Chuck, Americans, as citizens of one of the earliest nations to be highly
industrialized with the great majority of its citizens not working on or near
the farm, have long lost contact with the production of food . Now we are
losing contact with the raw product itself. Reading Alden Manchester's studies
and other highly informative research by other astute observers of the way of
American eating, one fact really jumps out. Over half of our food consumption
now comes from restaurants or other outlets for prepared food. Even in grocery
stores, more and more of the food purchased is not the raw product, but a
processed form of it. I kiddingly laughed at the cut onions and other
vegetables being sold at my local supermarket and wondered aloud who would pay
the extra money to save a few seconds. The manager countered that such
conveniences were hot items. At this store at least, the space devoted to the
raw product is declining to provide for more space for the increasing demand for
the processed versions.
Hence, the concept of GMO or otherwise modified raw food strikes less and less a
chord in Americans because fewer Americans buy the raw ingredient that may or
may not be labelled. If you get "food" processed, and buy according to how it
looks process -- at least one step removed from the thing that once resembled
the plant--, it does not matter to you what the raw product was. Of more
importance to you is the processing or what was added or removed in processing.