ClownCar

In light of the upcoming GM Food rally going on this Thursday, I’d thought I’d put up the definition of GM Food and what it does, plus other stuff like pros and cons.

What GM Food is or means is that things like vegetables and fruit get modified by genetic engieering to make them more resistant to pest, disease and stand up to different climates and adapt to them. However, there’s been quite a lot of controversy surrounding something that obviously isn’t natural, such as the danger of feeding GM corn to rats; studies have found that the rats were prone to having smaller kidneys and also a small composition of blood after being fed the MON863 strain. The European Commitee have approved the consumption of this exact strain of corn for humans despite these disturbing findings. Next is the topic of allergies, seeing that Australian children are more prone to allergies towards foods such as milk and nuts, the advocation of eating GM Food could make matters go from bad to worse, where even the smallest amount of peanut butter could send a primary school kid from an excursion trip to a hospital emergency room

A gene for an allergenic trait has been transferred unintentionally from the Brazil nut into genetically engineered soybeans while intending to improve soybean nutritional quality for animal feed use.

Investigation of the GM soybeans revealed that they produced immunological reactions with people suffering from Brazil nut allergy, and the explanation for this is that the methionine rich protein chosen by Pioneer Hi-Bred is the major source of Brazil nut allergy.

Another allergy issue was published in November 2005, when a pest resistant field pea developed by the Australian CSIRO for use as a pasture crop was shown to cause an allergic reaction in mice.

Quite disturbing, considering that the said organization is based in Australia. The CSIRO by rights should have the knowledge that such a crop of nuts could be dangerous when children are exposed to it.

The public’s view however, is still the same. A survey shows that only two percent of Britons would be happy chowing down on GM Food, with the rest of us saying a definite no in the move for having such foodstuffs on the shelves of the local supermarket or in food sold by restaurants. The authorities say that world hunger can be solved by the use of GM food crops, I remain quite the skeptic knowing that they should stop wasting money on something that bears little or no fruit that isn’t meant to be consumed by man or beast.