The topic of eating genetically modified foods is very relevant. Someone considers genetic engineering violence over nature, and someone is afraid for their own health and the manifestation of side effects. While throughout the world there are debates about the benefits and harms of GMOs , many people buy and eat them without even knowing it.
What are genetically modified foods?
In modern society, there is a tendency to proper nutrition, and the table gets everything fresh and natural. People try to avoid everything obtained from genetically modified organisms, whose constitution was radically changed by means of genetic engineering. Reduce their use can only be with an idea of what GMOs are in food.
Today, supermarkets sell up to 40% of products with GMOs: vegetables, fruits, tea and coffee, chocolate, sauces, juices and carbonated water, even baby food . It is enough to have only one GM component, so that the food is marked "GMO". In the list:
- transgenic fruits, vegetables and, possibly, animals used for food;
- products with GM-intredients (eg, transgenic corn);
- processed transgenic raw materials (for example, chips from transgenic maize).
How to distinguish genetically modified foods?
Genetically altered products are obtained when the gene of one organism, excreted in the laboratory, is planted in the cage of another. GMOs give a plant or a number of signs: resistance to pests, viruses, chemicals and external influences, but if genetically modified foods regularly fall on the shelves, how can they be distinguished from natural products? It is necessary to look at the composition and appearance:
- Genetically modified foods (GMF) are stored for a long time and do not deteriorate. Ideally smooth, smooth, non-flavored vegetables and fruits - almost certainly with GMOs. The same goes for bakery products, which for a long time remain fresh.
- Dried transgene frozen semifinished products - pelmeni, cutlets, vareniki, pancakes, ice cream.
- Products from the United States and Asia, containing potato starch, soy flour and corn in 90% of the cases of GMOs. If a vegetable protein is indicated on the label in the product, this is a modified soy.
- Cheap sausages usually contain soy concentrate, which is a GM ingredient.
- For the presence may indicate food additives E 322 (soy lecithin), E 101 and E 102 A (riboflavin), E415 (xanthan), E 150 (caramel) and others.
Genetically modified products - "for" and "against"
About such food goes a lot of controversy. People are concerned about the ecological risks of their growing: genetically mutated forms can get into the wild and lead to global changes in ecological systems. Consumers are concerned about food risks: possible allergic reactions, poisoning, disease. The question arises: are genetically modified products needed on the world market? It is not yet possible to abandon them completely. They do not degrade the taste of food, and the cost of transgenic variants is much lower than natural ones. There are both opponents and supporters of the GMF.
Harm to GMOs
There is no one hundred percent confirmed study, which would indicate that the modified products are harmful to the body. However, the opponents of GMOs call many irrefutable facts:
- Genetic engineering can have dangerous and unpredictable side effects.
- Harmful to the environment due to greater use of herbicides.
- They can get out of control and spread, polluting the gene pool.
- Some studies claim the harm of GM foods as a cause of chronic disease.
The Benefits of GMOs
Genetically modified foods have their advantages. As for plants, fewer chemicals are accumulated in transgenic plants than in natural analogues. Varieties with a modified constitution are resistant to various viruses, diseases and weather, they ripen much faster, and are stored even more, they themselves fight pests. With the help of transgenic intervention, the time for breeding decreases at times. These undoubted advantages of GMOs, besides the defenders of genetic engineering, argue that eating GMP is the only way to save mankind from hunger.
What are the dangerous genetically modified products?
Despite all attempts to find benefit from the introduction of modern science, genetic engineering, genetically modified foods are most often mentioned in a negative light. They carry three threats:
- Environment (the emergence of resistant weeds, bacteria, reducing species or numbers of plants and animals, chemical pollution).
- The human body (allergies and other diseases, metabolic disorders, changes in microflora, mutagenic effect).
- Global risks (economic security, activation of viruses).