Zameena Jaffer, 10 B

The Impact of Science on Genetically Modified Foods

Science is the modern world's most essential asset. Most of our lives today revolve around science and technology, and without either, we would not be able to function in today's world. For instance, science has transformed old-age fishing methods into high-tech fishing machines that are greatly assisting today's fisheries. Science has also made reproduction for women suffering from infertility and birth complications possible by providing aid in the form of 'test tube babies' and surrogacy. Another major step that science has taken comes in the form of Genetically Modified foods. Fruits and vegetables are the most commonly used terms associated with Genetically Modified Foods.  These foods are genetically modified using molecular biology techniques to add more nutrition to crops, to alter crops so that they are resistant towards pests, to alter crops so that they don’t get diseases from fungi and bacteria, to tolerate cold temperatures (mainly for seeds which would not normally be capable of surviving through cold), to alter the natural size of the crop, etc. Genetically Modified Foods allow scientists to grow whatever they like, wherever they like without having to go through the trial and error process of selective breeding. (Mark Tester). There are plenty of advantages that come from the use of GM foods which will prove to be extremely useful in the future, especially because the world's population is set to be doubled within the next fifty years. However, GM Foods don’t only provide advantages. Like most scientific methods, GM Foods can also be extremely harmful not only to our environment, but to ourselves and to our own personal health and safety. Genetically Modified Foods can cause environmental hazards, human health risks and economic concerns.


The process in which food is genetically modified is entirely based on science. This process involves molecular biology and the insertion of a gene or DNA of one organism into another. There are three traditional ways in which scientists genetically modify foods.

 

The first method of Genetic Modification is 'Selecting For Variability'. In this method, scientists choose a crop that has been naturally produced, extract the genes from this crop and insert it into other crops in order to duplicate the original crops features. Scientists only choose  a crop that they think is healthy and duplicate it in order  to minimize the possibility of invalid crops and to increase the crops nutrition levels, thus making it healthier for us to consume. (Tester, Mark).

 

The second method of Genetic Modification is called 'Crossing Closely Related Species'. This method is fairly complicated, yet effective. Scientists extract genes from two different species of the same kind or similar kind of plant and merge the genes together in order to create a new specie that has the characteristics of both those plants. For example, scientists have tried merging together genes from a Rottweiler and a German Shepherd. The outcome of this experiment was a breed of dog that has the characteristics of both the Rottweiler and the German Shepherd. This is method is known as cross breeding and can occur in both plants and animals. (Tester, Mark). 

 

The third method of Genetic Modification is 'Isolating Mutants'. The Isolating Mutants method is the most complicated, yet it is also the method that has aided farmers and scientists alike to conserve and preserve extinct plants in the best possible way. For this method, scientists take a specie of plant that is on the verge of extinction, extract its genes, and create another specie of plant similar to the original plant in order to preserve the plants characteristics and functions. This method is very useful as we can make essential plants last for eternity. After they have extracted the extinct plants genes and are now ready to duplicate it, some scientists modify the original genes in order to make the duplicated plant more superior than the original plant. (Tester, Mark).

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Though traditional methods are commonly used to genetically modify foods, there are also new methods that have been developed using the modification of the genes of single cells using biotechnology.

 

One of these new methods is 'Identification and Isolation'. With this method, the main idea is that a bacterial enzyme is inserted into a plant of the scientists choice. This bacterial enzyme begins to operate in the plant, isolating the specific gene that the scientists require, and eating away all the waste products in the process. This leaves the scientists with only what is necessary and required. The ...

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