That being said, I believe GMO food is the future. It's safe and environmentally friendly: we can use far less land and water to produce larger amounts of crops.
I also believe in the promise of GMO food. Unfortunately the business practices of the main players get wrapped in with junk science for many in the anti-GMO crowed. It becomes an involved process to convince someone I don't think that someone's business practices are ethical while I admire the science they do, and isn't always received well.
And at the end, what's the point? Regulate what you actually care about in the food, not what process was taken to get there.
They don't get worse. The antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" are not actually super in any other way. They just have a resistance to antibiotics. In other ways, they are just normal bugs, not super.
Just like vaccinations make people immune to certain diseases, but doesn't give us any other superpowers.
It's a hypothetical and a strained one at that, but all I'm saying is there are often long term consequences to short term gains that may not be considered in a prisoners' dillema ecological/economic scenario.
I'm not convinced market forces alone would be able to actually fix problems of this nature, but I'm inclined to consumer education over under labeling as a component in the mix.
Also, pest insects are not parasites. They're just insects that like to eat tomatoes, just like we do. Eating food is not parasitism.
The apple case is about modifying the levels of an enzyme, polyphenol oxidase [1]. But that is not what plant-eaters are interested in. They're interested in the food in an apple, not some enzyme levels.
I fear that with GMO we're going to go much farther and more quickly in that direction than we've been able so far using only "traditional" selective breeding. And that's already had a big impact on fruits and vegetable which have now less vitamins and minerals than varieties that used to be grown a few decades ago.
"Brown" is a sign of aging. And generally, fruit and vegetable nutritional content declines with aging.
So, by hindering these apples' browning, is this essentially facilitating their selling us a less nutritious product?
There is nothing in GMO technology that prevents making an unsafe or environmentally unfriendly GMO food.
It's just a tool, one that gives food makers power to produce a wider variety of new foods more rapidly than they could with non-GMO techniques. Whether they use it to produce safe foods or dangerous foods is up to each food maker.
To get good carrots, make sure you are digging/disturbing at least 8 inches of soil so that the carrots can easily grow downwards. Otherwise, when they face resistance, they will fatten and sprout other carrot limbs, etc.