Why Some People Are Afraid Of Genetically Modified Foods

One of my friends expressed that she thought Genetically Modified (or GM) foods are bad for you. I asked her why she thought this, and she said this "Don't you think putting something else's genetics in something like tomatoes would make the new topic something that's not a tomato?" I didn't know where she was going with this statement, so all I said was "No". I'm sure we went on a little further with it, but she basically didn't have any points to back up why she thought GM foods were bad.

Why Do People Think that GM foods are Bad?

Simply put, many people are afraid of the unknown. What they don't know, they perceive to be bad for them. So even if a plant is modified to withstand the cold, or resist pests, or to resist pesticides they believe they are bad for you because they don't know how they were modified to do so.

Could They Ever Harm You?

Allergic Reactions: Many people have deadly allergies to certain plants such as peanuts, but even though it's possible to modify crops to have allergic potential, it likely won't happen since proposals to incorporate such potentially allergenic components into crops will get turned down for that reason. So, no need to fear about that!

GM Foods Advantages

Aside from all the obvious advantages such as disease resistance, cold tolerance, and drought tolerance, you have:

Nutrition: Many third world countries rely on a single crop such as rich as a main source of food. This is a problem because normal rice doesn't have a lot of vitamin A, and that leads to the very real problem of blindness due to a lack of Vitamin A. A strain of rice called "Golden Rice" had been developed to combat this problem. The Rockefeller Foundation, which developed this rice, along with another strain of rice with a high iron content, planned to give seeds away for free to whoever asked for it, however, the funding on these two projects was not renewed because of Anti-GM protests in Europe. Really now?

Medicine: Researchers are developing edible vaccines in potatoes and tomatoes. These vaccines would be easier to ship and administer than traditional vaccines.

What do you think about GM foods?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_Gu
http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-Some-People-Are-Afraid-Of-Genetically-Modified-Foods&id=5684753