GMOs and the Threat to Our Food, Our Land, Our Future
ISBN: 9780399170676
Publisher: PENGUIN
Publication Date: 9/20/2016
Format: Hardcover
My Rating: 4 Stars A disquieting and meditative look at the issue that started the biggest food fight of our time--GMOs. From a journalist and mother who learned that genetically modified corn was the culprit behind what was making her and her child sick, a must-read book for anyone trying to parse the incendiary discussion about genetically modified foods.
GMO products are among the most consumed and the least understood substances in the United States today. They appear not only in the food we eat, but in everything from the interior coating of paper coffee cups and medicines to diapers and toothpaste. We are often completely unaware of their presence.
Caitlin Shetterly discovered the importance of GMOs the hard way. Shortly after she learned that her son had an alarming sensitivity to GMO corn, she was told that she had the same condition, and her family's daily existence changed forever. An expansion of Shetterly's viral Elle article “The Bad Seed,” Modified delves deep into the heart of the matter—from the cornfields of Nebraska to the beekeeping conventions in Brussels—to shine a light on the people, the science, and the corporations behind the food we serve ourselves and our families every day. Deeper than an exposé, and written by a mother and journalist whose journey had no agenda other than to understand the nuance and confusion behind GMOs, Modified is a rare breed of book that will at once make you weep at the majestic beauty of our Great Plains and force you to harvest deep seeds of doubt about the invisible monsters currently infiltrating our food and our land and threatening our future.
About the Author
Caitlin Shetterly is the author of Made for You and Me: Going West, Going Broke, Finding Home (Hyperion, 2011) and is a freelance reporter, writer and contributing producer to National Public Radio where she reports on arts and culture, food, and lifestyle. Shetterly writes regularly for The New York Times and has a column, "This Mom’s Life," on Medium.com, from the creators of Blogger and Twitter, for whom she writes about "raising a family in a high stress, increasingly toxic and dangerous world." She is a regular columnist for Oprah.com--her pieces for Oprah have been syndicated to CNN.com, Yahoo.com and the Huffington Post.
Shetterly’s piece, "The Bad Seed," in the August 2013 issue of Elle Magazine, is the first to make a possible link between GMO corn and the allergy and autoimmune epidemics.
In 2009, Shetterly created a series of autobiographical audio diaries for "Weekend Edition" on NPR about the Great Recession under the title "Diary of a Recession," which went viral. Those audio diaries, along with her blog, Passage West, inspired Made for You and Me. The book was excerpted by The New York Times Magazine in January 2011, featured on American Public Media’s "Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal," NPR, Slate, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and many other publications and blogs. Made for You and Me was selected for a Goodreads "Choice Award" in the category of Best Travel and Outdoor Nonfiction Book of 2011 and was a "Maine Women Write" book club pick in November 2011. MFY&M was the first American book to chronicle the middle class experience with the Great Recession.
Shetterly has been a frequent contributor to the PRI shows "This American Life" and "Studio 360," among others. Her book Fault Lines: Stories of Divorce, an anthology of America’s greatest short stories on the subject of divorce, was published by Putnam/Berkley in 2001 and was an Indie bestseller in January 2002. From 2004-2007 she wrote a bimonthly column, "Bramhall Square," about relationships and love for the Portland Phoenix. A former actor, she is the founder and artistic director of The Winter Harbor Theatre Company. Shetterly graduated from Brown University with Honors in English and American Literature. She shares her life in Maine with her husband, photographer Daniel E. Davis, their young son, Master M., their salty dog, Hopper, and cat, Hemingway. Read More
