The Post Post to explain;
'If, as the old saying goes, “You are what you eat”, then artist Janet Tavener shows us that what we are is highly mediated, chemically coloured and genetically dumbed down. In her solo show, Out of the Mould, Tavener presents a suite of cast resin objects in the sumptuous drawing room at Vaucluse House. Some mimic transparent jellies while others take on the shape of fruit and veggies from the heirloom garden.
Despite utilising the setting of a genuine Historic Houses Trust landmark, a stunning location redolent of genteel elegance and charm, Tavener isn’t just gazing back on the past through rose coloured glasses. The artist is keenly aware that man’s desire to dominate nature isn’t a new phenomenon.
Tavener’s casts of heirloom produce look unfamiliar to modern eyes; the old fruits and veggies were weirder, wonkier, bigger and smaller. Her works draw attention to the fact that we have deliberately changed the shape and flavour of our food through selective breeding over thousands of years; a process of genetic manipulation which has accelerated rapidly in the last few centuries, and gone super-sonic in recent decades with the advent of gene splicing techniques.
By focusing on old varieties of fruit and vegetables (tiny strawberries, a miniature pineapple, a massive round zucchini which resembles a medieval cap, huge knobbly lemons) Tavener points out that through our attempts to control nature we have sacrificed diversity for homogeneity, quality for quantity and tenacity for predictability. Not a great plan in the long term. Back in the day, all farmers were organic farmers. The old plants may not have been gorgeous, but they were tough, unlike the massive monoculture crops of today which can’t seem to survive without regular dosing with a vast array of chemicals.
Tracey Clement
So what about those tiny strawberries in the Vaucluse House? They have gone, and in their place are our super-sonic ones.
'Genetic engineering is a new technology that combines genes from totally unrelated species, in combinations not possible using conventional breeding methods. Genes from an animal, say, a fish, can be put into a plant, a strawberry for instance. In fact this is an actual example of an attempt to "improve" strawberry plants. The fish gene is supposed to make the strawberries more resistant to frost by causing the strawberry plant to produce a form of antifreeze which the fish normally produces to endure cold ocean conditions'.
(and)
http://www.sierraclub.org/biotech/report.asp
'Over 60 percent of all processed foods purchased by U.S. consumers are manufactured with GE ingredients. Some corn and potatoes have even been genetically engineered to contain a gene from Bt bacteria which causes every cell of the plants to produce an insecticidal toxin. Yet there is no labeling of these or any GE foods as being genetically engineered, because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers the GEOs from which these foods are made to be "substantially equivalent" to the non-genetically engineered plant from which the GEOs are derived.'
