Genetics, Food, Humans, and Speculative Thinking
“Detox”? “Cleanse”?
I imagine my relationship with food in the future in the context of a society that has stopped harming the environment. In this future, humanity has solved its sustainability issues and moved on to cleaning up and reversing the damage that had previously been inflicted. In the context of food, I imagine that we could use other organisms to help with this cleaning process and ultimately eat them. By including our pollutants and waste in the food web, we can reintegrate them back into the self-perpetuating cycle of nature. Eating the organisms that do this work could create another function for them, as well as a food source for us. These organisms would, of course, be genetically engineered in order to ensure that they are safe to eat. My idea is to present an entire meal based on this concept. The food serves as a metaphor for swallowing and ingesting our mistakes, purifying the environment through the act of eating. It also represents our reintroduction, just like our toxins, into the rest of nature.
