MODIFIED
Spellbinding and devastating, soulful and startling, Modified opens the door, in prose that is both beautiful and clear, to the provocative conversation about genetic modification and the irreversible damage it may be causing. A mustread for those on both sides of the debate and anywhere in between..
After she was diagnosed with a sensitivity to genetically modified corn—and discovered that her toddler son was suffering from the same condition—Caitlin Shetterly set out to ask these questions.
The answers, and her hard-fought journey to learn them, are here in Modified, a disquieting and meditative window into GMOs and how they are modifying not only the food we eat and our landscape, but our entire ecosystem.
Modified delves deep into the heart of the matter, from the corn and soy fields that blanket Nebraska to a beekeeping convention in Belgium to research labs in California, and shines a light on the farmers, scientists, politicians, activists, and corporations all wrestling over a most essential question: Are GMOs safe? This is a rare breed of book that will make you nostalgic for the majestic beauty that America’s Great Plains once held, while at the same time forcing you to harvest deep seeds of doubt about the invisible monsters that come to us in the foods we feed ourselves and our families.
Spellbinding and devastating, soulful and startling, Modified opens the door, in prose that is both beautiful and clear, to the provocative conversation about genetic modification and the irreversible damage it may be causing. A mustread for those on both sides of the debate and anywhere in between..
PRAISE
“Caitlin Shetterly has written a passionate, provocative book that undoubtedly will be studied and scrutinized for the history it presents, and the stand it takes. It offers us Shetterly’s own intimate journey, sparked by personal desperation and real curiosity. And like the best of books, it mixes the domestic with the global, the scientific with the quixotic in an attempt to understand the dangers of the food we eat. Intrepid, urgent, prescriptive, and ultimately revelatory, Modified is important for our times.”
“Modified is the intriguing and compelling story of one woman’s brave pursuit of her own health—and the facts about the food we eat. A thoroughly consuming read.”
“Shetterly’s accessible, well-researched, and damning work brings clarity to an often fuzzy debate.”
“Shetterly adroitly raises a plethora of questions about the purported safety and benefits of genetically modified crops. GMOs may turn out to be fine, but very little independent research has been conducted, and the industry remains hostile to transparency.”
“More so than definitive answers, the questions that Shetterly advances are a persuasive reminder of how important the continued fight for true transparency in the food industry is”
“Caitlin Shetterly’s powerful new book, Modified, through dogged research and with the fierce determination of a mother, exposes, in elegant prose, the wholesale genetic modification of our food supply. Her personal odyssey pursuing the truth, colored with clear scientific and historical context, is a clarion call about the dangers of corporate control of our food supply and, importantly, what people can do about it.”
“Sometimes people ask me why activists oppose GMO crops. This book by Caitlin Shetterly, both personal and provocative, provides as clear and detailed an answer as I’ve seen. No matter your take on this issue, you’ll want to read and consider Modified”
“[Shetterly’s] passionate advocacy, combined with descriptions of multiple research studies and interviews with scientists, doctors, and farmers, makes a compelling case that consumers worldwide need more education on this important issue.”
“Intensely personal…a compelling case that consumers worldwide need more education on this important issue.”
“[E]ye-opening…. Modified is [Shetterly’s] passionate and rather horrifying account of what is happening in the heartland and to our food supply.”
PRIZES AND AWARDS
Caitlin Shetterly received a grant from the Maine Arts Commission to do research for Modified.
AUTHOR’S PROCESS
Dear Friends,
A little over five and a half years ago, I began writing my way out of a box. I was sick with a mysterious collection of symptoms that stumped every doctor I saw. The words I was putting down at the time were my attempt to try to understand what was happening. Here's a photo of my first notebook:
Eventually, I met an immunologist who told me to stop eating GMOs. I did what he said, and, miraculously, got better. But the skeptic inside me needed to learn more about why. I read hundreds of scientific studies and interviewed close to a hundred scientists, doctors, farmers, mothers, activists, and anyone else who would talk to me. I filled banana box after banana box with notes, studies and articles.
My first notebook
Finally, two and a half years in, there was a glimmer that I was starting to get somewhere: I got an article published in Elle about my illness and about the complicated issues surrounding GMOs. In the wake of that piece, Big Ag attacked me and at the same time, book editors wanted to talk to me. I chose one: A lovely young woman at Putnam. And I took off into the research — traveling across the Great Plains, Europe and to California.
It all took a long time and there was a pregnancy (and nine months of nausea), a new baby boy, and somehow, along the way, many many drafts.
Finally, Mother's Day weekend last spring a box arrived full of ARCs--advance reader copies. The book was close to being done.
And now, today, on September 20th, 2016, it's finally a real book! It's been such a huge journey. And I am so grateful to share it with you.
Of course I didn't let my son draw a gun!
For a few months in the winter of 2015-16, my older son and I sat at the dining room table together in the afternoons and made drawings for my book. Here are some of the ones we kept. For each one, he did one and I did one. I will never forget doing this together; it was so special. And he is so proud that my editor, Kerri, asked to put one of his drawings in the book, too.
AUDIO
Listen to some audio from the interviews for Modified.
SELECTED INTERVIEWS
The Bad Seed
With symptoms including headaches, nausea, rashes, and fatigue, Caitlin Shetterly visited doctor after doctor searching for a cure for what ailed her. What she found, after years of misery and bafflement was as unlikely as it was utterly common...
After The Bad Seed ran, Big Ag attacked Caitlin. Here was Elle's response:
GMO-pen for Debate: PW Talks with Caitlin Shetterly, Publisher's Weekly
Mainer Caitlin Shetterly takes on the topic of GMOs in new book, Modified, Portland Press Herald
Want to raise green children? Start by skipping all that unnecessary plastic stuff, Portland Press Herald
GMOs, Maine Calling (Audio)
An Argument Against GMOs, the "Invisible Monsters" in our Lives, WNYC
