One of the most effective standard methods of breeding to obtain improved crops is to bombard seeds and plants with gamma rays to alter their DNA by causing mutations, some of which can then be selected for a desired trait. (Incidentally, organic farmers, in their desire to avoid artificial chemicals, are even more dependent than conventional farmers on crop varieties generated by irradiation.) Irradiation alters both chromosome structure and genome sequence in a way that is quite random. Moreover, there is no legal requirement to test such irradiated products either for effects on health or for what they might do to the environment. By contrast, genetic modification in the laboratory introduces a well-characterised gene or genes into an established genetic background without big disruption.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
You're scared of genetically modified food, so you eat organic. There's only one problem:
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it's true...GM food does scare me. And organic comforts me because I have the idea that God made the world all happy and with plants all delicious and ready for me to eat. Furthermore, organic doesn't have all those pesticides and such which will undoubtedly give me cancer.
But unfortunately eating organic does have a few problems, both scientific and theological.
1.) Theologically sin causes the "delicious happy world" to become a bitter and fallen world. Thus organic food is tainted with the effect of sin.
2.) Scientifically... this article is correct, the only difference between GM food and organic is a few thousand years of natural Genetic Modification. To think that plants and animals haven't swapped genes numerous times is ignorance.
3.) Environmentally organic farming is expensive...both energy wise and land wise...
But still GM food scares me. I know it has potential...but I can't help but think...what if the hidden or looked over consequence of inserted Gene A into Plant B causes unknown disease/disorder C?
Last I refute that GM food is the answer to slash and burn farming, and increased droughts and Global Warming related farming problems. Most of those problems are not a results of Global Warming and increased farming, but rather bad farming practice.
Perhaps as in the case of cotton, biofuels are a good market for GM corn, soy, switchgrass, and algae...
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