I. Introduction: Genetically Modified Foods (GMF)
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In the 1990’s technology evolved to a level where food could be genetically altered to produce larger quantities. Originally intended to feed more people around the world and address the world’s hungry and ever-growing population, scientists began to use organisms to genetically modify foods. Through mutagenesis, or organisms that have been exposed to radiation or chemicals in order to change their DNA or genetic composition, foods like corn and soybeans could be produced in larger quantities. GM foods are highly controversial as the long term effects of these genetic mutations when consumed by humans, has not fully been studied even though 88% of the world’s market of maize, soybean, and cotton is genetically modified (GMO Compass 2009).
II. Discovery: Mutating DNA
According to Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association (CCFRA),
“genes change every day by natural mutation and recombination creating new biological combinations” (CCFRA 2010). DNA is not, nor ever will be, “static”. As long as we can modify it, genetic alterations, mutations, and recombinations will occur. In the case of GM foods, rather than change occurring naturally, it is forced to alter through controlled and deliberate means usually through chemical changes or via radiation. Characteristics and elements that seem to yield beneficial results such as chymosin of bovines can be transferred to industrial microorganisms and produced commercially as yeast rather than yeast obtained from the remnants of animal carcasses once used in cheese production.
III. Benefits/Consequences
The idea of GMF was to increase food supplies to the world through food production. GM techniques make crops pest and disease resistant, expanding the shelf life of fruits and vegetables so they do not spoil as quickly, the elimination of toxicants, increase food production in previously inhospitable environments, and increase in high value drugs to meet the needs of diseased individuals, to assist in the development of environmentally safe products such as using starches to make plastics or create more sustainable crops. According to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) all of these elements make the system of food production better and ease world hunger. However, there are consequences to GM foods. In a journal article by the American Chemical Society (ACS), these consequences can result in significant problems the least of which is antibiotic resistance in humans (Engel 1995). Other issues presented by the European Union include: the effects of GM potatoes on the intestines (Ewen 1999), increases in allergies, increase in disease due to cross breeding and contamination, long-term effects, and loss of valuable nutrients. According to The Global Healing Center’s website, one of the top processed and genetically altered products on the market today is baby formula.
IV. Impact on the World/Humanity
There is no doubt that GMF are here to stay, Supermarket shelves are full of processed and altered foods catering to nearly every segment of the population. Although they have been subjected to rigorous safety assessments, there needs to obviously be more since these altered foods are playing with our chemically and genetic compositions.
Some will continue to argue that it is easy to forget that DNA is, and always has been, part of our daily diet and that it naturally changes every day. Daily, each of us consumes millions of copies of many thousands of genes, most of whom we do not know what they do to our bodies. Seriously, how many people stop to think about the genes of tomato, cucumber, and lettuce in a salad, the bovine genes in a beef steak, the fragmented DNA in many processed foods, and the genes of the many micro-organisms that we breathe and swallow? Answer? Not many. When chomping on that cheeseburger, does anyone think about how it might make them insulin resistant or make the usual antibiotics unable to fight infectious viruses like MRSA?
At the end of the day GM has improved the quality of life and food for the world. Between 1998 and 2001, GM silkworms and cottonseeds changed India’s ability to produce fabrics by 60%. If we could apply these principles of GM to bio-plastics and bio-fuels, the world would benefit tremendously (Bourzac 2010).
V. Journal Article Review
Genetically Modified Foods as published in The Science Journal and posted to Penn State’s Eberly School of Science website, was written by Dr. Nina Federoff and suggests that one of the primary benefits of GMF is that fewer people need to farm and more people can pursue their passions because they are not tied to the responsibilities of food production. She claims, that in fact, our society as a whole is richer because we use GMFs. Federoff further suggests that it is within our natures to alter nature; to preserve and adapt plant material for survival.
Having worked with such scientists as the Nobel Laureate Barbara McClintock of “transposons” or “jumping genes”, Federoff was able to map and analyze the gene recognizing the moveable quality of genes to chromosomes. As somewhat of a pioneer in the field of corn transposons, Federoff was instrumental in developing the first few waves of GM maize. She contends that since man has been monkeying with evolution since the dawn of man walking upright, that GM is a natural extension of man’s tendency to develop better methods of feeding and that many of the foods we have come to love have been the product of crossbreeding or GM. As author of the book, Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist’s View of Genetically Modified Food, she shares her concern about industry standards and governmental regulations only focusing on plants that have undergone molecular modifications (sugar for example) as opposed to examining all lab manufactured products.
She also highlights how other important contributions to the world of feeding an ever-growing population by suggesting that the “Haber-Bosch process for converting the gaseous nitrogen in the air to a form that plants can use as nitrogen fertilizer. Second was the observation of George Harrison Shull that intercrossing inbred corn varieties produces robust and productive offspring. This is the scientific underpinning of the entire hybrid corn industry” (Federoff 2007). Continued work in the field, especially with regard to radiation and chemical alterations is necessary if politics and economics cannot resolve the issues with food deployment.
Works Cited
Bourzac, Katherine. "Transgenic Worms Make Tough Fibers - Technology Review." Technology Review: The Authority on the Future of Technology. MIT, 27 Oct. 2010. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. <http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/26623/>.
Engel, Karl, Gary R. Takeoka, and Roy Teranishi. Genetically modified foods: safety issues : developed from a symposium sponsored by the Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry at the 208th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, August 21-25, 1994. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1995. Print.
Ewen, Dr Stanley W B . "Effect of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine." Vivat Academia 354.9187 (199): 100-112. Print.
Federoff, Nina. "Genetically Modified Foods." Science Journal 26 (2007): 1-5. Print.
Jones, Leighton. "Genetically Modified Foods." British Medical Journal 318.7183 (1999): 611- 613. Print.
"USA: Cultivation of GM plants, 2009." GMO COMPASS - Information on genetically modified organisms. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. <http://www.gmo- compass.org/eng/agri_biotechnology/gmo_planting/506.usa_cultivation_gm_plants.
