Dear Mr. or Madam President,

What is good food? In the past it meant any item which fulfills an area on the food pyramid. We never looked further beyond our dinner than taste. However, over time taste has begun to deceive us; there are changes which lie in the DNA structure of foods that we cannot see, nor taste. Since the beginning of mankind, humans have been capable of deception, but nature has always stayed honest. It was only when humans began to tamper with the nature of nature that we were put in danger. It is as if with every new generation we feel the need to offer new superfoods. But how “super” is it to feed and be fed foods whose genes have been crossed with those of another? Many may call this harmless, even beneficial. “The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states that farmers can grow more food on less land with genetically modified crops.”1 Regardless, the harm caused by Genetically Modified foods is far too great to bury beneath these feeble advantages. How can a thing so allegedly innocent be partially to totally banned in twenty-six countries? How can a thing so “healthy” kill neighboring non- modified crops when grown? We are left in the unknown when it comes to the alterations which lie veiled beneath an unsuspicious surface. “The Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy also lists some of the controversies associated with genetically modified foods. One of these controversies are the potential health risks, including allergies, antibiotic resistance, and unknown effects”.1 Can we sleep comfortably being unaware of the long-term effects of our nutrition? Can we be sure it can be called nutrition if the definition of nutrition is: the process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health and growth? Health has become more than just eating foods which have been labeled as healthy. Health has become a struggle of deciphering if labeled healthy foods are truly what they claim to be— conducive to, or promoting good health. Can we be sure that GMO foods are benefitting us. No. I ask you: would you believe the authenticity of a student’s good grades if you discovered that they did all of their own grading? So how can we trust the food companies providing us with these altered foods, promising the public they are safe, when they do their own testing for their products? I urge you, Mr./ Madame president of the United States—who is responsible for doing what is best for the well-being of the people who reside here—to reevaluate the purpose for endorsing an industry which has decided to rework the delicate system of mother nature. An entity who has provided for us long before we decided that we needed to change a system which already worked.

1) Vaesa, Janelle. "GMOs: Benefits and Negative Effects of Genetically Modified Food." Decoded Science. N.p., 19 July 2013. Web. 30 Oct. 2016.