Kevin Klatt, PhD, RD

I originally discussed the need for nutrition professionals to enter the genetic engineering (GE) conversation/GMO debates on the American Society for Nutrition’s (ASN) blog . Neither the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) nor ASN has an official position stance on the science, safety and application of GE foods. I find it highly problematic that these major nutrition professional bodies have not provided any guidance on this controversial issue for their constituents and, ultimately, the public. Call me crazy, but one might think that a professional body representing nutrition might engage in a controversial discussion regarding food... With their absence, I have seen many representing the broader nutrition field and spreading fear about genetic engineering, hardly from an evidence-based perspective. I discussed some general ways to approach genetic engineering, touching on problems related to overly broad conversations, safety and corporations , i n part one of this series .

I recently wrote a piece for the American Society for Nutrition's blog titled " Tardy to the Party ,” addressing the relative absence of nutrition organizations in the genetic engineering (GE) conversation. I wanted to write an accompanying piece here, that's a bit longer, to explain my thoughts on GE, to try to address some of the concerns people have with GE foods, and, most importantly, to discuss some of the reasons why I feel nutritionists should be more vested in the conversation around GE. I split the post into two parts: The first establishes a common language to ground the discussion (largely presenting the way that I personally think about GE); the second will focus on why those in the field of nutrition should take a vested interest in entering the GE debate. Here we go: 1. We need to ditch the term 'GMOs' and learn about 'conventional' breeding . The popular conversation that occurs throughout the media often uses the term ‘geneticall