What is GM food? GM food stands for Genetically Modified food, and it means any food that is produced using some kind of genetic engineering to alter its DNA.
Generally, GM food refers to either taking a gene from one plant and inserting it into another or removing a gene that a plant already has. Inserting a gene is done because one plant might have a property that biologists would like the other plant to have. For example, sugar beet. We can get sugar from sugar cane and sugar beet. Not all sugar beet has been genetically modified, but some of it has been altered to be resistant to glyphosate, which is commonly used in herbicides. Herbicides with glyphosate are very effective at killing the weeds that plague sugar beet plantations, but that is no good if they kill the sugar beet as well. Glyphosate resistant genes were taken out of bacteria and added to the sugar beet, making it resistant and allowing for the herbicide to be sprayed. Papaya is another example. Papaya in Hawaii were being decimated by a virus called the Papaya Ringspot Virus. Scientists added a gene to the papaya that produces a protein that makes the plant resistant and defeats the virus. We eat GM animals as well. Scientists have taken growth hormones from Pacific salmon, added DNA from a different fish, and inserted them into a regular salmon to make them grow all year round.
Removing a gene is done to switch off a characteristic the plant might have that is not beneficial. An example of this is the Arctic Apple. This is actually a trademarked fruit. Scientists switched off the gene that produces polyphenol oxidase, which is responsible for making apples go brown. Now, thanks to that, Arctic Apples don’t go brown.
When a gene is added, scientists identify the gene that they want in another species and then remove it. That gene is then injected into the nucleus of a single cell of the target plant. They can only do one cell at a time, so once the gene has been added, the cell is cultured until it produces enough cells to produce shoots, and the new plant can be grown from these.
Genetic modification is not a new thing, but the speed and the way that scientists can now do it have changed. Ever since humans domesticated plants, we have been genetically modifying them. We do it by cross breeding different kinds of plants. If you have one plant and you want it to have the properties of another plant, you just cross breed them as many times as it takes until you get the change you want. And then you exclusively breed from that plant, which propagates the change. This is called selective breeding, but it is basically genetic modification, and all of the food we eat today has gone through this process. If you find wild vegetables, wild fruit, and wild grains, they are nothing like the ones we generally buy from our shops today. The difference today is that scientists can analyze what each gene does and then select or remove the ones they need to improve on the crop.
There are many arguments for and against GM food. Let’s try to look at a couple from each side. The first one in favor of GM is that it gives us better food and more of it. Fruit and vegetables can be made that are resistant to pests, longer lasting, and more nutritious. Crops that produce more are also possible. Without GM foods like this, we might not be able to feed a growing population. A second argument is that it is possible to make fruits and vegetables that can deal with our changing climate. As human made climate change gets worse, we need crops that can survive hotter weather and either more droughts or more floods. GM can make those kinds of crops.
An argument against is that everything we are doing is too fast, and it doesn’t give any time to check the side effects. When we selectively breed species, it takes a long time before the changes become apparent, and that can give us a long time to get used to it. The sudden changes that are possible now mean we don’t have enough time to detect any long term effects, and could be doing irreparable harm without knowing it. They could also harm the ecosystem because they may become inedible to animals. A second argument is that any GM crops can very easily cross pollinate with other crops, and their traits can start to spread to other plants. Whether we like or hate GM food, it is here to stay. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/food-genetically-modified
https://www.treehugger.com/gm-foods-commonly-found-grocery-stores-4858320
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_tissue_culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food
https://www.sustainablemarketfarming.com/2022/05/25/which-vegetables-are-genetically-modified-gmos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_silencing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_sugar_beet
Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/three-apple-fruits-209339/