can anyone tell me about genetically modified food?? the pros and the cons?

Answer 1

Pros: Genetically modified crops can produce more than 10 times the output per acre as regular crops. That means you can feed 10 times as many people per acre, and you have to spend 10 times less working in the field for the same output (or send your kids to school instead of making them work on the farm all day). They are more resilliant to crop diseases and insects, so they are more likely to come to term and not be destroyed by weather or locusts or anything else, so more likely to earn a farmer their living.
Genetically modified crops basically saved the lives of literally billions of people in China, India, Pakistan, Mexico, and Central America.

Cons: Some people don't understand that we've been genetically modifying food for thousands of years through selective breeding. This is basically the same thing. No, we're not putting fish or animal genes in plants. It's just plants - better, hardier plants. And so now the nation of Zaire is starving to death because Europe's version of Greenpeace told them the genetically modified crops offered by the US would poisen their citizens, and Zaire turned them down. Way to go, tree-huggers.

Answer 2

Genetically modified food is when you chop the DNA of nifty things you want out of some food and put it into others. This results in larger crop yields, larger fruits and vegetables, ability to withstand poor conditions such as frost or drought. Sometimes though, the larger vegetation may lose some flavour. This does not have to be true, but oftentimes it seems to be.

One con is that since GM foods can flourish so well, they may have the ability to overtake other crops. In general this is not the case as the scientists who made this crop made sure it was impotent to ensure that this cannot happen.
Most of the cons are in the application of the technology. Most people seem to think they'll be dangerous to your health somehow, but this is pretty much untrue. The real danger is a loss of biodiversity in crops. If there is a disease, it may wipe out whole crops. Also, in poorer countries, farmers will plant one crop of a GM food and then not have seed for the next harvest and not be able to afford seeds from the corporation again. Oftentimes corporations will also patent GM foods that are very close to crops that have been selectively breeded for thousands of years. They can now prosecute anyone who harvests these crops, which isn't fair at all.

Another con is in pesticides. GM crops can be made able to withstand a certain pesticide and then the crop will be bombarded with pesticides. These may get into the surrounding environment causing all sorts of damage.
Therefore, I don't think it's GM foods that are the problem, but the idiocy of how they are sometimes used. Also, I've used GM in the sense of gene splicing, but realistically all crops ever are GM. The gene pool has been manipulated generation after generation through careful, planned, selective breeding.

Also, don't fall for the organic hype. This label has no true meaning and isn't controlled at a government level. Any huckster may try to pass off their food as organic. The main thing you should be concerned about is not GM itself but the ethics of the companies supplying your food (patent wise) and the environmental effects of pesticides which may have been used on your foods.

Answer 3

Uhm, they're said to grow more efficiently, or with certain characteristics.

The cons are that they can contain allergens, one of the first genetically modified corns had a gene in it that was very close to an allergen, so it got pulled after a while, but by then it'd spread through the world, crazy. Generally it can upset the balance of nature. Plants cross pollinate, which means the genetics can be transfered out of those crops. And little is done to stop this.

It's also not been tested long enough, considering how we're changing these things, in ways that were never done previously.

Lastly, it creates doubt that natural plants are as good. Mind you we seem to be able to grow food in abundance right now, we just have people in the world go hungry because we don't share. They want to sent the GE food to these other countries but it doesn't make much sense if they lack the infrastructure to grow crops.

Luckily not much of it makes it into human mouths in Canada.

Answer 4

Anytime any plant or animal is changed in anyway by humans, it is genetically modified. Humans have been genetically modifying our food sources since we began walking upright. When humans picked certain animals to hunt over others we genetically modified the species, when we learned to plant we picked certain seeds, thus genetically modifying the plants, over many generations humans have become more adept at genetically altering our food supply.
Now good or bad, it depends, on how you look at it, where your coming from. For a vegen harvesting any animal is bad, for a cowboy or wisconson dairy farmer it's good. For a plant purest changing plants at the moleculer level is bad, for a corporate farm or large midwest family farm it is good. those are a few examples, so pick your side and stick to it cause no one likes a fence sitter like me.

Answer 5

Pros: Scientists can genetically modify things like fruits so they are larger and visually more appealing.

Cons: Some people believe that there needs to be genetic diversity among plants that way if some new strain of disease breaks out that all of one species of a plant won't be wiped out.

Answer 6

No diff. dear! We all are made up of same elements and on micro scale with same classification of cells. Only thing tht changes is composition of diff. feautres. So tomorrow you can have low fat or high fat rice with added flavours of vitamins or which smell like boiled potato. So all it has to with our senses. But always remember be original, as much as possible.

Answer 7

pros: tastes really good (mcdonalds)

cons: you're getting a heart attack on a bun (mcdonalds)

Answer 8

It is usually very tasty, doesn't cost much, but very bad for your health