“It’s not always rainbows and butterflies, it’s compromise that moves us along” Maroon 5, She Will Be Loved Megan, Gizan, Samantha, Lauren, Brian

The song lyrics we chose might be a little confusing if no prior knowledge of organic and GM foods is known. The lyrics, “It’s not always rainbows and butterflies, it’s compromise that moves us along” from the Maroon 5 song She Will be Loved symbolizes first of the difficulty in growing both GM and organic foods. Take organic apples for instance, there are so many steps that go into growing them. The first step being selecting the varieties that are inherently disease resistant, followed by choosing the variety (within the varieties that are disease resistant) of apple that produces the best flavor. Thirdly, you must select a rootstock; recommended is a tree no taller than you can reach. Then you must thin your apples within days of fruit set. Lastly to ensure no pesticides get onto the apples you must paper bag them. This is usually done days after the blossoms drop. But why go through all of this trouble? The reason is because more and more people are switching to more organically grown food. This is due to the amount of pesticide sprays and toxins that they spray on the food when it is not grown organically. The food that they thought was natural and safe is actually riddled with chemicals that they don’t know about. The sprays used for these fruits that are not grown organically do not guarantee that there will won’t be any pesticides, and therefore people believe that growing or buying organic fruits such as apples might carry less diseases without being covered in numerous chemicals.

So this is where the “compromise” in the quote becomes relevant. When comparing organic and genetically modified food, organic takes a lot more time and patience to grow because of the procedures you must take to make sure the food doesn't’t get infected with pesticides or other diseases. While looking at GM foods they do not need as much care and nurture while being grown because of the chemicals they are exposed to. This process happens in an abundance of food such as corn. Corn is genetically modified for a variety of reasons, most importantly to farmers is that their crop isn't destroyed by insects before it reaches maturation. To prevent this, the gene Bt delta endotoxin is put into the corn. Once in the corn, it won't do anything to make it grow at a more rapid rate and the FDA claims that it is safe for humans to consume. It is only harmful to the caterpillar who wants to consume it and once they do it will slowly kill the caterpillars. Once killing off the caterpillars it will allow the corn to grow to full maturation. So overall producing both organic and GM foods is not always easy or “rainbows and butterflies” but both give us benefits non-the-less. Each has its “compromises” when growing them but again they each have their rewards as well.

References How to grow no-spray organic apples. (2011, September 2). Retrieved March 24, 2014, from Vegetable Gardener website: /how-to-grow-no-spray-organic-apples/page/allhttp:// Organic Foods:Are they safer? More nutritious? (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2014, from Mayo Clinic website: healthy-eating/in-depth/organic-food/art questions on GM foods. (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2014, from World Health Organization website: questions/en/