We eat food every day but what really in it? In the book Dinner at the New Gene Café by Bill Lambrecht, it explains what food as become after genetic engineering. This book also explains what genetically modified food has done to the farms, the stores, the environment, and it even affected other countries.
A good question to ask is why did he write this book? One good reason why he did was because of his history. He was a journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and as a journalist one has the task to inform people what is happening. He basically wrote this book to inform people about genetic modification of foods. Bill was following this and then for a while he stopped and started writing about other things. “With most of America, I paid little attention when the genetic engineers turned their magic to our daily bread,” said Bill. After that he made this book which was very affective and very informative. He did reach his goal of informing people. The structure also makes it easier to inform people. The book is divided into four parts in which each part is different. For example, one part talks about farming while another talks about genetic engineering in other countries and so on. Another thing about structure is that within the book there are eleven sections that are different from the book. They talk about Bill’s own experiment. The experiment was that he planted genetically modified soy beans and other plants to observe them. That is a different structure from other books but it does help it.
The book starts of by a quick introduction were it explains that most of our food is genetically modified. Then after that it talks about how genetic engineering affects farms and farmers. It talks about how farmers are losing their jobs thanks to the genetic engineered seeds and things like that. A farmer Bill interviewed said this “Did you know that there are more people behind bars in this country than farmers working the land?” Once it is done talking about farms it then talks about genetic engineering in other countries and how some of them started modifying their crops too. The book basically talks about genetic engineering in our food but what makes it real is its credibility. Credibility is essential in books and this book has it. Because the author is a journalist he will work for the real story. The book has a lot of primary sources like interviews and things like that. There are also good reviews out there for the book. The only bad part is that it sounds a little bias against genetically modified foods. Every book has at least one error and that was this book’s.
One of the cool things about this book is that it is write in first person so it sounds like a story. So when he is interviewing a person you actually see yourself in there with them. When he telling his story it was like a mini story in each part of the book. I suggest you read it. I enjoyed the book and it went well with my topic. The only thing was that I wanted to learn more about genetic engineering children but this book did not have it. My favorite part was when Bill interviews the farmer because you learn things about people and the way they react to certain situations. If you want to learn more about what you eat, then you need to read this book. Just keep in mind that we are what we eat.
