Prompt Five: What's on America's Dinner Plate?

            According to some health organizations, many foods on our grocery store shelves are made with genetically modified ingredients. Most of these foods, however, do not have GMO ( genetically modified organism) Label. Do you think there should be a law requiring manufacturers to label foods containing GMOs?

            Have you decided the day that you will start eating genetically mutated foods?  I think not. As a democracy, we Americans have always been endowed with the oh-so-sweet privilege to vote. For instance, we decide what gets passed, who stays in office, who shall reign as our next President and so forth.  Yet, a thought still in question is why does our government conceal such important information?  This, by all means, will not be a lecture on government, but rather a discourse on why genetically modified foods have slipped pass our notice and on to our dinner plates. I feel the need for labels on the GMO foods in grocery stores or anywhere else sold in order to alert people of what they take into their bodies. Seems fair, doesn't? It is already bad enough that the American public, including myself, are not eating what mother Earth made us.

            Clearly, a genetically modified organism (GMO) is a good that has been injected with genes of another life form or the same to give it the characteristics that it does not naturally have. In other words, the normal growth process has kicked the bucket and been replaced with a much quicker method to make the farmers more sales. Hurray on the farmers behalf because its plausible that they section off a slice of their perfectly good soil for their own creation of food. However, boohoo on ours. We're stuck eating the "poison" while corporations, such as Monsanto, makes millions off of our naïveté in the grocery store. Somewhere the line must be drawn.

            Grocery stores should label their goods that are GMOs. Actually, scratch that—they must label their foods.  Situations with hidden ingredients have happened before. Lead in Mexican candy was left unknown to the public, but was later brought to light because of complaints of lead poisoning. It will be an exemplary asset so that people are not pondering why they have allergic reactions, degenerative diseases, and bacterial illness after eating a tomato.  "Well I think GMOs, like all other foods, should be labeled. As consumers should know what they're buying and how it could possibly effect them…I think consumers should have a choice. It should be adequately labeled—just like everything else it labeled ( Wallace, Dwight. Personal Interview. 4 Oct. 2010)."

            I presume it will only make GMO's tolerable if shoppers are willing to buy products that are labeled according to their making. That is, not every shopper possesses information of how farmers cultivate the crops, and if they did, it is highly probable that they will continue to shop despite the potential health effects.  In a way, it's almost like we're being forced to eat genetically modified foods. So I can only infer that foods labeled organic are organic and those that are not are GMO's. Well, if that’s the case, why not blatantly brand a store good as a genetically modified organism. Perhaps if companies do label their foods, they will dread the day faithful shoppers stop investing in their produce, but that it is far-fetched.

            In other words, grocery food products should be labeled for the benefit of the masses. Moreover, it is impartial that the public is at best apprised with the health facts that can salvage people with sensitive bodies from eating the wrong thing.  People are already annoyed about big corporations' and government misleading them to keep the mass from learning about "classified" knowledge. And to make matters worse, the hoax is accompanied with fabrications. Overall, in my opinion, properly labeling GMO's will show shoppers a sense of respect.