The Truth About GMO Foods

Did you know that 150 million hectares of world cropland are cultivated with Genetically Modified crops and humans consequently rely on modified crops more than the natural food eaten? That would be considered a tremendous number by many people, considering that they are artificial products and that the total world cropland is 4.62 billion acres.

So, what are GMOs?

To begin with, GMOs stands for genetically modified organisms. The DNA of these organisms is modified or altered in order to enhance the qualities of the products, through genetic engineering. These modifications might consist of various techniques; such as mutation, removal, or addition of genes belonging to other species that bear characteristics that may come in handier, like resistance to specific diseases, bugs, or being bulkier. GMOs are widely exploited in many areas, like food and pharmaceuticals.

The controversy about this subject is that even though the purpose of GMO foods is well-intentioned, as they aim for resistance, toughness, nutrition, and better taste in food, the benefits are open to debate. Some people are in deep concern about the impacts GMO foods have on health, whereas some believe they don’t pose a direct threat to health and their consumption is not detrimental at all. Many pieces of research have been conducted regarding the effects of GMO foods and the damage done by them to earth is undeniable. In other words, GMO foods are proven to have severe detrimental effects on many matters, especially on human health and the environment.

To begin with, GMO foods are a major threat to human health as they can cause various kinds of ailments, including obesity, research reveals.

The USA is one of the leading countries when it comes to obesity. 38.7% of American people are obese. Nevertheless, Japan has an extremely low percentage of obesity at 3.7% It would be complete ignorance to call this a sheer coincidence.  To explain, according to European research conducted in 2012 by Turkish, Austrian, Irish, Norwegian, and Hungarian scientists; it was found that the “glyphosate” herbicide residues were pretty high in food that are incorporated in the diets of American people. We should keep in mind that glyphosate is a chemical that was supposed to kill excess weeds; however, it turned out to be detrimental as it caused “superweeds” which tolerated glyphosate. Furthermore, it should also be noted that Glyphosate-resistant “superweeds” which are kinds of GMOs don’t die and rather absorb glyphosate in their leaves. Because that glyphosate enhances the damaging aspects of food and environmental toxins like excess calories and fat, we can indicate that a vast majority of food produced and cultivated in the USA are high in calories and they damage health by causing obesity.

Another aspect is that GMOs lead to cancer.

Gilles-Eric Seralini, a professor in molecular biology at Caen University, conducted research that proved that GMOs actually caused cancer. This research was conducted on Guinea Pigs, the Guinea Pigs that were only fed with GMO foods tended to develop cancer 3 times more than ones that ate organic foods. This artificial protein engineered from amino acids, obstructs metabolic pathways, specifically those of sex hormones, with malignant neoplastic disease effects.

One last concern regarding GMOs is that they cause allergies.

Food allergies have leaped in America since 1996, likewise, genes have been synthetically embedded in the DNA of corn, soy, canola, and cotton since 1996. As might be expected, the abundant leap in food allergies is linked to the leap in GMO food manufacturing. To elaborate, these unlabelled GMOs can provoke lethal allergic reactions. Research conducted that people whose diet is mostly compromised by GMOs tend to exhibit allergic reactions. In the research carried out by the UK in 1999, which was a yearly evaluation that few countries administrate, it was ascertained that allergic reactions to soy escalated dramatically by 50% since the launch of GMOs into the market. John Graham who is the spokesperson of the York Lab which is the lab where the research was directed said, “We believe this raises serious new questions about the safety of GM foods.” In the mid-1990s a DNA of soybean was equipped with a Brazil Nut which was a malignant encounter because while transferring the gene, the protein “2S albumin” was dispatched, which is a generally known allergen. Brazil nut was originally transferred for methionine which is a fundamental amino acid however the transfer turned out to be detrimental. Crossbreeding strengthened soybean and it was then more efficient to produce but it caused an allergic reaction in the human volunteers so it was never released.

Primarily, thorough official enactment which specifically addresses GMOs does not exist. They are coordinated underneath the overall legal jurisdictiın of laws concerning ecology, well-being, and issues of safety.  In addition, GMOs are completely banned in some countries such as Japan, France, Italy, etc. Moreover, both international and local farming and environmental companies such as the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and Soil Association mount carefully orchestrated campaigns regarding GMOs and resistance against their disadvantages. However, these campaigns seem rather ineffective. Many people are still not aware of the detriments of GMOs and for the people who are, it is still not helpful since there are no labels on already existing GMO foods and it is very tough for a regular urban city inhabitant to distinguish natural food from GMO foods. People who have opposing viewpoints on this say that countries that have successful technologies and well-educated scientists such as USA support GMOs. Though, it must be contemplated that GMOs are an economically important constituent of the biotechnology commence, which now carries a demanding role in the US economy; that is likely to be the reason countries support such products which are substantially destructive to health.

