By Dayne Hudson
If you haven't been living under a rock, you would have heard about genetically modified foods or "GM foods" as they're often referred to.
GM foods are produced from organisms that have experienced deliberate changes to their DNA courtesy of genetic engineering.
And the debate is alive and well: are they safe for human consumption?
GMO AND GM FOODS
In a recent meta-analysis, researchers weren't able to find a solid example that GM foods are risky for humans or animals (1).
To present some of their conclusions:
“The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops.”
Furthermore, GM foods have been found to be some of the safest engineered food products made (2-3).
While GM foods are made in a lab, I personally struggle to see how it can be a problem when it's designed and tested for human consumption.
Say we bite into an unknown fruit from a rainforest somewhere in the world - sure, it may have been eaten by those who inhabit the land but there's still loads of new proteins and plenty of "unknowns" for us to ponder.
Just because something is natural or "from the earth" as people say, really doesn't mean anything.
The "earth" wasn't created for human survival - there are plenty of poisonous fish and fruit lying around that we can only wish a lab had gotten too first if we were to accidently eat them.
Another study (4) blew another big hole in the argument made by anti GM food crusaders:
"The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies."
It seems pretty safe to say that GM foods are nothing to be concerned about.
Further research (5) has uncovered:
"Foods derived from GM crops have been consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the world for more than 15 years, with no reported ill effects (or legal cases related to human health), despite many of the consumers coming from that most litigious of countries, the USA."
The authors are saying that essentially, with a country like America where everyone likes to take people to court for potential benefits, this just hasn't happened in relation to GM foods.
It seems the current scientific literature promotes the ideology that there's no cause for alarm in regards to GM foods.
They are fine to consume in combination with "junk" foods, and organic fresh foods too.
As I always tell you, it's about moderation.
The take home message at this point seems pretty clear: enjoy your GM foods until further notice, and don't fall victim to any pseudoscience attempting to prove the opposite!
"Stay Fit, Stay Flexed!"
REFERENCES
(1) Nicolia A et al. An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety research. Crit Rev Biotechnol, Early Online: 1–12, 2013
(2) Ronald P. Plant genetics, sustainable agriculture and global food security. Genetics 188 (1): 11-20.
(3) United States Institute of Medicine and National Research Council (2004). Safety of genetically engineered foods: approaches to assessing unintended health effects. National academies press. ppR9-10.
(4) A decade of EU-funded GMO research (2001-2010). Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. Biotechnologies, Agriculture, Food. European Union. 2010. doi: 10.2777/97784 . ISBN 978-92-79-16344-9 - page 16.
(5) Key S, Ma JK, Drake PM (June 2008). "Genetically modified plants and human health." J R Soc Med 101 (6): 290–8.
