GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, seem to be very suspicious to some people who have heard that they are bad for human health.
It’s just human nature to fear something that we may not understand.
In the United States, a law passed in 2016 makes it mandatory for food providers to label their foods accordingly if they do contain GMOs.
Almost like
organic and non-organic foods, you’ll notice that grocery stores may have labels on certain foods that say “NON GMO,” or others that say “Partially produced with genetic engineering.”
It’s nice to know whether a food is a GMO or non-GMO, but are GMOs actually bad for us and should we be scared of them?
What is a GMO?
A GMO can be a plant, animal, or microorganism that has had its DNA changed in a way that may not occur naturally. This is usually done in a lab through genetic engineering.
Humans have actually been genetically modifying plants and animals for thousands of years. However, this type of genetic modification is called selective breeding and differs from the GMOs we usually think of.
Selective breeding is when humans purposely choose two parents with traits they like and breed them to produce offspring with those traits.
For example, you have a chicken that lays really big eggs. These eggs are huge! Bigger than all your other chicken’s eggs. You want more of these huge eggs, so you breed this chicken to hatch more chickens who lay large eggs.
Real life examples of selectively bred plants and animals are different species of dogs, apples with certain flavors, flowers with special colors, and even a banana, whose seeds used to make it an inedible piece of junk!
Next time you enjoy a banana, you can thank genetic modification.
Selective breeding is more natural than the GMOs that are engineered in labs.
So how do lab-engineered GMOs work?
GMOs are kind of like selective breeding except that humans choose which traits they want from one organism and insert the genes into another organism to alter its DNA to contain the trait from the original organism.
This can be done without having to breed the plants or animals over generations.
One of the most common reasons we genetically modify our plants in a lab is to protect them from insects and weeds.
Sometimes the modification makes the plant resistant to pesticides and weed-killers, and other times the modifications are used to make the plant create its own insecticide.
Thanks to genetic modification, these plants are able to produce a protein that will kill insects when they attempt to eat it.
Other reasons that we’ve genetically modified certain foods is to protect them from diseases.
Take the papaya for example. Before genetically engineered papayas, they were threatened by the ringspot virus. Now almost 90 percent of papayas have been modified to be resistant against the virus.
Now we keep more of the crop we plant as they are dying less from disease, weeds, and pests.
Are GMOs harmful to people?
So far, there has been no evidence that supports GMOs being harmful to humans.
According to major health groups, like the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association, GMOs are safe for people to consume.
But what about the protein that kills insects when they eat it? Wouldn’t that protein be harmful to humans as well?
These proteins do not harm humans.
What’s harmful to one species can be completely okay for another. One of the best examples of this is dogs and chocolate. Humans love it, but it’s toxic to our little furry friends.
A study done in South Korea by the National Institute of Toxicological Research, found that there was no difference in rat’s organs whether they ate GM food or non GM food.
Another study done on pregnant rats found that GMOs had no effect on their offspring.
The rats were tracked over the course of five generations, and still found no evidence of GMOs being harmful; nor was there any evidence of any gene transfer between the GMOs and the animal.
GMOs should generally be considered an ally, not an enemy.
What does the future hold for GMO foods?
Scientists across the world are working on new GMO foods all the time.
Foods like sugarcane and corn are being engineered to be resistant to drought. Farmers all across the world may soon be able to plant crops that were never able to survive harsh climates.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding projects that are trying to produce crops that can create their own nitrogen, and that would reduce the need for potentially harmful fertilizers.
We could modify plants to have a higher nutrition content, meaning we could actually make food more healthy. In fact, we’ve already started down this road with golden rice, a rice that contains vitamin A. Golden rice is helping fight vitamin A deficiencies in third-world countries, saving many people’s lives.
If humans choose to do the right thing with GMOs, the future will be very bright for these foods.
Wrap up!
Taking a gene from one organism and inserting it into another to create foods that do not occur naturally have not proven to be harmful to humans.
In fact, GMO foods can actually help save people’s lives through more food supply, higher nutrition content, and reduced use for pesticides.
If you’re concerned about GMOs next time you’re at the grocery store, just remember that it is no more risky to eat a genetically engineered food than a non-GMO food.
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