No more for me, thanks: A deconstruction of the Egg McMuffin

Who knew? Among other findings at the link:

Among these, the worst offenders [in the preceding list of ingredients] may be:

a) Unbleached wheat flour. Wheat as our grandparents knew it—the four-feet-tall “amber waves of grain”— isn’t the same. For the past 40 years, farmers have been manipulating the gene to grow a crop of two-feet-tall dwarfed wheat that contains gliaden protein, which produces a morphine-like compound that binds to brain receptors and triggers overeating up to 400 extra calories a day! Gliaden has also been linked to inflammatory issues from irritable bowel to heart disease. That’s not all: There’s also wheat gluten, which may cause digestive problems, headaches, brain fog, fatigue, and other symptoms, and amylopectin A, which is responsible for “wheat belly” (you know, the new “muffin top”).

Interesting article, and the genetic modification described in the above paragraph seems a bad one. Unfortunately, the authors seem to suggest that all genetic modifications are bad, and that is absolutely wrong, so far as I’m concerned. For one thing, all domesticated plants and animals have long be genetically modified by breeding programs. Direct genetic manipulation simply is another method. And just as breeding programs can be misused (see some of the grotesque dog varieties bred past the point of good health), so can genetic manipulation—but the contrary is equally true: breeding can be done to improve the breed, and so can genetic manipulation.

At any rate, it’s an interesting article, and I doubt that I’ll be buying any Egg McMuffins.