haven't we been "genetically modifying" our food for thousands of years through the process of artificial selection?
"I have seen great surprise expressed in horticultural works at the wonderful skill of gardeners, in having produced such splendid results from such poor materials; but the art has been simple, and, as far as the final result is concerned, has been followed almost unconsciously. It has consisted in always cultivating the best-known variety, sowing its seeds, and, when a slightly better variety chanced to appear, selecting it, and so onwards. But the gardeners of the classical period who cultivated the best pears which they could procure, never thought what splendid fruit we should eat; though we owe our excellent fruit in some small degree, to their having naturally chosen and preserved the best varieties they could anywhere find.
"A large amount of change, thus slowly and unconsciously accumulated, explains, as I believe, the well-known fact, that in a number of cases we cannot recognize, and therefore do not know, the wild parent-stocks of the plants which have been longest cultivated in our flower and kitchen gardens..." --Charles Darwin
see also Jared Diamond,
How to Make an Almond, in "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
