The Danger Of A Single Story By Adichie Analysis

The Perceptions of GMOs
With technological advancements in food processing, Genetic Modified Organisms (GMOs) have become encapsulated in the food of millions of Americans. GMOs have been a topic of concern over the last few years due to consumers leaning towards “natural” products (Shen). It has been said by numerous individuals that the various GMOs embedded in the food we consume are bad for your health. GMOs falls under the stigma of a “single story”, whereas a single story is characterized as when humans discuss situations in a single narrative (Brooks). A recent article entitled “Del Monte is Making This Huge Change to its Products” by Lucinda Shen on fortune.com explains how the company Del Monte is moving away from using GMO products.

She concisely elaborates on the limited perspective about a group of people and how the “single story” perspective has harmful effects. Adichie begins the video segment with an anecdote of how when she read English storybooks as a child, she had the impression that stories had to be written about foreigners. When Adichie wrote these stories, she had no idea that the concepts and ideas depicted in her books can be about anything. Adichie referencing this anecdote shows how when a situation is told with good intentions, it still can have unforeseen negative consequences. News articles about GMOs are on the same playing field. The amount of these articles may be told with the best intentions to inform the society of the possible ill effects of GMOs, but these articles have become the basis of the single story depicting GMOs in the public eye. Additionally, Adichie clarifies that the development of these stories creates a single story. Adichie says if you “show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become” (09:26-09:35). Her definition of a single story reflects on what takes place in the minds of individuals who hear or read a single story and accept it as the only conceivable truth. This type of perception has given GMOs a bad identity, as many consumers

Some of the potential health concerns include an allergic reaction, the transfer of genes from GM foods into the human body, and the natural transfer of mixing cultures and seeds from natural crops (Popescu and Nicolescu 54). To put things in perspective, about 80% of processed foods in the U.S. have GMOs (Siegel). The concept of ingesting these GMOs strikes worries in many adults in the United States and across the globe. When it comes to analyzing the seriousness of allergic reactions, there is no evidence of allergic effects related to GM food thus far (Popescu and Nicolescu 54). The likelihood of the transfer of genes from GM foods into the human body is very small but the main risk would involve genes that induce resistance to chemicals such as antibiotics (Popescu and Nicolescu 54). The Fund Food and Agriculture Organization has regulated to not use the processes of gene transfer of antibiotic resistance to new GMOS (Popescu and Nicolescu 54). As far as the natural transfer of mixing cultures and seeds from natural crops, national strategies have been implemented to reduce mixing, and separate the perimeters of GMOs and conventional crops (Popescu and Nicolescu 55). To grasp a better understanding of GMOs, lets analyze the single story of GMOs and how it all began when a biologist by the name of Gilles-Eric Seralini published an article