What Are the Pros and Cons of Genetically Engineered Food?

I am doing a project in my biology class about this topic. I am personally for genetically modified food.

Pro -- Plants and animals that have been genetically modified can become more resistant to the unexpected problems of disease. Think of it as a vaccine for that plant or animal, except that the vaccine is encoded into the genetics instead of a shot given to the immune system.

Pro -- Many genetically modified foods have been created so they’ll be able to grow faster, allowing for the potential of two harvests instead of one.

Thanks so much. This helped me out a lot in my bioethics class!

Con - years of research.

Genetically Modified crops are bad.

Honestly, some gm foods are better for you, unlike the originals. But with other foods, gming them might just mess them up. Most people's problems with inserting animal genes into plants are illogical. These foods won't start walking or tasting like chicken. The food producers and plant engineers are just inserting one or two genes into the plant. And about the speculation that gm foods cause autism and Asperger's is, in my opinion, crap.

Some people choose pros just because the paragraphs are shorter.

We have been modifying crops for thousands of years, picking the best seeds and crops and producing more of them. It kind of sounds like the same thing we're doing now, except more advanced. But I hope we don't get a virus and turn into zombies.

GMO pros:

1. Jobs. GMO's provide jobs to people who have specialized education in transgenics. Given the cost and amount of time required for the study of genetics, GMO manufacturing provides the only way to utilize the one and only skill they have to pay back their student loans other than flipping burgers.

2. Loyalty development. Individuals in the GMO industry are bound to strong loyalty systems. As the only real source of employment for gene manipulation is in the foods industry, that means if one sector of this "science" is found to be immoral, bad, dangerous, whatever, it behooves those involved with it to tell the same stories and come to the same conclusions, lest all involved need to find new jobs they would be suited for. Re: burger flippers.

3. Developing support skills. If you find you've wasted all of your time and money on a junk "science" degree that, as soon as the rest of the world figures this out, you're not only unemployed but have become a pariah, you quickly learn how to support it. The first rule to support it, as learned from governments, is the bigger it is, the harder it is to take down. Loan others money for education in the study. Now they are also bound by no. 2 from the realization from no. 1.

Create new branches, testers, distributors, lobbyists, shills to monitor bad blogs on the internet and incorporate into government. By incorporating in the government you create no. 4.

4. Providing a new mission in government. By setting up corporate executives in key spots with say the FDA, POTUS advisory committee, Supreme Court justices and so on in the USA and other countries, you combine the inherent bloat of both as one.

This not only protects GMO's from good policies like, say, putting a label on it, but also helps the governments by providing money, more government bloat, direction to these poor blind bureaucrats, money, protection from the press, election and or reelection support and money. Can money blind others?

Anyway, I felt bad seeing all the con posts so I figured some pros would only be fair. You probably won't want to hear my cons.

Okay, that was fun, but think about this: Would you trust anyone with total power over 90 percent of the world's food supply? This is real, now.

Do you trust mainstream scientists talking about all the new advancements in genetics and unknown relationships in DNA, RNA and mRNA or GMO manufacturers who say they know what they're doing and in no way would it have side effects?

Can you name one multinational corporation you truly trust with your life no, forget that -- your children's lives? Again, I have more questions.

We have been genetically modifying our crops for several thousand years. Corn started off as a thin stalk that looked more like wheat, but was modified through generations of selective breeding into the inflated Frankenstein yellow monster we today know as corn, and we view as "natural". These modifications involved the swapping of thousands of genes at a time. Some of the genes were altered by viruses that bring in foreign genes, and then selected.

In the 20th century, plant breeding advanced to induced mutations and hybrid generation to enhance yield, pesticide resistance, drought-resistance etc. The current round of genetic modification is by contrast much more subtle, and involves changes or addition of only a single gene at a time. And in the case of pesticide resistance, involves introduction of a gene that has no function otherwise. How the heck this is dangerous, and the previous several thousand years is "natural" is a little hard for me to understand.

When I read the comments here, I get the impression that many people opposed to genetic engineering don't actually know what it involves. It does not mean your food is "produced in a laboratory" any more than the previous generations of plant breeding did.

Just imagine what your stomach is thinking when you put these fake foods in there. It is saying Help! What do I do with this stuff?

There wouldn't be a shortage of food if the government would let the farmers grow as much as they want to. Instead, they pay them not to grow food.

Gmo foods are bad, period.

