To Eat or Not To Eat

Reading this chapter on the growth and life cycle of potatoes gave me a lot of insight to how mass-production farming works. Most of the time, the idea is to produce as much edible food as possible, using the least amount of chemicals and money, in order to reap a higher profit. I understand the viewpoint Monsanto has of eliminating all of these harmful spray-on chemicals, and replacing a resistant gene inside the plant itself, but is this really natural? And is this their main idea when they thought of this idea, or were they more concerned with the amount of profit that would come in? There is no way that in the wild a plant would evolve in such a way. The plants might develop different tactics, smells, or colors to avert enemies and pests, but their genes would not transform to all of a sudden magically contain a pest-resistant toxin. To think about putting either of these forms of chemicals into my body scares me. In the past few years I have become more in-tune with my body and how it reacts to different foods that I eat, and thinking about ingesting such a hazardous chemical is frightening. No one knows the long-term effects of this process of implanting a pest-resistant gene into a plant, so therefore anything is possible in the long run. There may be absolutely no long-term effects, and there could be potentially deadly ones. I know I have probably eaten one of these NewLeaf potatoes, without knowing, and that is unfortunate but I’m not about to freak out about it. Obviously they are mostly safe to eat, as I have not heard of anything serious happening to anyone who has eaten one of these genetically modified potatoes, but just for peace of mind I would rather not eat them.
As Pollan dictates, "...genetically modified potatoes represent a more sustainable way of growing food. The problem is, that isn’t saying much."[Pg. 221] He goes on to explain that the reason for this is because the NewLeaf potato contains the Bt toxin that wards off pests, whereas other potato species don't so insects still prey on them. Heath, an organic farmer Pollan visits and talks with says, "I can eat any potato in this field right now. Most farmers can't eat their spuds out of the field." Just knowing that there is an unnatural chemical implanted into the genes of a vegetable the majority of the population eats frequently makes one think, just how healthy is the population? Do we really know what we’re putting into our bodies?