The Truth About GMO

Let's get nerdy today. This Wellness Wednesday, I want to discuss GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms). This technology is used in the food we eat and even used on animals in factory farms. Many people strongly oppose them and some people say they are a way of improving the world. Let's take a look at the facts and you can make a decision for yourself.

So what is GMO? GMO are genetically modified organisms that have had new genes from other organisms added to their existing genes. The goal of such genetic engineering is to give the original organism new characteristics, such as disease resistance. This seems like a good thing for the food industry, but with any new science, there are always side effects that have not yet been averted. Let's take a look at the pros and cons of it.

Pros:

• GMO crops can be modified to where they will become insect resistant. Therefore not needing to use pesticides and other products to keep them away from crops and destroying them. This saves farmers huge amounts of money by not having to waste crops. It also protects the environment from the chemicals in the pesticides and prevents soil erosion.
• GMO foods are known to have more nutrition than normal. They have been engineered to contain more vitamin and mineral content. Besides providing you with more nutrition, this also helps in the fight against malnutrition in the world.
• GMO foods have better quality and taste. Again, they engineer the foods to have more taste. They can make corn sweeter, peppers spicier, and just about anything else have better taste than the original.
• GMO animals have been tested and they are known to have less health problems in general. They can fight off disease better and can withstand typical factory farm conditions better. This in turn produces higher quality meats, eggs, and dairy to the consumer.
• GMO foods can carry vaccines for common diseases. Example, they are working on a banana that can carry a vaccine to kill Hepatitis B.

So the pros of GMO seem very hopeful for the future of the world. Super foods that help us live longer and animals that can withstand anything and stay healthy. Well, it's not all sunshine and lollipops. GMO is still a new technology in terms of it being perfected. Let's take a look at the cons of GMO.

Cons:

• GMO foods can cause unknown allergic reactions to people. When they engineer the foods to be super foods, they often introduce new proteins and chemicals into the food that were not originally in it. This can confuse the body. If you are allergic to nuts, and you eat some corn that has GMO in it. There is a slight chance the protein in nuts that makes you allergic, will have traces of it in the new corn. So now, you are allergic to nuts AND corn, even though you weren't allergic to corn before.
• GMO can decrease the efficiency of antibiotics. This happens because the antibiotic features put into the GMO foods to resist against disease and viruses, causes your body to persist the antibiotic markers. Worldwide they have seen a decrease in the efficiency of antibiotics in hospitals.
• One concern is that the modified genes of the organisms may escape into the wild. For example, if a GMO crop that has a strong resistance to herbicides loses some organisms into the wild and attaches itself to the wild weed population, then you will have super weeds that cannot be killed by herbicides. This technology can be very bad if it is applied to crops and animals we don't want modified.
• GMO also can cause disruption in an ecosystem. One example I heard about recently was the bee population of a small town had almost vanished because the bees could not survive on the new genetically modified flowers that have been growning. Bees dying off doesn't sound bad, but they are a vital part of nature and without them, can slowly destroy an entire ecosystem.
• GMO also can make it to where the bacteria they are trying to kill, will just become stronger and stronger by adapting to the new organisms. This can cause certain strands of bacteria to almost be invincible.
• There has been no long term testing on GMO because the technology is not old enough to collect data for long term effects. So basically we are all playing a guessing game on what might happen to us in the future. There are already many counts of dying animals that ate GMO foods that were not tested properly and are being fed to humans also.

So there you have it, an unbiased report on what GMO is. There are definitely more cons to it, but that is only because you will normally get that with new technology that has not yet been perfected. With you knowing the facts now, you can take it upon yourself to make a decision on how you feel about it. I am somewhere in the middle. I think the idea of it is great and can really save the world in an overpopulated Earth. But I also know there are many side effects from it and don't like the idea that the government is using them in almost all of our foods before it has even been close to perfected. I feel that GMO should be used in a small market of the food industry until they have it under control.