{"id":8210,"date":"2010-11-08T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2010-11-07T23:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=8210"},"modified":"2010-11-03T22:15:19","modified_gmt":"2010-11-03T21:15:19","slug":"patented-glo-fish-sushi-how-one-activist-is-cooking-with-experimental-frankenfoods-to-raise-consciousness-about-gmos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/11\/patented-glo-fish-sushi-how-one-activist-is-cooking-with-experimental-frankenfoods-to-raise-consciousness-about-gmos\/","title":{"rendered":"Patented Glo-fish Sushi? How One Activist Is Cooking with Experimental Frankenfoods to Raise Consciousness about GMOs"},"content":{"rendered":"

As genetically modified organisms become more prevalent, so do protests against them. In just the past few months, French activists have uprooted GM vines<\/a> at a research center, Spanish activists have destroyed experimental GM Maize crops<\/a>, and Haitian farmers have burned Monsanto seeds<\/a>. But are these destructive direct actions the best form of protest against the rising corporate control of the food system and its very genetic material?<\/p>\n

My good friend Zack Denfeld<\/a>, a self-described information ecologist and lecturer at Pacific Northwest College of Art, is developing a creative form of resistance through his Center for Genomic Gastronomy<\/a>. Taking a somewhat Yes Men-inspired, tongue-in-cheek approach, Zack is extending the logic of GMO\u2019s to their unnatural conclusion by putting them in situations their inventor\u2019s never considered.<\/p>\n

In his first experiment with the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, Zack made sushi rolls out of GloFish<\/a>\u2014a patented brand of GM fluorescent zebrafish, which is publicly available as a pet. The idea, as Zack explains in the above video, is to give people the opportunity to beta test transgenic fish before the FDA approves GM salmon\u2014soon to be the first genetically-engineered animal for human consumption<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve made a number of recipes with these [GloFish], so you don\u2019t have to wait for approval from the government to try these transgenic fish if you\u2019re interested. What\u2019s really interesting about this is they\u2019ve been existing in science labs and all of a sudden one guy had a really interesting market strategy, which was to make them available to the public. And we think that\u2019s really innovative and we\u2019re building on his innovation by cooking with them. I don\u2019t know how happy he is about that, but I want to ask you how happy you are with these recipes. If you\u2019re all for transgenic foods, you\u2019ll love my sushi rolls. If you don\u2019t like my glowing sushi rolls you may want to tell the US FDA to hold off on that transgenic salmon. The decision is up to you. You are no longer passive. You are active in this process.<\/p>\n

In another experiment\u2014this time going after the secret nature of GM research\u2014Zack created a recipe called Vegetarian Bouillabaisse<\/a>. It calls for something known as the Fish Tomato\u2014a somewhat mythical GM design that involves a tomato being inserted with a cold-tolerant gene from a fish.<\/p>\n

In our research we found documents that proved this very much did exist. This brings up really important questions. Is the Fish Tomato vegetarian? Is it an animal? Is it a plant? We don\u2019t know. But it\u2019s important to eat this, taste this and find out. The problem is we can\u2019t because both the genome and the data that came out of the research vanished in a cloud of confidential business information and corporate appropriation. The issue here is that if we don\u2019t have the data we\u2019re not doing science. Scient is about verifiability and repeatability. So we need to stop calling the people who don\u2019t give us data scientists. They\u2019re not scientists. They\u2019re just biohackers like me and you. Until they make their data public we should not call them scientists.<\/p>\n

When I spoke with Zack about his work, he stressed the imporance of being able to reach these so-called scientists with our concerns. They are people after all. And they can be reasoned with and persuaded to reconsider their actions. But when their work is challenged destructively, they, like most people, respond with indifference. They just write off the protesters. If however, the protests are targeted at discrediting their work and exposing their inability to anticipate its consequences, they are far more willing to listen. Having scientists on our side, instead of on the corporation\u2019s side, may be the key to preserving control over our food systems.<\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

Bryan Farrell is a freelance journalist in New York and researcher at Rolling Stone magazine. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2010 Waging Nonviolence All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 alternet.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As genetically modified organisms become more prevalent, so do protests against them. In just the past few months, French activists have uprooted GM vines at a research center, Spanish activists have destroyed experimental GM Maize crops, and Haitian farmers have burned Monsanto seeds. But are these destructive direct actions the best form of protest against the rising corporate control of the food system and its very genetic material?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organic-gmo-genetic-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}