Five Foods That Should Be Genetically Modified

Some people are quite excited for the advent of "frankenfoods."

​The recent news that the FDA is close to approving salmon genetically engineered to grow faster might inspire concern -- or even anger -- about what we are doing to our food systems and environment. On the other hand, it might inspire awe at what science can achieve. Or it might inspire a little bit of both?

At Gut Check International Headquarters, however, it inspired a simple question: Why the hell can't scientists can't genetically engineer food to meet some practical demands of everyday people.

Thus, we present our list of five foods that should be genetically modified.

Image via

​Asparagus That Doesn't Make Your Pee Stink

In Gabriel García Márquez's masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of the main characters is obsessed with the smell that asparagus gives his urine. I shouldn't even have to mention that this is a work not only of fiction, but of magic realism as well. Because no one in the real world wants to smell the foul stench that the otherwise delicious asparagus imparts on pee -- especially when it is the day after you ate some asparagus, and your pee still smells like a carton of already-rotten eggs left outside in the middle of a heat wave.

Image via

​Corn That Doesn't Have Silk

We don't mind husking corn. It brings us a strange sort of satisfaction. But getting all that damn silk out of the corn is another matter entirely. Surely not all the scientists in the world are in bed with the makers of dental floss, right?