Eating in the Dark: America's Experiment with Genetically Engineered Food [Hardcover]

Kathleen Hart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2002

Most Americans eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. Yet many of us are barely aware that we’re eating something that has been altered; food labels do not include information on ingredients that have been genetically modified, and the subject has received surprisingly little media coverage.

Even as genetically engineered foods spread throughout America, most consumers abroad have refused to eat them. Opposition to genetically engineered food is now beginning to surface in the United States, where biotechnology is becoming a major issue for the new century.

Eating in the Dark tells the story of how these new foods, most of which are engineered either to produce or to withstand heavy doses of pesticides, quietly entered America’s food supply. Kathleen Hart explores the potential of this new technology to enhance nutrition and cut farmers’ expenses. She also reveals the process by which regulatory agencies decided to allow the biotechnology industry to sell its products without first submitting them to thorough testing for possible long-term threats to consumer health and the environment.

Hart has talked to scientists, farmers, industry members, and activists, and she has gained unprecedented access to the inner chambers of the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration, where the crucial decisions have been made to allow these foods into our stores. Combining a balanced perspective with a sense of urgency, Eating in the Dark is a revelatory guide to a subject of paramount importance.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Genetically modified food is in the news and on our plates. And while consumers may not have known they were being used as lab rats, America's uncontrolled experiment with such "inventions" as StarLink corn, with its built-in insecticide, is already well under way. In Eating in the Dark, environmental journalist Kathleen Hart examines the battles being fought in boardrooms, grocery stores, and government agencies over the creation, distribution, and regulation of genetically engineered organisms. The truth is quite disturbing. Companies like Monsanto began releasing modified seeds to farmers in the 1990s, but consumers weren't informed. From baby formula made from engineered soybeans to taco shells that cause dangerous allergy attacks, the stories here are well-researched and frightening. Hart accuses the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of aiding and abetting what she calls a public health "nightmare," and she calls for both intense research and strong legislation as a way of getting the experiment under control. --Therese Littleton

From Publishers Weekly

If we are what we eat, then we may be ingesting our way toward a sick new world: that's the gist of Hart's cautionary examination of how "Frankenstein food" genetically modified food, particularly corn- and soy-based products has come to fill grocery store shelves in the past decade. Hart, a health and environment writer for 15 years, is aghast that produce modified by biotech companies is not labeled. She is bewildered that consumer resistance has been much slower to develop in the United States than in Japan and in Europe, where test fields of modified sugar beets and oilseed have been destroyed by scythe-wielding "croppers." She worries about the impact of altered plants on pollinating bees and butterflies, and she fears the long-term health consequences of an uninformed and unsuspecting population becoming guinea pigs for an untested agricultural technology. For all her concerns, however, Hart is no one-note alarmist; the book is admirable for its exhaustive, balanced presentation and in its grasp of the science and the politics propelling the biotech industry. Some readers may find it a little dry. There are scattered colorful quotes from British protestors and angry American farmers, and there's the tale of a San Francisco woman who may have had a life-threatening allergic reaction to modified corn, but otherwise Hart's book is short on human-interest hooks and the storytelling punch carried by last fall's less fact-laden but more sprightly Lords of the Harvest, by Daniel Charles.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (May 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375420703
• ISBN-13: 978-0375420702
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,882,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunner that will have you eyeing groceries in a new way.., December 20, 2002

By 

L. Pazzaglia "virtualitalia" (San Mateo, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eating in the Dark: America's Experiment with Genetically Engineered Food (Hardcover)

This book is an excellent introduction to anyone looking to learn more about genetically modifyed food. I asked my husband what he thought of genetically modifyed food, he answered that "It's good isn't it? Aren't they developing food with more vitamins that will grow with fewer pesticiedes?" This would have been my answer had I not read this book. According to the author, and this reviewer, the American public doesn't realize that they're eating genetically modyfied food NOW. It's in your "Betty Croker" mix and in a bag of potatoes, it's in your polenta corn meal mix and milk. This author carefully chronicles how the EPA, FDA and USDA have failed to inform the public of this change in our food chain and worse -- the have utterly and completely failed to ensure that it's safe to both eat and grow despite public opinion to the contrary. While other industirlized nations (European Union, Japan, etc.) have instituted lableing the US has not. The documented disregard for the public's safety will have you wondering who's money is in who's pocket and exposes the biggest loophole in federal regulation.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily alarming, September 21, 2002

By 

Johanna H. Brown (Seattle WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eating in the Dark: America's Experiment with Genetically Engineered Food (Hardcover)

This book is frightening. Bioengineered food is mixed into everything we eat, and, while it may be harmless to humans and the environment (though tests and "gene pollution" of the environment indicate otherwise), the huge chemical companies who created the genetically engineered crops persuaded the FDA, USDA, and the EPA to let them put the products on the market without fully testing the foods. The European Union, Japan, and, well, essentially every other country in the world refuses to import bioengineered food from the USA - and after reading this book, you'll understand why.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Be very, very afraid, September 26, 2003

By 

Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eating in the Dark: America's Experiment with Genetically Engineered Food (Paperback)

Kathleen Hart's "Eating in the Dark" documents how genetically engineered (GE) foods have been widely introduced without the American public's knowledge or consent. As such, the book is a sobering story of deeply-entrenched corporate interests and the trampling of consumer rights.

Ms. Hart is an experienced journalist who has done an excellent job documenting the activities of the biotech industry and its opponents. The author shows that much of the so-called debate that has played out in the media has been mostly pro-industry propaganda and public relations, with most Americans remaining blissfully unaware of the risks they may be taking by eating GE food products. This contrasts sharply with Europe, Japan and elsewhere, where the public has prevailed upon their representatives to enact labeling laws and keep most biotech food out of their countries.

Ms. Hart discusses scientific studies that are critical of GE products to make the case that more study is needed before approval is granted. The protestations from the biotech industry that these studies represent "junk science" are beside the point. It is not unreasonable to demand that radical food products -- such as potatoes and corn that produce their own pesticides -- are thoroughly tested before being released into the environment; this would seem especially true when one considers that there is absolutely no nutritional benefit for the consumers who ingest these products. But of course a strict regime of testing does not serve the interests of capital, which must recoup its investment and earn profits as quickly as possible. Hence the pressure on U.S. government agencies filled with powerful ex-industry executives to hastily approve these dubious products for sale.

Ms. Hart provides abundant evidence that consumers and environmentalists should be very, very afraid of the captains of biotech and their products; their penchant for mischief could hardly be imagined by the most talented writers of fiction. For example, Monsanto's aborted "terminator" seed project threatened to introduce crops that would produce sterile seeds in a corporate scheme that would have made the world almost totally dependent on its products for the maintenance of the food supply. Another example is "bio-pharming", which is the insane idea of using food crops to grow pharmaceutical products in an open-air environment. Unfortunately, bio-pharming could result in cross-pollination with native plants and might ultimately ruin staples that humanity has depended on for thousands of years. Ms. Hart makes it clear that such risks are totally unnecessary and deserves much greater attention from the public if we are to avert disaster in the future.

On the positive side, the book helps us understand that the new science of genomics might render GE techniques obsolete, providing researchers with tools that merely enhance age-old plant breeding practices and deliver on the promise of more healthy and nutritious foods. Let's hope that this is the case. But in the meantime, the evidence presented in this book suggests that GE products should be labeled and the industry regulated much more closely than it is today, if not banned outright.

I strongly encourage everyone to read this book.