G M O : THE FUTURE OF OUR FOOD SOURCES
“Nothing remains the same, change is essential part of life.”
I am concerned about the prospect of GMO genetically modified organisms) becoming the future of our food sources. Before I state my concerns, let’s define what is GMO food?
According to WHO’s (World Health Organization) definition, GMO foods are derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA ) has been modified by genetic engineering methods that does not occur in the nature.
That is exactly my concern: ”does not occur in nature.” We, as Homo sapiens, evolved genetically over millions of years, by the nature, environmental conditions and available organic food sources in the nature. Our anatomy, our brain and intelligence, our immune systems, our friendly good microbiome populations naturally evolved accordingly. Now, what will happen to our body’s very complex biological mechanisms, if we suddenly start consuming these unnatural GMO foods? Especially GMO foods produced by using recombinant DNA technology to insert genes from other species into the plants.
For example, some varieties of corn are produced by inserting a gene from a bacteria that allowed the corn to produce an insect killing toxins. Likely, scientists have developed a new genetic engineering technology that snips out a piece of plant DNA, even redesign plant’s genetic material by this new technique called CRISPR-9, to make plants drought and disease resistant and increase the yield. Since Crispr-edited crops basic plant structure has not be changed, they are considered safer than the other GMO crop.
Wouldn’t our immune systems become confused and start to attack its own organs by causing more allergic and immunological diseases? Wouldn’t we develop more cancers and chronic degenerative diseases like Parkinson, Alzheimer, Diabetes?
My other concerns are, what will happen to our environment? What if a GMO crop escape and cross breed with natural crops by turning them all into GMO crops?
On the other hand, we have to think about feeding the exponentially growing world population. At the present the world population is over seven billon people. Hunger and malnutrition is rampant. The United Nations projects that the world population will increase by 70% to become 12.3 billion by in the year 2100.
How are we going to feed them all, without increasing the food production, the yield, the variety of food resources, the prolongation of shelf-life and the preservation of excess food production?
These only could be accomplished by human’s ingenuity, by the cooperation of science GMO technology and agriculture.
In the meantime, GMO foods should be labelled nor should they be on the market before responsible government agencies have tested them for food safety. In the USA, the National Academy of Science has found no evidence to confirm that gene-edited crops are not safe for consumption. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) states that GMO foods are as safe as non-GMO foods. But skepticism remains among many, including myself.
