Cockroach Cubicles Wall Street Journal April 14, 2000. About half of today's office workers take no lunch hour, usually eating at their desks. The Safety of Biotech Foods Recently, food biotechnology has become a hot topic in the United States, with much interest focused on the safety of these foods. This has attracted major attention from media, from consumers, and from activist groups. Food biotechnology uses what we know about genetics to improve food and how we produce it.
Genes are responsible for traits like a person's eye color or a vegetable's taste.
For example, using modern biotechnology, scientists can move genes for valuable traits from one plant or cell into another plant. In the way they can make a plant taste or look better, be more nutritious, protect itself from insects, or produce more food. Farmers will be able to grow more food on less land, scientists will be able to detect plant viruses and bacteria in foods earlier and more accurately than they can now, and we can expect more healthful foods in the future. Results of a survey by the National Council on the Aging show that nearly half of U.S. adults over 50 don't know their BP and that one third of the 50 million with hypertension are unaware that they have the condition. Hypertension can lead to heart disease, stroke, and kidney failure.