Monday, March 14, 2016
Are GMOs the future of the food industry?
As some of us know, GMOs are used in 75-80% of the food on grocery store shelves. They aren't labeled so we have no way of knowing which foods are genetically modified, unless we buy organic foods. In almost all the articles I've read there has been a mention of how scientists do not yet know how GMOs affect our health. We haven't been eating this way long enough to know the long term effects of GMOs. Salmon was the first genetically modified animal intended for consumption that was approved by the FDA. Since I've been researching the topic of GMOs I'm beginning to realize how little we actually know about them. We don't even know the answer to the most important question; how do these products affect humans? It's scary to think about how many products we use on a daily basis actually contain GMOs without our knowledge. That's where the question of labeling comes into play. Do consumers have the right to know if their food is being genetically modified? Should consumers have the aforementioned right? I believe that scientists should study how these products affect us before allowing us to purchase them blindly. I've learned that there are numerous different GMOs depending on what they are being used for and in. Should GMOs be banned until we know if they're safe?
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Theoretically, it would be impossible to know, and be absolutely sure that the GMOs are safe. GMOs, just like nearly everything else in the world, have their flaws. And if we wait until it becomes flawless before we start selling them, it will never hit the market. Besides, you said so yourself that " there are numerous different GMOs depending on what they are being used for and in." So to banned them all until all of them become safe would be quite an unreasonable plan.
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is to have a law that requires the labeling of GMOs on every GMOs that are sold on the market. If somethings that have such a high influence on people's life, such as food, are suspected to have negative effects, people need to be able to see the risks that they are taking and decide for themselves.
Easy access to the information regarding GMOs is also another important issue. We both agree on that scientists should study the foods and its effect on us before selling them, so I will not talk too much about that. The problem is that the companies will try to get around the issues and just put in vague labeling like: "This product contain GMOs" but not going into detail. Which is kind of useless, since we, as customers, will never be able to know what they specifically mean by that. What we need is a clear potential effect on the person based on the product (e.g. May cause cancer, or cause drowsiness, or whatever), and why that might happen (e.g. contains this hormone, or this protein was taken out of substance, or whatever).
I believe that banning GMOs until we know that they're safe will be a difficult thing to do. Yes, testing GMOs until they are able to be safely put into crops and other foods will harm people less. But what about the countries who already rely heavily on genetically modified foods? Because of certain GMOs they are able to make their crops last longer or grow faster and some even add nutrients to crops that people have little access to. If we take GMOs away, we face the risk of people having less to eat and having malnutrition. So should we still ban GMOs, if people need them to survive?
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