Frankenkosher

By Dara Colwell, Metro Silicon Valley. Posted March 6, 2001.

In ancient Israel, farmers brought offerings of wheat, barley, figs, pomegranates and olives to the Temple in Jerusalem. "Food is a source of connection provided by God," says Ramona Rubin, a soft-spoken environmental educator. "It's the manna that sustains; in that sense, the table is the altar."

Rubin is trying to educate Jewish consumers on what she considers to be a serious recent threat to their health and to their faith: the dangers of consuming genetically engineered food. The former cultural ecology student represents a growing number of people within the Jewish community who have religious objections to genetically engineered food. Their concerns are driving a national debate over what stance Jews should take.

"GE contradicts the spirit of creation -- there are definite reasons for concern," she says.

Gene Genies

Genetic engineering, commonly known as GE, is the practice of altering the genetic blueprints of plants and animals to create new varieties of foods and seeds. In the United States, over 60 million acres of GE crops are being cultivated, including 40 percent of the nation's soybean crop and 25 percent of its corn. As much as 70 percent of the processed food currently found in American supermarkets -- including infant formula, corn chips, margarine, ice cream and ready-made meals -- contains genetically engineered ingredients. (In Europe, government officials have largely rejected biotechnology's introduction into their nation's food supply.)

Genetic engineering works like this: Genes from nonrelated species, such as insect, fish or human genes, are inserted into those of plants to enhance growth rates or reduce the susceptibility of crops to damage from frost or pests. GE producers have stressed its incredible potential for improving crop yields by making plants more resistant to pests and disease. In 1992, the Food and Drug Administration declared that genetically engineered foods would not be treated differently from naturally produced foods -- no additional safety tests, no regulatory restraints and no labeling requirements.

Multinational corporations such as Monsanto and Novartis have since invested billions of dollars in creating and marketing new crops. Swiss-based Novartis has poured $25 million into the University of California at Berkeley for plant research. While those concerned with biotech's ethical and environmental implications -- such as environmentalists and those within the religious community -- have begun to question its safety, professor Andrew Jackson, chair of the university's department of plant and microbial biology, feels the public lacks the scientific background to understand biotech. "Scientists haven't been able to educate the public as well as they would like," he says. "There are risks and benefits in everything you choose to do. When it comes to food technology, I think it has been difficult for [scientists] to get their point across."

Genetically Kosher?

Initially, within the Jewish community, GE and the issue of kashrut -- whether or not something is kosher -- was a great concern. Would something such as a vegetable spliced with pig genes remain kosher? Although a number of mainstream groups, including the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism and the Cornell Kosher Food Initiative, have since ruled that GE foods are, indeed, kosher -- due to the genes being so small as to be "trivial" by kosher law, religious objections still persist.

"In the Torah, there's the idea of the sanctity of boundaries between species," Rubin says, referring to the passage in Leviticus 19:19 that states, "You shall not let your cattle mate with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed." Rubin explains that the difference between breeding -- a natural selection process between like species -- and genetic engineering -- the deliberate insertion of genes between dissimilar species and one that would never occur in nature -- is great. "We are supposed to protect these different types of creatures that have evolved," she says, "not dilute their genetic materials through random interaction."

Other theological objections lie in the Torah's commandments -- or mitzvot -- to take care of the natural world, respect its integrity and ultimately, to refrain from playing God. "The injunction at the beginning of Genesis where the world is given to Adam and he is told to subdue it -- in that sense it is our obligation to make the world a better place," says orthodox Rabbi Jacob Traub. "The people involved in bioengineering probably feel they are making the world better -- they are taking corn that normally feeds four and feeding 400. Who's to say they're not doing God's work? On the other hand, we're possibly fooling around with Frankenstein."

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