Today’s post comes from Dr. Larry Kyle, produce manager and founder of Genway, the supermarket for genetically engineered foods.

I love it when people are passionate about their foods, and no group is more passionate than those who get all wound up about genetically modified (GM) products. Every day at the store I’m buttonholed by people who have become irate about what they see (and don’t see) on the shelves. And one of the sharpest and most frequent complaints has to do with labeling – sometimes there is simply no way to tell if a food has been altered in the lab.

At Genway I stand by my promise – everything we sell has been tweaked, massaged, improved, and in some cases completely overhauled as part of a continuing process of unsupervised experimentation. You are our guinea pigs.

And in fact, if you visit the meat counter today, you’ll find choice cuts from Genway’s Giant Guinea Pigs (GGGP) are on special! These succulent animals are the result of a DNA cocktail that brought together the essence of guinea pig, combined with a little bit of farmyard hog, water buffalo and gray whale. The size improvement has been remarkable and far beyond anything anyone ever imagined for a mere guinea pig. They looked so tiny and helpless when, as a child, you kept them in a cage in your room. Now, one flank steak from a Triple G Pig can feed a family of five! Thanks, Butterball!

But seriously, if you are trying to provide for your family with a diet that includes nothing but GM foods, it is sometimes hard to know if you’ve found scientifically altered products. Certain experimenters are not as extravagant as I am and only they make subtle, virtually invisible changes. So you can’t always tell if a tomato in the produce bin has been bettered by someone like me. And why should you waste good money expecting to buy the results of literally weeks of random experimentation, only to wind up eating a fruit that has been touched by nothing more than the unaccountable hand of nature? There’s no drama in that!

By the way, if you’re looking for something that’s shockingly manipulated to add to a showy salad, try Genway’s Transparent Tomatoes! Thanks to the DNA of deep-sea jellyfish, these tomatoes are almost entirely see-through. Presentation is so important. When you serve the salad, it appears that a phantom-like cluster of seeds is hovering over the lettuce. The true nature of the fruit is only revealed when you slather it with dressing!

Where was I? Oh, yes. Labeling, and Our Promise.

When you come to Genway, you can be certain that everything in the store has been interfered with on a truly fundamental level. Right now you’ll have to take my word for it, but someday I hope we can perfect a technology that will make it possible for you to walk around the store and actually quiz individual products about their background. I can’t give you more details at the moment except to say it relies on a truly generous DNA donation from by gabby Aunt Lydia, who is known in the family for her fascination with her own pedigree and a habit of over sharing in the personal details department!

Your Friend in Food,
Dr. Larry Kyle

Dr. Kyle appears to be in touch with a segment of the food-shopping public you don’t often hear about – the GM product fan base. But it stands to reason that if there is a sizable group that believes everything natural is good, there’s a somewhat smaller counter-group that distrusts nature’s unpredictable ways. At least when you eat a Genway Giant Guinea Pig Flank Steak, you know who to blame when random parts of your body start to grow far out of proportion to the rest of you. Though if you’re also eating Genway’s Transparent Tomatoes, you may find that these newly oversized appendages are invisible to the casual observer. Eating equals adventure when you dine on foods from Genway!

What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve eaten?