My Attitude To The Organic And GMO Products
Consumption of food, to a great extent, defines all of our everyday actions. It is a key factor for our physical and mental health, mood and behavior. So, it is our main responsibility to consume healthy and fresh food to remain alive, young and fine-looking for as long as we can. Currently, there are only two big categories of products offered on markets everywhere on Earth. They can be either cultivated organically or genetically modified. The second category uses genetic engineering to modify their crops, that result in abnormally high yields of food that have special traits. This method of producing food has become popular in early 70s and now it is pretty widespread around the globe, thanks to entrepreneurs who quickly understood that this technology is the great way to do significantly more profit, using the same amount of resources.
Basically, genetic engineering is the direct manipulation of an organism's gene using certain biotechnology techniques. It became widely commercialized in late 80s, with creation of food that can’t rotten for a very long time and is resistant to pesticides and certain type of insects. There is a hot and long debate going on between two divisions of people. One stand for consumption of organic food, others insist on indifference between bioengineered food and organic food, saying that greater development of GMO products would lower costs for food, improve the quality and shelf time of food and create a new industry with a lot of unique opportunities for new jobs that will stimulate economy growth. I am a great promoter of organic food. Recently I started to feel more concerned about changes that were made to amendment to the 1946 Agricultural Marketing Act, as the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is now charged with determining a national bioengineered food disclosure model.
The purpose of the rule is to provide a uniform standard for companies in the BE industry to disclose information about BE foods and BE food ingredients. In this paper, I am going to write about arguments for implementing the above rule and why proper labelling should be done on food products. First of all, supporters of genetically modified food insist that genetic engineering is simply an extension of traditional plant breeding, so it can’t be harmful to people that consume GMO products. On the other hand, a lot of reputable agencies and unions scientifically proven complete reverse of their words. The research that attracted my attention the most was done by Michael K. Hansen, who is research associate in Consumers Union.
Consumers Union is a United States-based non-profit organization, which focuses on product testing, investigative journalism, and consumer advocacy. He detected substantial difference between plant breeding and genetic engineering. Conventional breeding employs processes that take place in nature, such as both sexual and asexual reproductions. The product of conventional breeding accentuates on certain characteristics. On the other hand, these characteristics are not new for the species. The characteristics have been present for thousands of years within the genetic potential of the species. Principally, genetic engineering works through insertion of genetic material.
After gene insertion have been completed, it should be also followed up by selection process. Given insertion process can’t happen in nature. At first step of generic engineering, a gene, a bacterial or a chemical or electrical treatment inserts the genetic material into the host plant cell. Then, with the help of genetic elements in the formation, this genetic material inserts itself into the chromosomes of the host plant. Genetic engineers should also insert a so-called “promoter” gene from a virus as unit of the package, to make the injected gene express itself. Given process is profoundly different from conventional breeding, even if the fundamental goal is only to inject genetic material from the same species. It is scientifically proven fact that this process could lead to new allergens, carcinogens, nutritional deficiencies, and toxins that we are unprepared to cure. Which is leading us towards second argument.
