I do remember clearly as a child, where I grew up in a village in Ipoh (the capital city of Perak, Malaysia). Living in the outskirts of that city, we, being very poor, had the opportunity to grow our own vegetables and have the luxury to buy fresh fish reared in mining ponds. Undoubtedly, these foods labeled as “without chemical-tainted” background are much sought by the many people who are health conscious.
However, these untainted village grown/reared foods are mainly out of reach of many big city dwellers. Many are now obsessed with organic foods while others are concerned about genetically modified foods. So the question now baffling many of us is staring right into our face is what type of food is safe for us? Are Genetically Modified Food safe for human consumption?
In order to know whether genetically modified food is safe or not, let’s understand some basic knowledge of its origin. The natural way of modifying foods genetically had been carried out for many years in the form of cross-breeding in order to achieve the desired characteristics of preferred traits. Unfortunately, this type of modification is a rather slow and somewhat limited process. Beyond the traditional process of cross breeding, plants undergo genetic engineering with modifications so that they are more pest or weed-killer resistant. This allows stronger weed-killers to be applied to the fields to maintain the land without killing the crops. Without limiting to just making them easier to grow, plants could be modified to improve their nutrition content or improve their safety. Others have been modified to make them disease resistance. Peanuts have been genetically modified so that their proteins are less allergenic and this change could potentially save lives of the people who suffer from this dangerous allergy. (more…)
