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By Jessica Cheung
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Oct. 23, 2009 |
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“You aren’t what you eat.”
You’ve probably never been told that, but you’ve also never been told
that GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms, are actually a good thing
— not a harbinger of some extraterrestrial crop.
Some may distrustfully describe them as “mutated” foods, whereas I like to think of them as “smart” food. GMOs are organisms that have undergone genetic engineering techniques, which use DNA molecules from foreign genes to enhance a desired trait or add a new set of genes. The DNA is then transferred into an organism, resulting in novel genes. But why alter a perfectly good head of lettuce?
Compared to genetically modified lettuce, organically grown lettuce lacks nutrients. To a varying degree, we in the U.S. get our nutritional needs met, but the world has greater needs. Malnutrition is a common cause of high mortality rates in third world countries. While we complain about this year’s unripe strawberries and bananas, impoverished peoples rely on the growth of a single crop for survival. Genetically modified foods possess higher nutritional value compared to organically grown food. For example, blindness has become a major problem in third world countries resulting from vitamin A deficiency. A genetically modified Oryza sativa rice crop, more commonly known as golden rice, is enriched with beta-carotene (Vitamin A), which may eventually lead to a universal solution to blindness. Given that the production of golden rice is funded by the non-profit Rockefeller Foundation, a charitable organization, who aim to offer this smart crop to any or all countries that need it, this is the best solution to countries with a tight budget.
You can also thank GMOs for keeping consumers civilized in your local Safeway, as they’ve become a solution to food shortages. Shortages are the result of residential housing beginning to replace farmland. The APT claims that the U.S. loses farmland at the rate of one million acres per year, causing farmers to rely on bio-technology to efficiently produce an adequate amount of food, both to keep food costs low in today’s economically-challenged America and to aid starving countries. In addition, GMOs equip crops to resist harsh climates throughout the world, such as drought, salinity and frost, thereby reducing the failure of crucial crops.
Not to mention, GMOs remediate crops to ward off pests that consume a staggering amount of given harvest. Some people may argue for the uses of pesticides as opposed to GMOs as they fear “mutated” food more than chemicals, but foods treated with pesticides have plausible health hazards. Also, the run-offs of agriculture waste from pesticides contaminate our water supply, resulting in harmful effects including birth defects.
This bio-technology also offers an innovative way to insert vaccines for common diseases into carrots or bananas, which benefits countries that can’t afford the price tags of needles and sanitation.
Activists’ main argument is that GMOs go against the authority of nature, because they rework the genes of organic codes. But if this is true, then the naysayers are also going against the development of medicines, that also entail the modification of natural genes, but which ultimately save lives.
So the next time you think of GMOs, view the proverb “you are what you eat” positively. Do not think of your genetically modified lettuce as unnatural or unhealthy but see it as the next cure for the swine flu, or a tool to save the next generation of malnourished infants. GMOs are not the villain. They are the hero.
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