Genetically Modified Food Essay Example for Free

Genetically Modified Food Essay In 1973, scientists discovered something that has the potential to change the world we live in forever they discovered Genetic Modification. Genetic modification is exactly what it sounds like it is the modification of genes inside a living organism. This of course could be used on humans or animals but as soon as this discovery was made safety precautions were put into place to stop people using this new technology in the wrong way. The secret to genetic modification of genes lies in the plasmid. A plasmid is a ring of DNA inside bacteria and can be used to change the genetic message inside the bacteria. For example if you were to want to create insulin you would extract the insulin producing gene from the pancreas cell of a human and cut open the plasmid and insert it the gene. This new DNA created is called recombinant DNA. The bacteria would then go on to produce human insulin. Since this is the basis of how this technology works it can also be transferred to foods. Scientists are now looking how they can genetically modify food in the world to make it better and hardier than the food nature produces. Some foods have already been genetically modified and are being grown widely throughout the United States. Crops such as Soya, Cotton, Maize and Potatoes are already modified and sold throughout the country. Scientists have genetically modified these crops to make them resistant to herbicides (weed killers) and to create their own poison that kills pests that eat the crop. These highly advanced crops are more likely to produce food for harvesting than normal crops would. With this new genetically modified food it raises issues about just what can be done with it. Places such as Africa which have lots of drought may find that a crop could be developed that would be resistant to drought and could actually survive the harsh conditions and produce crops. A crop that is being developed right now is rice that contains vitamin A that can easily be absorbed into the body. Since poorer countries have a serious lack of vitamin A this new crop would help them to gain the nutrients they need to be healthy. These two crops could be a huge help to world hunger. More food could be produced and the food would make the people that eat it healthier. However, there cant only be good news about GM food or else it would be put into production throughout the world. Many are concerned that GM crops could have a huge impact on the environment. Many say scientists are playing around with something that they dont understand and could damage wildlife and the environment. Concerns of how the GM crops would affect wildlife are a big concern. It has been found out that the crops that have built in poisons to kill pests could also kill other animals such as butterflies. This could have an impact on the food web that the butterfly is apart of. There are also worries of a superweed being created accidentally by the gene that makes the crop resistant to herbicides. People are worried that this gene could get into a weed and make it resistant to the chemicals that are used to kill it. This would make it very difficult to rid crops of weeds and they could have the potential of spreading across the world. Other worries of GM crops include cross-pollination of other plants with these super crops. Farmers that grow organic food may find that some pollen from a GM Crop has pollinated with their crop and made a new hybrid plant. Overall it would appear that there are both positive and negative aspects to the genetic modification of crops. On the positive side there is the possibility that world hunger could be helped by these new crops. However there are the negative aspects that GM crops could have an irreversible impact on the world and environment in which we live in. If further tests were conducted on how GM crops would affect the world in which we and many other species live, maybe there could be some agreement on how we should go about using this new technology that has been discovered. Eventually genetic modification may be taken to new heights by genetically modifying humans and animals to be stronger and smarter. But hopefully this will not be so because then scientists would really be messing around with something that they are not sure about. This could also have huge impacts on the world.