Genetically Modified Foods

David Ballard

Biology 4/30/2005

Throughout time there have been many changes in the types of food we eat. There have been changes in the way food is grown and produced. Many people are unaware of what they are actually eating when they buy vegitables at the grocery store. The new changes in the foods today, are known as GM, genetically modified foods. Many people do not support the growing and consuming of genetically modified foods but I do.

The term GM foods or GMO’s means genetically modified organisms.

They are foods that have been created for humans and animals consumption.

These GMO’s are produced by the latest molecular biology techniques.

When the plants are modified in the laboratories they are being modified in many different ways for many different purposes. In the laboratories the traits of the plants are modified. Examples of traits that are modified are increased resistance to herbicides, and improved nutritional content. The method that is used to enhance the traits of the plants is called breeding, but scientists have found that breeding is very time consuming and not very accurate. So instead of scientists using breeding they use a method known as genetic engineering, which can create plants with desired a lot faster and with more accuracy. An example of genetic engineering in plants is, a scientist can take a gene from a crop that has drought tolerance and put that gene into another plant to give the plant more drought tolerance. Other examples of genetic engineering are the placement of genes into plants that produce crystals that will kill insects that try to eat off the plants, creating a natural pesticide.

There are many advantages of genetically modified foods such as pest resistance, herbicide tolerance, disease resistance, cold tolerance, nutrition, and Pharmaceuticals.

Pest resistance is a great advantage because it uses a natural pesticide, without pesticides, farmers crops would be in danger from bugs, which would make the farmer lose lots of money. With the natural pest resistances this makes it so farmers don’t need to use chemical pesticides, which are very harmful to the environment and to humans.

People don’t want to eat food that has been treated with chemical pesticides because it will be a very big hazard for ...

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There are many advantages of genetically modified foods such as pest resistance, herbicide tolerance, disease resistance, cold tolerance, nutrition, and Pharmaceuticals.

People don’t want to eat food that has been treated with chemical pesticides because it will be a very big hazard for the person’s health. Run offs from pesticides and fertilizers can get into water, which can poison a water supply.

Herbicide tolerance is effective because, plants that aren’t engineered with herbicide tolerance require weeds to be removed, which costs lots of money and takes up lots of time.

Disease resistance is an advantage because there are many viruses and fungi, scientists are working to create plants that can fight against these diseases.

Cold resistance is an effective advantage because often times on farms there is unexpected frost which will kill some crops instantly. The way cold resistance is applied to plants is a gene from a cold water fish is taken and put into a crop.

Nutrition is a very important and effective modified trait in genetic engineering because without nutrition, everyone would be unhealthy. Malnutrition is a big problem in other third world countries. In those countries, sometimes they only have a scarce amount of one type of food, such as rice. The problem with that is, rice doesn’t have the nutrients the body needs to help it grow stronger and function properly, scientists can use genetic engineering to create a type of rice that has the nutrients the body needs to function and grow stronger.

There are more benefits and advantages in genetically modified foods. Benefits in crops include enhanced taste and quality reduced maturation time, and increased resistance to disease.

Benefits for animals include better animal health, better yields of meat, eggs, and milk. Benefits for the environment include: conservation of soil, water, and energy, better natural waste management, and more efficient processing.

Using genetic engineering and producing genetically modified foods will also help to save starving people in other countries. Genetic engineering makes it possible for farmers a lot faster and with much better nutrition and quality at a much lower cost.

There are some criticisms to genetically modified foods, but even with those risks and hazards present, without genetically modified foods the world would be in bad shape for the future. The world’s population is growing at a faster and faster rate, and the world needs ways to have food with proper nutrition.

Criticisms that are against genetically modified foods are unintended harm to other species. The unintended harm comes from the genes is some crops that cause some insects to die. You must ask yourself this question though, whats more important, the loss of many human lives from malnutrition, or some insects dying from genetically modified foods?

All the reasons above are why I support genetically modified foods, I think that in the future scientists will make more discoveries about foods that will help the world. We will have better quality food, more quantity of food, and the people will be a lot healthier.

Works Cited

http://www.csa.com/hottopics/gmfood/overview.html

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/gmfood.shtml

http://scope.educ.washington.edu/gmfood