Genetically modified foods or GM was introduced in 1997.
Within two years 60% of processed foods were genetically modified in the United
States.
There are many different stands on GM foods which raise a
lot of good questions: Can having GM foods help reduce world hunger? Will GM
foods cause “superbugs” thus starting a new strain of viruses?
According to Penn Foster’s study guides, most European
countries have banned Genetically Modified foods, but my question is why the US
hasn’t? This got me to start a web
search and the results of that search blew my mind. Not because of what I read,
but because of the massive amount of information there is about it.
There’s no question that we live in a technological age. In
the past twenty years we’ve seen music go from 12” round vinyl discs and
cassette tapes to CD’s, Mini CD’s and now MP3’s. As I was watching the movie Apollo
13 the other night Tom Hanks had a line in which he commented on a “computer
that could fit into a single room.” This of course made me laugh as now all you
have to do is walk into your office, or flip open a cell phone for that matter,
just to get access to the web. But do we want our foods to be in that same
classification?
How does genetically engineering a plant work? Well I can tell
you it takes a long time to develop a GM type of plant. They have to
continually grow the same plant until they come up with one that is not harmed
by herbicides. For instance, there is a Roundup Ready plant. The plant is
sprayed with Roundup weed killer, but the plant has no harm done to it, yet the
weeds die. These
enhanced foods also provide proper nutrition. Imagine a genetically modified
tomato that gives you all of the vitamins and nutrients you need. In the past
this wasn’t the case. To give you all of the information on GM foods would be
impossible.
If using GM foods are bothersome to you, than I would definitely
search the web and do a little research on your own. I’ll be honest with you,
the more I read about GM foods, the more questions I have and I have yet to
make my own determination as to whether I’m for or against them. Thus by not
making a choice, I guess I’ve made one, because I’ll obviously wind up buying
GM foods at the market.