Genetically Modified Foods

The other day, I was watching a documentary on genetically modified(GM) food and I thought it was interesting debate on need to produce more food and resilient food against the what some critics had complain about it's unknown implications on human health. I am no expert on GM food but these are the few things that I gleaned from the documentary

There are two types of food. 1) genetically modified food- where human intervention in it's genes or structure has caused the food to produce more in quantity and more resilient against diseases 2) naturally occurring food- where no human intervention has occurred and where it's seeds have not been "modified" by human labs.

The benefits of genetically modified food as a result of genetic manipulation are that they produced seeds that immune to certain bugs or diseases which results in better crop yield and healthier crops. I am not sure whether steroid pumping into animals are considered as GM food but I am going to leave them out as I assuming that their genes are not altered.

On the other hand, the naturally occurring food are not given this immunity from human intervention. I am going to assume that they are natural strains which have been given "natural" settings to grow optimally. Hence seen from this angle, they are considered to be more healthy. But unfortunately, due to their natural state, they are also susceptible to their "natural" predators such as diseases or insects.. Since they have not been altered to be grown stronger, they do not grow as fast and are more expensive to grow as their environment must be primed towards their growth. This means that they must be kept in expensive environments to ensure their survivability. A good example are organic foods.

Although the GM foods are stronger, they on the other hand faced another type of opposition. The humans themselves. The main beef that most people have on GM foods is that we do not know for sure what are the health implications for consuming the food. Take for example, in the documentary, Monsanto, the GM seeds company have produced a type of brinjal that is immune to a particular type of insects which preyed specially on the brinjal. This is done by producing a type of material that is poisonous to the insect itself. The main opposition to this is that if it is poisonous to the insect, it could be poisonous to humans as well.

Although, it sounds rather scary that such foods are permeating our ecosystem but a lot of studies have shown that consuming GM foods does not affect our health in any way. Such beliefs that GM foods are affecting our health flies in the face of countless scientific studies that they do not affect our health whatsoever. Hence for countries that faced food shortages such as Bangladesh, such foods are god-send in feeding their millions of hungry people. These concerns are brushed aside in solving the more urgent issue of the hunger problems. But my belief is that these opposition to GM foods is really not just about affecting the health of those that consume the food but rather a more deep-seated fear.

I believe that the deep-seated fear is that we are afraid of playing God. We have a certain disdain against genetically altering humans such as cloning but as the same time, to these people, we are not afraid of genetically altering our foods- which is scary for people who opposes GM foods. It is our belief that God decides who lives and who dies but why can we play God to our food. It is basically contradicting ethics that we hold dear against genetically manipulating humans- which contravenes against the basic human rights of people- while we have no qualms of genetically altering plants and animals for our benefits.

Do we consider clones as humans and since we can produce humans as and when we like- do we ascribed them human rights or are they "sub-humans" which meant that they are nothing more than slaves hence do we consider GM foods as plants or animals since they are not produced naturally by "God" per se. What then are the implications of consuming food that not really "food".

This is an unknown that plays on the mind of those opposes consumption of GM foods. Is there something in the food that we don't know that only "God" knows. That is the main concern of the critics of GM foods that I believed are trying to drive at.

But it is my belief that GM foods are important for ensuring that food is plentiful and cost is kept to as low cost as possible. In my opinion, as they say in ethics a mere knowledge of ethics doesn't make you a good person, at the end of the day, ethical behaviour must also correspond with reality. Therefore, simply ignoring scientific truth while sticking close to "ethics" does not make you an ethical person.

Therefore it is pertinent, scientists continue to conduct scientific tests on the GM food that there are no side-effects to consuming these GM foods. It should continue to do so until the issue of "God" is laid to rest.