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Did You Know that Genetically Modified Foods are on your Dinner Table?

by Tony Long on January 11, 2010

Excerpts taken from National Geographic Magazine
Written by Jennifer Ackerman
May 2002
genetic corn GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD
Genetically modified (GM) food has quietly become what potentially could be perhaps the single most serious threat to our food supply not only here in the U.S., but also the world’s. Some scientists and governments, including the U.S., claim that these types of crops are safe and that no adverse health effects have been seen. However other scientists, food, and health organizations contradict these findings citing incidences of illness and even death possibly associated with consuming genetically modified foods and that further, more intense testing is needed to determine if these foods are safe.

WHAT ARE GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS?
Foods that have been genetically modified are classified as either genetically modified organisms (GMO) or genetically engineered organisms (GEO) and are organisms whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. According to the World Health Organization, “Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be defined as organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. The technology is often called “modern biotechnology” or “gene technology”, sometimes also “recombinant DNA technology” or “genetic engineering”. It allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another, also between non-related species.”

SELECTIVE BREEDING IS NOT GENETIC MODIFICATION
The basic idea of a simplified version of genetic modification, called selective breeding, is not new. Through selective breeding, farmers have been changing crops for thousands of years by keeping seeds from the best crops and planting them in following years, breeding and crossbreeding varieties of the same species to make them taste sweeter, grow bigger, and last longer. In fact, just about all the fruits and vegetables you see in the grocery store come from changes farmers have made to plants while in their “natural” state.

But modern day genetic modification takes this concept much further genetic tomatoe

as it changes plants by adding genes from unrelated species. For example, scientists can take a gene from a rat and inject it into lettuce to make a plant that produces vitamin C. These plants are called transgenic whereas they contain genes from species with which they do not naturally reproduce with. “Most of these crops are engineered to help farmers deal with age-old agriculture problems: weeds, insects, and disease.” Biotech crops” can carry special “tolerance” genes that help them withstand the spraying of chemicals that kill nearly every other kind of plant. Some biotech varieties make their own insecticide, thanks to a gene borrowed from a common soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt for short.”

ARE THESE FOODS ON THE MARKET?
Yes and chances are you’ve been eating them for some time. Largely between 1997 and 1999, genetically modified food ingredients suddenly appeared in our processed foods. In the U.S. market now, 60 to 70% of all processed foods are genetically modified. In 2006, United States genetically modified crops reached 135 million acres, with the total global area exceeding 250 million acres. “Several dozen transgenic food crops are currently on the market, among them varieties of corn, squash, canola, soybeans, and cotton, from which cottonseed oil is produced.”

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