“People are pretty OK with using biotech or genetic modification or even gene editing on things that they don’t eat,” says Rutgers University psychologist William Hallman, who studies attitudes toward GMOs. “Food is fundamentally different. What happens to food is personal and cultural and symbolic in ways that lots of other things aren’t.”
That debate still rages around GMOs after 30 years and hasn’t abated points to the centrality of food in our culture and the high emotional stakes involved in the battle.
In Hallman’s estimate, the debate will likely continue for years to come. “Each side has their view; each side has something of a point. So the question is, Where do we come out so we’re not we’re not standing in the way of creating products that are really beneficial to human beings and to the environment, while still giving people the ability to choose what it is that they want to eat?” he says.
