IGMO?

What is Indirect Genetically Modified Organisms?  Well, it is a term I just invented, but it is a process that was invented millenia ago.  Nearly all of the food that we eat is, technically, genetically modified.  Now, the term GMO, used in a legal sense, means an organism that is the consequence of directly manipulating the DNA of another organism.  Most GMO used currently modifies plants to make them resistant to strong herbicides, so that the herbicides can be used to kill potentially harmful weeds without harming the main crop.  The main argument against direct genetic modification is that the consequences of directly altering DNA are not well understood.  In theory, it is possible that a single very minor change to DNA could cause the production of a toxic substance in a plant or animal, that could make it unfit for human consumption.  While there are regulations in place requiring extensive testing, it is impossible to comprehensively test to ensure that nothing harmful is being distributed to the public.

Indirect Genetically Modified Organisms use a less intrusive method for altering DNA.  In fact, when the process was invented, DNA had not even been discovered.  Today we call this process "selective breeding" or "animal husbandry."  It takes advantage of the ideas behind natural selection to modify an organism to be what we want or need.  This takes longer than direct genetic modification, but it is also more reliable and predictable.  The interesting part is, nearly everything we eat is IGMO!  Cows, pigs, and chickens did not magically start out as domesticated farm animals.  Non-IGMO turkeys are scrawny, with tough meat.  There is evidence that wheat did not even start out as a grain (it would have been similar to amaranth and other pseudo-grains).  In fact, it is possible that the true grains in general are entirely man made.  Similarly, most vegetables and fruits we eat are the result of thousands of years of IGMO.

Is there anything we eat that is not IGMO?  Probably.  Most foods that are not deliberately cultivated by man are probably not IGMO, though it is almost certain that we have had some impact on them (through our impact on the environment).  Most fish are probably not IGMO, though, we do not know if previous civilizations might have practiced some kind of selective breeding with fish that were then let back into the wild.  Also, some fungi, like truffles, are still gathered in the wild, which means that they are probably not IGMO either (it is possible, however, that liberal gathering of easily visible truffles may have unintentionally caused genetic selections that resulted in making them extremely difficult to find; that said, pigs like truffles too, so it is equally likely that wild pigs caused this trait).

I would say that it is almost certain that man has had some kind of genetic influence on pretty much all food that we eat.  I would not use the term IGMO to refer to foods that have not been intentionally modified though.  So foods that have only been genetically modified as a side effect of our environmental impact or gathering patterns would not be IGMO, but foods that we have deliberately selected for specific traits would be IGMO.

Anyhow, the point of all of this is: There is very little food that we eat that has not been deliberately genetically modified by humans.  The means of genetic modification are varied, and it is possible that some are safer than others, but it is all still genetic modification.  I am not saying that we should not be skeptical of direct genetic modification used in the food industry, and there are plenty of reasons to oppose it besides potential toxin risk (for instance, some U.S. companies donate GMO seeds to 3rd world farmers to get them dependent on the better growth properties of the seeds, then stop donating and use patent law to extort money out them).  What I am saying is, fearing GMO for its own sake is absurd, because nearly everything we eat is some kind of GMO.