“Civilization rests on people’s ability to modify plants to make them more suitable as food, feed and fiber plants and all of these modifications are genetic.”
-American Association for the Advancement of Science
Gluten, GMOs, dairy, meat... It seems that nowadays everyone is afraid of everything. Don't get me wrong, I am all for being informed and making the best choices as it pertains to one's health. My concern comes in when people hear "Genetically Modified" and steer clear without researching the topic. (Disclaimer--I do understand that genetic modification poses risks for some people. If you avoid GMOs due to allergenic reasons please disregard this message.) Through this article I am hoping to provide factual evidence as to why GMOs are not death in a package.
Let me take a moment to first define what a genetically modified organism is referring to. As stated by Mayo Clinic, Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are plants, animals or microorganisms that have had their genetic material altered in a way that doesn't occur naturally. For many years farmers have been seeking out ways to engineer better crops, making them less susceptible to disease, heartier, drought resistant, etc. This engineering, most often, happens through repeated cross-pollination. This has been effective in creating plants with a better genetic makeup; however, this process may also introduce unwanted traits. Which is where genetic engineers come in. By isolating the desirable genes, engineers are able to add the gene to a single plant cell in a lab, thereby creating a new plant without unwanted traits. All of that to say, we have been genetically modifying our food for hundreds of years.
If you go to the grocery store and grab something off the shelf you can almost guarantee that the package will boast "Non-GMO". It is absolutely absurd to assume that these foods have not been modified in any way. Fruits have been modified for years to reduce or eliminate seeds, if that isn't genetically modified what is? In an article on Forbes, Steven Savage sums it up well--"To date there is no track record of bad effects on consumers. There are now far more precise and controlled ways to genetically modify crops, but only certain new methods have been singled out for opposition as “GMOs,” while clumsy old methods, like mutagenesis breeding, escape this demonization."
Labeling foods "Non-GMO" is an outright lie, if your grapes don't have seeds in them of course they were genetically modified. Now we are seeing all over the internet these pictures of our produce with large hypodermic needles as if that is what it means to genetically modify an organism. Those pictures have no resemblance to the process of genetic modification. Anymore, it is a very controlled process using genes that are already found in nature to create a more efficient organism. To date there has been no documented evidence that genetically modified foods adversely affect the human body. I understand that the term itself sounds frightening, but if consumers would simply research the process they would see that genetic modification does no harm. On the contrary, it has done much good.
“The people believe there is something unsafe with this technology whereas, in fact, it’s safer than the conventional technology it superseded. People believe that there is some environmental harm implicit in genetic engineering, and the reality is it can be used very powerful to benefit the environment.”
-Mark Lynas
