http://www.csa.com/hottopics/gmfood/overview.html

The term GM foods or GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) is most commonly used to refer to crop plants created for human or animal consumption using the latest molecular biology techniques. These plants have been modified in the laboratory to enhance desired traits such as increased resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content. The enhancement of desired traits has traditionally been undertaken through breeding, but conventional plant breeding methods can be very time consuming and are often not very accurate. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, can create plants with the exact desired trait very rapidly and with great accuracy. For example, plant geneticists can isolate a gene responsible for drought tolerance and insert that gene into a different plant. The new genetically-modified plant will gain drought tolerance as well. Not only can genes be transferred from one plant to another, but genes from non-plant organisms also can be used. The best known example of this is the use of B.t. genes in corn and other crops.

**************************************

What's so troubling to me is that the FDA standards for testing GMO is pro-industry, rather than having the consumer's best interest at heart. There was a lawsuit to get the FDA to make this standard public so we could be informed of what supposed tests they were subjected to before it went to market - suffice it to say, it was a sobering revelation. Early tests revealed mices developed stomach cancer from GM potatoes. There is a growing concern that introducing foreign genes into food plants may have an unexpected and negative impact on human health.

The industry has been sleeping with the FDA to get their products on the market, despite very alarming tests suggesting that they were not safe.

How do you feel about GMO's? Would you eat something knowing that it was altered in some way?

Discuss.

 

protein is protein. it's not like you're eating something radioactive.

 

If it were only eating "protein", there would be no cause for concern. When you eat another living thing, you are eating its DNA, RNA, enzymes, hormones, lipids, fatty acids, good cholesterol, bad cholesterol ............................... well, you get where I'm going with this.

BTW, all living things accumulate radioactive isotopes from the first day of existence. It may be very low levels, but it's there. Some stay in the body and some get excreted. Who's to say how genetically altered (some might like to say "enhanced") living things respond to this radiation, not to mention radiation from the sun and from space?

Having said that, I tend to have faith in the agriculture industry and the watchdogs and safeguards in place to test and regulate such foods for potential hazards to the consumers.

 

Darn near every plant you eat and many of the animals have been extensively genetically modified over the years. Selective breeding.

So you have to specify what sort of genetic modification you are talking about. Exactly what, in your mind, differentiates a "GMO" tomato from a tomato that is "certified organic and non-GMO" but is nothing at all like the fruit that people first encountered when they came to the Americas?

 

Reminds me of this 1980s song by Loverboy... "Pig and elephant DNA just won't splice."

 

.....unless you live in South Park

Brian

 

Genetically modified foods are fine by me.

The only real difference between a plump genetically modified tomato and a plump non-modified tomato is how they came to be plump. Likewise, all foods that we consume have been modified in some way. The difference is that some were modified over decades via breeding, and others were modified over months in a lab.

Personally, I think the public is overly wary of genetically modified foods because they are new and poorly understood. But really, they aren't doing anything that hasn't already been done; they have simply made that process quicker and easier to control.

 

But the thing is, genetically modified foods (or organisms) don't contain any new hormones, proteins, DNA, etc. They contain the same ones that are found in "natural" foods.

 

Hmmmm, I'm not so sure about this. If you "genetically" modify a living thing, then it's DNA, RNA, etc will also be modified or it would not be "different" in any way (ie, size, taste, color, rate of growth (determined by hormones), etc.). If it's genetic structure were different G.M. food would be no different than "ordinary" food, thus, no point in making them.

 

When genetically modifying foods, you don't create a brand new genetic sequence. You recreate a desirable genetic sequence.

Say Plant 1 grows fruit that is particularly sweet. The goal of genetic modification would be to isolate the genetic sequence responsible for that sweetness, and to subsequently reproduce it in Plant 2.

Both Plant 1 and Plant 2 have unique genetic sequences. But the part that is read to produce sweetness, and the molecules responsible for that sweetness, remain the same.

As for RNA sequences, there are a limited number that are recognized by the plant or organism. Thus, each plant or organism can only produce a limited number of proteins/enzymes. Genetically modified foods are very unlikely to contain new proteins. They are much more likely to have existing proteins in modified concentrations.