The environment is another matter that also gets altered due to the consumption of GMO foods.

“GM is a huge distraction. It is diverting a massive amount of time, effort and attention from the really crucial issues facing food and farming,” says Helen Browning, the Chief Executive of the Soil Association, and she isn’t wrong.

Primarily, increased usage of herbicides is counted as one of the negative impacts GMO foods have on the environment. To put forth a vivid demonstration, some GMO foods are classified as Glyphosate-tolerant crops and the usage of these crops has tremendously detrimental consequences on the ecosystem. For further explanation, since the moment Glyphosate-tolerant crops were delivered for sale; herbicides that are glyphosate-based such as RoundUp have conquered the market and Glyphosate-tolerant products like cotton, corn, and beans have covered the bulk of products harvested globally. Glyphosate-tolerant crops were initially developed aiming to wipe out the exhaustion of managing weeds for farmers and additionally, they were utilized in order to abate the total quantity of sprayed herbicides. The crops did end up benefiting the farmers by reducing the time consumption and quantity of monetary sources spent on manual weeding, but it should also be mentioned that the weeds on which farmers used glyphosate-based herbicides on have begun developing a resistance against the herbicides. due to the broad usage of glyphosate herbicides. As long as this loop continues, the glyphosate-based herbicides become more and more ineffective because the crops start growing stronger resistance.  This could be explained by the fact that when herbicides are perpetually kept on being sprayed, there is an evolutionary pressure on the weed populations.

As background information; evolutionary pressure, also called selective pressure, is any cause for organisms who have phenotypes, that are evident and identifying features, to possess either an endurance profit or detriment. Scorching daylight may be given as an instance of a selective pressure that is beneficial for darker-skinned people, as lighter skin in those conditions would be a drawback.

Moreover, Glyphosate is a water-soluble compound; so it softens in water, creating a solution. Issues arise within the quality of water once glyphosate absorbs into the soil because the chemical leaches. Glyphosate applications in nearby rivers cause problems to wildlife populations.  A high quantity of glyphosate is deadly to amphibians and different alike organisms,  given the knowledge that amphibians are members of the cluster of vertebrate animals, characterized by their ability to adapt to and use pelagic and earthly habitats, such as frogs or toads.  It is recommended that a method to kill plants, can contribute to an exceedingly tremendous percentage of fatality to amphibians, which might arise in population deterioration in the organic environment as well as death in laboratory conditions. Rick Relyea, endowed chair in Biological Sciences, provides a specific example of the vital effects of glyphosate, which is that after three weeks of exposure: “Roundup”, which is a glyphosate-based herbicide, killed 96–100% of larval amphibians in their own habitat. However, amphibians are not the sole organisms that are disturbed. Another example provided in a relevant report by Tsui and Chu indicates that microalgae and crustaceans were 4–5 times more sensitive to herbicide toxicity than bacteria and protozoa. The main reason for the toxicity is the extensive pH decline in the water surrounding the microalgae and crustaceans, again due to the addition of glyphosate acid. GMO foods have caused the usage of herbicides and pesticides to boost considerably, leaving a lot of chemical residue on crops for customers to consume.

So, what should we do?

One solution would be to follow a GMO-Free diet, by consuming organic fruits and vegetables and being wary of foods like sugar from sugar beets and soy, and canola, cottonseed, and corn as they are usually known to be genetically modified crops. Another idea would be teaching children starting from pre-school the harms caused by GMOs. All the efforts that were spent to this day didn’t really work. Therefore, governments gave up on implementing new methods. However, if healthy choices are enforced and encouraged from a young age, all the campaigns will succeed and a dramatic amount of drop-in health issues will be witnessed.   There are various studies that point outs that GMOs are intact and they cause no harm to our environment.  But keep in mind that, nearly all studies that claim to be safe are funded by the biotechnology firms that take advantage of GMO sales.

Many pieces of research have been conducted regarding the effects of GMO foods and the damage done by them to earth is undeniable - there is conspicuous proof that connects GMOs with environmental harm, health problems, and even violations of the rights of the customer and farmers. Countries should be allowed to cultivate and produce or consume Genetically Modified products. Instead, a new way to produce efficient products should be researched and used which will be conducted by scientists that are masters in their domain to come up with a conclusion that would fit each and every country’s policies, and ethical and religious values. If we fulfill all these tasks, we would be able to confront the most serious issues and obtain outstanding outcomes. Hence, it would improve the health and environmental conditions of our world. However, we should be aware of the fact that this piece of research will be a long procedure so if short-term results are wanted, then GMO products should be labeled so that citizens would have the option to choose a product according to their state of being a GMO or not. 

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