GMOs: What's the Big Deal?
GMOs: What’s the Big Deal?
Manipulation of plants and animals to produce more desirable traits is certainly nothing new. In fact, the process of plant and animal breeding has been around almost since the time that humans evolved from hunting and gathering to farming. Animal breeders breed one type of dog, for example, with another, to combine the desired traits of both, and the results are called “cross-breeds”. Plant breeders cross one type of plant that may be high yielding but not drought tolerant with another that is drought resistant but doesn’t produce a large crop, to create a “hybrid” plant that offers both desired qualities in one.
In 1953, two scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA. Twenty years later, Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer developed the first recombinant DNA, through a technique called DNA cloning that allowed DNA to be transferred from one biological species to another. And in 1994, the first genetically modified food available to consumers, the Flavr Savr tomato, which was designed to stay fresher longer, was approved by the FDA (“A Brief History of GM”). Today, GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are in many of the foods we eat on a daily basis. Corn, soybeans, and canola and cottonseed oils are among the top GMO crops. According to author Diana Bocco, approximately 85% of all soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified, and at least some of the corn grown in every state is GM. Cottonseed oil is not sold as cooking oil, but is an ingredient in many of the prepackaged foods we consume. Canola oil, also known as rapeseed oil wasn’t even used as a food crop until after it had been genetically modified, because it was too bitter. Bocco also notes that another product, called “golden rice” was produced to combat a serious Vitamin A deficiency that affects 250 million people around the world. Scientists added beta-carotene (which the body converts to Vitamin A) to
Manipulation of plants and animals to produce more desirable traits is certainly nothing new. In fact, the process of plant and animal breeding has been around almost since the time that humans evolved from hunting and gathering to farming. Animal breeders breed one type of dog, for example, with another, to combine the desired traits of both, and the results are called “cross-breeds”. Plant breeders cross one type of plant that may be high yielding but not drought tolerant with another that is drought resistant but doesn’t produce a large crop, to create a “hybrid” plant that offers both desired qualities in one.
In 1953, two scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA. Twenty years later, Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer developed the first recombinant DNA, through a technique called DNA cloning that allowed DNA to be transferred from one biological species to another. And in 1994, the first genetically modified food available to consumers, the Flavr Savr tomato, which was designed to stay fresher longer, was approved by the FDA (“A Brief History of GM”). Today, GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are in many of the foods we eat on a daily basis. Corn, soybeans, and canola and cottonseed oils are among the top GMO crops. According to author Diana Bocco, approximately 85% of all soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified, and at least some of the corn grown in every state is GM. Cottonseed oil is not sold as cooking oil, but is an ingredient in many of the prepackaged foods we consume. Canola oil, also known as rapeseed oil wasn’t even used as a food crop until after it had been genetically modified, because it was too bitter. Bocco also notes that another product, called “golden rice” was produced to combat a serious Vitamin A deficiency that affects 250 million people around the world. Scientists added beta-carotene (which the body converts to Vitamin A) to
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