It’s important to remember that virtually all of the domestic plant foods the world depends upon for survival are products of deliberate genetic alteration. Included are hardier grains, larger fruits, and pest-resistant vegetables enjoyed everywhere. For example, about 90% of wheat now grown in the world called “hexaploid” is not a naturally occurring variety. Rather, it is the result of selective cross-breeding of many varieties developed over the millennia. In early times wheat cultivated in the Levant around 10000 B.C. was merged with a grass (“Aegilops tauschii,” or “goatgrass”) developed near the Caspian Sea around 2000 B.C., ultimately leading what we now refer to as “bread wheat.”