New Criticals

What do we eat? This question seems to be popping up everywhere, from debates about GMOs, to position papers about food scarcity, campaigns against global hunger, economic forecasts, and above all the dinner table. The response is a complicated one, and it increasingly seems to be a more complex one. The easy response is that politics matter, and not only your personal politics, but those of the people even presenting the question.

Journalists around the world are now trying to respond to the question in different ways, they all say, the answers are out there. But perhaps the most difficult thing for the reader is knowing who to trust? The NY Times recently released an article titled Food, Genes and the Feeling of Risk to introduce the conversation of GMOs in a new light. In the coverage, it is possible to read between lines, and see that politics matter. Those politics are not just in the usual left vs right continuum, but also how questions are asked, what information is included and what issues are highlighted. So informing oneself is no easy task and certainly to try to simplify a complex conversation will just serve to again play into such politics.