If you think about the GM food logically, you realize that a portion of our diet is now basically grown in a laboratory. I don't like that idea, but it is a fact.

Anyone have any more pros?

Question: If we make everything genetically superior to what it was in the first place, what will happen if the fruit or veggie or whatever needs to adapt to its environment? It will most likely die out.

There may be bad consequences to some GM crop programs, but some of the arguments against GM crops seem to have been begun as rumors by seed companies that do not have a GM program. Built into their marketing plan is the expectation that many ordinary citizens will repeat the rumors and create big-business conspiracy tales.

You can't build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery. — Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug (1914-2009)

how do we feed 7 billion people?

Could you please name one or two crops that have been genetically modified to produce a better tasting product? Here's a harder one - a more nutritious product?

As far as I can tell through all research avenues, the most common Genetic Modification - like 99.99 percent - is the addition of a bacteria gene to the plant's genetic material to allow the use of Monsanto's RoundUp - a genetic defoliant, which kills any plant that does not have the bacteria gene.

Best example would be the "Canola" plant - a commercial name which is short for Canadian Oil, given to the Rape Seed plant to hide its real identity. The Rape Seed plant had never before been used to produce an edible oil - being used instead as an industrial machinery penetrating oil and a glossifier in printing inks.

One would thus suspect that its genetic modification would have something to do with making it edible for humans. One would be wrong.

It is still an inedible oil and should not be consumed by humans, but it can be sprayed with RoundUp and not die, which is its only genetic modification. Monsanto paid the Canadian Government Big time to promote Canola Oil as a health food - in fact, there's a good chance that all the hype about Omega3 fatty acids being the newest miracle food on the block, is entirely due to the fact that its the only thing they have been able to find in Canola oil that is not toxic.

A wise Geek does his homework before promoting anything, unless the wise simply stands for the ability of getting the best commercial advertisers to pay for your site.

Monsanto (or whatever the company has renamed itself this year) pays big time for ads and "no questions asked" customers.

the few things that were written were somewhat helpful. but i would have like to see more pros as well as cons.

Not enough info for the pros. But thanks anyway. i guess.

Thanks. this helped for my school essay.

if anyone needs another con, genetically modified crops kill animals all the time. For example, they killed over 1000 Monarch caterpillars in one season because of their 'bug Repellent' modification. Don't quote me on that. look it up yourself.

Watch "The Future of Our Food" from National Geographic channel. On Netflix right now. That is loaded with information about how the DNA of seeds are altered and with what. They have to use a e. cholea DNA gene along with a couple other DNA genes to alter seeds to be what the chemists want. It is eye opening.

Con GM foods produce their own pesticides. how can that be good for humans? FDA scientists found GMOs could lead to allergies, toxins, disease, and nutritional problems. American Academy of Environmental Medicine cites horrific results of gmo animal feeding studies including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, organ damage, and gastrointestinal disorders.

i think they are not safe. if the antibiotic genes inserted into most Gm foods were to transfer, it could create a super disease. Because they are resistant to antibiotics!

That was so helpful! Thank you so much! I really needed the cons for my debate!

thanks. i really needed those last points for my debate.

Thanks anon20523! I needed more cons. lol.

Not enough cons!

This was very helpful for my project on genetically engineered crops pros and cons.

Wow, thanks! i needed it for a homework assignment! I got everything right! Thanks a lot.

In Africa, the current mass producing farmers are being threatened and murdered. There are calls to drive the farmers off the lands. In SA there is a revival of the public singing and condoning of the song 'shoot the boer (means farmer)'

Is there a connection with genetically modified crops?

I'm doing this for a school project and I've got to say that this has been a very helpful resource! Thanks a lot!

Thanks for the info!

Con -- GMO crops can lead to farmers using MORE pesticides and herbicides, not less, because the GMO crops can "handle it".

Con -- Roundup ready soybeans have already led to "superweeds" that are resistant to all weed killers, and there will almost certainly be more superweeds because of this technology.

Con -- "Superbugs" (resistant to pesticides) are also almost certain to develop, or already have developed because of gmo technology.

Con -- Native, wild insects that live close to certain gmo crops (bt corn) are also killed.

Con -- Humans can have severe allergic reactions to certain gmo foods (starlink corn).

Con -- A very small number of large companies will control the seed supplies for the world. The seeds cannot be saved by individuals, which is a very important issue, especially in the third world.