Advantages of Genetically Modified foods can include the improvement of the specific organism's characteristics. This will improve the quality of the foods today in a way so that it is more effective against pests, diseases and other issues that will affect the plant in a negative way. This will also increase the nutritional value of the foods so that it has better vitamins and minerals to help the body's defences.
An example of this are the genetically modified tomatoes being able to stop the softening and rotting before it reaches the stores to be sold. This will also let the tomatoes ripen red with full flavour before they are cut off the trees. Generally the process of stopping plants from softening and rotting before it reaches the stores is to take the tomatoes at the stage where they are still green and have not fully ripen into full flavour, by the time they reach the stores they would have turned red over time like you would see but it will not have the full flavour it would have if it has stayed to ripen naturally on the trees. This is an example of how effective Genetically Modified foods are to stop the ripening and softening of tomatoes to stop it from mashing on the process of sending the tomatoes from the farms to reach the stores. The tomato has been first introduced as tomato paste in the year 1999.
Another example of a genetically modified food is the "Golden Rice". This rice has been genetically modified to give the rice higher levels of vitamin A and iron. This will increase the nutritional value of the rice as vitamin A is important for the body and immune system which will protect them from cases of blindness due to vitamin A deficiency. This is important as said that over 1 million children die every year as a result of vitamin A deficiency. This means an estimated of 114 children die every hour because of this! Improving the vitamin A and iron level of rice is a great step to decrease the numbers of deaths occurring around the world everyday as rice is a common cheap food of today which is eaten all around the world. The genetically modified "Golden Rice" has yet to be planted in field trials yet as more research is being developed on this major breakthrough.
As farmers have problems with having to put up with pests and diseases that could cause a major problem with the crops and production of the foods, genetically modified could help this in a range of ways. For one, a singe diseases or a virus could cause a major plague that could cause the whole crop to die off, this will cost the farmer the year's crop and stock gone. Even the soil might be infected which will stop the plants to ever grow again, this will could have major money issues that could cost millions to fix leaving the farmer financially broke. Or if this food with the disease has been unnoticed and been sold to the people, this will leave the people infected with a new disease which could cause problems and deaths. If this farmer had grown genetically modified foods resistant to diseases that could cause a plague would mean with the benefits of having better nutritional value and features, this could cause a stop to problems with the crops to occur in the future.
Pests and insects that enjoy the foods of farms being grown are generally kept in control away from the foods by major use of chemicals and pesticides. This will help keep away the pests but another problem is that all these chemicals are harmful to the human body as most of them are poisonous. Without the plants being washed and kept clean from these chemicals after being brought could mean food poisons and problems to the human body. Simple things like this could be forget in ease.
But if they had so many benefits that can be effective in today's society, why aren't they used? Many unknown issues are being discussed over the genetically modified foods as they are a new technology still being research. Changing genes is an extremely serious task which would have unknown outcomes if the gene was wrongly modified or deleted. Genetically modified foods today are mostly experimental and still have many bio hazardous safety issues that could cause yet to be known effects to the human body. After many experiments and issues being discussed, it is still not absolutely sure that it is safe to eat; these safety issues include short term or long term effects.
Another major issue being discussed is the mixing of genetically modified foods with the natural organic foods. If this gene escapes and mixes into other plants in nature it will cause totally unknown and likely to be dangerous outcomes. This is very important for these genetically modified foods to be kept strictly in control and not be released in the environment in anyway.
As both sides of this issue have been discussed in an equal matter we can see that both of these issues are important in a major way which both have important effects. We cannot afford to risk such a new technology just yet as it could cause a major threat to the world. But this threat is only estimated and there have been no real proof that any problems have been caused from these genetically modified foods. The new features and characteristics of these foods are very useful in today's society as they have very efficient effects that will help us in many ways. As you can see, a real conclusion can not be developed as this issue has not been finished. There are many scientists still researching Genetic Engineering and it is a new technology at the moment. More research must be done with this to get a relevant conclusion today. For now we must wait for a valid conclusion to be called in the near future.