Thoughts about modified food - part 1

Yes, I am interested in topics related to modified food because I am a foodie.  I like to eat, and I like to know the what/where/how of the food I eat.  You could say I was first exposed to the concept of food modification when I was still a teenager, during biology class, when the teacher mentioned 'parthenocarpy'.  Honestly, it never really made an impact until recent years.

Personally, a fruit or vegetable has been modified as long as a human being dabbled with the food either via hormones, grafting and/or genetic engineering. 

Before I continue, let me say that I am not a plant biotechnologist like this professor who is "on the scientific advisory board of Mendel Biotechnology, a company that counts Monsanto as their most important customer and collaborator."  I am not a journalist, I don't own shares of some organic green company.  I am just a foodie who has questions about and I want to find out the answers.  I am also a blogger with a full-time job (not related to food) and blogging is just a hobby.  Therefore, I will probably just skim the surface of this topic on modified food.  So, let's begin...

According to Wikipedia, parthenocarpy is "the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilization of ovules."(1)  Therefore, the "natural" part of the definitions means you get seedless fruits and vegetables in nature.  Mother Nature is the scientist here.  Horticulturists just take advantage of that by cultivating and propagating these seedless varietals via grafting (2).  Therefore, not all seedless fruits and vegetables have gone through artificial parthenocarpy.

Artificial parthenocarpy is the "artificially induced production" part by using hormones/phytohormones such as gibberellin, auxin or cytokinin (1).  I wonder if eating produce that have been produced via the use of phytohormones will mess with our bodies' hormones?  I don't know but guess what?

• Gibberellin was used to produce Thompson seedless grapes in the mid-1960s(3).  
• We can buy phytohormones kits online to help with fruit/vegetable production in our gardens.

I must agree with this statement taken from Wikipedia (4): "One disadvantage of most seedless crops is a significant reduction in the amount of genetic diversity in the species. As genetically identical clones, a pest or disease that affects one individual is likely to be capable of affecting every clone of that individual."

Reference:

1. Parthenocarpy.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenocarpy
2. How do seedless fruits arise and how are they propagated?
   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-seedless-fruits-ar
3. Gibberellin.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibberellin
4. Seedless fruit.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedless_fruit
5. Genetically modified organisms.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism