Ask any kid old enough, and he’ll be the first to tell you that eggplant sucks, along with most leafy greens, tubers, and anything else Ma insists he eat before the dessert course …

… and as all them vegetable-hating kids grew up to be us, we won’t have any compulsion about boycotting genetically engineered eggplant if it means saving a Caddis or two …

(Remember, the Cook doesn’t appreciate tantrums from adults, so if you’re going to insist that pie comes before you eat them veggies, make sure all the impressionable youth is out of earshot.)

India blinked and banned Monsanto eggplant – and now the insecticide equipped “purple tomato” is languishing dockside while everyone else eyeballs the similarly equipped Monsanto GE Corn.

“Bowing to pressure from Monsanto and the other biotech companies, our federal agencies approved Bt corn and cotton without requiring any mandatory testing for environmental impacts. And the expected happened: a few years later, independent university researchers — again not the government — discovered that this Bt pesticide was potentially fatal to Monarch butterflies and other pollinators. After a public outcry, that particular version was taken off the market. But just recently new independent research showed that Bt was also potentially devastating to caddis flies, a major food source for our freshwater fish. Without mandatory government testing, we’re clueless about the universe of keystone pollinators and other species that are being decimated as the Bt plants continue to proliferate in our fields.”

– via the Huffington Post

Which may explain why Iowa is never mentioned as a trophy trout fishery … and why Trout Unlimited is going after your Fritos and Corn Dogs next.

Tags: Trout Unlimited, Fritos, Caddis, genetically engineered, Monsanto, India ban on Bt Eggplant, Huffington Post, Tofu, guide lunch, fly fishing