GM Salmon Safe to Eat, says FDA

If you're into eating mutant animals, it's time to get excited. The FDA declared last week that genetically engineered Atlantic salmon "is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon," clearing a major obstacle in its upstream swim toward our dinner plates. If the idea of eating a fish developed in a science lab sounds unappetizing to you, maybe you'll change your......read more

Monsanto Scores Legal Victory

In the first ever U.S. Supreme Court decision on genetically modified crops, justices overturned a lower court’s ban on the planting of alfalfa seeds engineered to resist a Monsanto herbicide. The case is a win for the biotechnology industry, and potentially sets a precedent for future litigation on GM foods. Alfalfa is highly susceptible to being outcompeted by weeds, so it's important......read more

FDA Nears Approval of Genetically Altered Salmon

The ongoing controversy surrounding genetically altered foods is shifting from the plant world to the animal one. The New York Times reports that AquaBounty Technologies has engineered a salmon that is nutritionally identical to wild salmon but can reach market size in 16-18 months instead of three years. This technology would enable fish farms to become much more profitable as they would be......read more

Will the Farm Bill Address GMO Concerns?

California's Proposition 37, which would have required that genetically modified foods carry a label, suffered a narrow defeat (53 to 47) last week, thanks largely to the $45 million No On Prop 37 ad blitz backed by Big Food companies like Monsanto. Despite the defeat of the bill, GMO labeling advocates have plenty to be proud about, considering that the Yes cause was outspent 5 to 1......read more

Turn the Lights Up

Americans care about the food we eat and feed our families, now more than ever. In the span of just a few weeks, "pink slime" became a consumer phenomenon, leading to the unprecedented rapid-fire removal of the product from major stores and schools, the closure of production plants and USDA approval of voluntary labeling. Talk about legislation through retail. It's not just ammonia in beef.......read more

A New Diet for the Planet

Mark Tercek for Huffington Post: This week, I was asked an interesting question as part of the Q&A session following a talk I gave at the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference in California. To paraphrase journalist Marc Gunther, who moderated the evening: "You are a vegan. You also lead the world's largest conservation organization. Why doesn't The Nature Conservancy make changing people's......read more

Separating GMO Facts from Fear

In the Sunday edition of The New York Times, Amy Harmon delivers a riveting long read about the battle over banning genetically modified crops on the island of Hawaii. The story follows the case of Greggor Ilagan, a Big Island councillor who supported the ban along with his liberal constituents. Wary of GMO scare stories, Ilagan sets out on a quest for the truth. Harmon traces the path of......read more

How to Avoid GMO Food

Only a few months ago, most Americans had never heard of Monsanto, or fully understood the dangers of genetically modified (transgenic) food. With the passage of the Farmer Assurance Provision (“Monsanto Protection Act”), that’s a situation that’s changed: Now we’ve seen 2 million people marching globally to demand transparency and choice in the food they......read more

Something's Fishy

The FDA is on the brink of approving genetically engineered salmon for human consumption. This would be the first genetically engineered animal on supermarket shelves in the United States. The salmon is engineered to produce growth hormones year-round that cause the fish to grow at twice the normal rate. The government already requires labels to tell us if fish is wild-caught or......read more