Letter: Food common sense
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Anyone investigating whether any food is harmful to humans has to give one of only two answers: either potential harm has been found, or it has not been found.
The second answer means the food may or may not be harmful.
If proof that a food is harmless is needed before anyone eats it, we will never have any new foods. The answer is to use judgement and common sense - the qualities that would have told us that feeding animal parts to herbivores was asking for trouble.
If we take this approach, we will accept foods altered to make them taste better, but will reject foods made lethal to insects on the grounds that it is highly likely that some people will, at the very least, be allergic to them, and that they will upset the ecological balance.
Similarly, plants altered to enable them to survive heavy doses of herbicide are liable to have some harmful herbicide residues, and to have serious ecological effects, and should not, in my judgement, be grown or eaten in Britain. However, no one has a monopoly of intuition on these matters.
Dr ERNEST RUDD
York
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments