GMO or the Genetically Modified Organisms are the types of food and animals that were altered genetically to develop useful traits that organic creatures do not have. By genetically modifying the plants and animals, you can have stronger and more human-friendly plants and animals than the naturally grown organisms. They are naturally immune to pests, and other undesirable plants are extinguished by the mere presence of these plants. A common example of the Genetically Modified Organisms are the GloFish, you know, fishes that glow.
The GloFish were developed in the lab and certain changes were made in their DNA and the end result is the cute fish and seahorses that glow! For the plants, most of the cottons that are grown in this country are genetically modified. Sometimes referred to as the FrankenCotton, these cottons are immune to any pests and you need to do is to wait for them to grow. The oils that are extracted from the seeds are used in most of the preservatives on the foods that we have today. You can find them in cookies, peanut butter and cooking oils. Soybeans are also the target of modification where almost 85% of them are now genetically modified.
It’s great that these things were developed. Take a look at the expenses that you need before you can actually get a crop that you really want. With modified plants (also referred to as the “bt” breeds) you don’t need to spend so much money in herbicides especially because of their resistance to any attacks. Thereby giving us more savings and more production, thus more money.
Genetically Modified Organisms look really promising if we take at look at them on the financial sides. However, debates have been going on for years. It’s quite unfortunate that it’s not really on the public eye anymore since people need to be really aware of medical side effects of the Genetically Modified Organisms.
Those who back the GMO say that there are no known side effects to the body even if we eat them as much as we can. That’s basically the point of argument. We don’t know what effects that will bring. Not knowing what the effect of these plants is basically the scary part about these organisms. Since they are modified, they should have some modifications on the way they will act in our body. Besides, these plants are blasted with chemicals, you can say it’s already a composite of chemicals becoming a soybean or cotton.
We can say that we’re lucky considering that only soybean and cotton are the known GMOs here in the States, but in other countries it’s even scarier. Corn and Rice are being pushed to the people as they starve. This is very dangerous in some places that have rice as their staple food.
Still, it’s quite unfortunate that we already have these organisms in our tables almost everyday. The best thing that we can do so far is to locate a local organic market and get most of the foods that we need. Until the long term effect of GMOs are shed to light, we need to be on a look out for the foods that we eat.
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a mixture of an apple and an orange. hum…doesn’t look like you could eat the peal. it would be nice to be able to eat the peal of an apple but it taste like an orange inside.
Comment by Erika — November 3, 2007 @ 1:47 pm