Which produce is gmo

What is a GMO? Genetically modified organisms GMOs are living organisms whose genetic material has been artificially manipulated in a laboratory through genetic engineering. This creates combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and virus genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods. However, new technologies are now being used to artificially develop other traits in plants, such as a resistance to browning in apples, and to create new organisms using synthetic biology.

Despite biotech industry promises, there is no evidence that any of the GMOs currently on the market offer increased yield, drought tolerance, enhanced nutrition, or any other consumer benefit.

Visit the What is GMO page for more information and a list of high-risk crops. Are GMOs safe? In the absence of credible independent long-term feeding studies, the safety of GMOs is unknown. Increasingly, citizens are taking matters into their own hands and choosing to opt out of the GMO experiment. Are GMOs labeled? Fact Sheet. The following example gives a general idea of the steps it takes to create a GMO plant.

To produce a GMO plant, scientists first identify what trait they want that plant to have, such as resistance to drought, herbicides, or insects. Then, they find an organism plant, animal, or microorganism that already has that trait within its genes.

In this example, scientists wanted to create insect-resistant corn to reduce the need to spray pesticides. They identified a gene in a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis Bt , which produces a natural insecticide that has been in use for many years in traditional and organic agriculture.

Next, scientists use tools to insert the gene into the DNA of the plant. By inserting the Bt gene into the DNA of the corn plant, scientists gave it the insect resistance trait. In the laboratory, scientists grow the new corn plant to ensure it has adopted the desired trait insect resistance. If successful, scientists first grow and monitor the new corn plant now called Bt corn because it contains a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis in greenhouses and then in small field tests before moving it into larger field tests.

GMO plants go through in-depth review and tests before they are ready to be sold to farmers. Triticale is a century-plus-old hybrid of wheat and rye found in some flours and breakfast cereals.

Wheat itself, for that matter, is a cross-species hybrid. Could eating plants with altered genes allow new DNA to work its way into our own? It is possible but hugely improbable. Scientists have never found genetic material that could survive a trip through the human gut and make it into cells.

Besides, we are routinely exposed to—and even consume—the viruses and bacteria whose genes end up in GM foods. The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis , for example, which produces proteins fatal to insects, is sometimes enlisted as a natural pesticide in organic farming.

In any case, proponents say, people have consumed as many as trillions of meals containing genetically modified ingredients over the past few decades. Not a single verified case of illness has ever been attributed to the genetic alterations.

Mark Lynas, a prominent anti-GM activist who in publicly switched to strongly supporting the technology, has pointed out that every single news-making food disaster on record has been attributed to non-GM crops, such as the Escherichia coli —infected organic bean sprouts that killed 53 people in Europe in Critics often disparage U.

But much research on the subject comes from the European Commission, the administrative body of the E. The European Commission has funded research projects, carried out by more than independent teams, on the safety of GM crops. None of those studies found any special risks from GM crops. Plenty of other credible groups have arrived at the same conclusion.

Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a science-based consumer-watchdog group in Washington, D. Yet Jaffe insists the scientific record is clear. The U. Food and Drug Administration, along with its counterparts in several other countries, has repeatedly reviewed large bodies of research and concluded that GM crops pose no unique health threats.

Dozens of review studies carried out by academic researchers have backed that view. Opponents of genetically modified foods point to a handful of studies indicating possible safety problems. But reviewers have dismantled almost all of those reports. But the potato was not intended for human consumption—it was, in fact, designed to be toxic for research purposes.

The Rowett Institute later deemed the experiment so sloppy that it refuted the findings and charged Pusztai with misconduct. Similar stories abound. After a review, the European Food Safety Authority dismissed the study's findings.

Several other European agencies came to the same conclusion. Some scientists say the objections to GM food stem from politics rather than science—that they are motivated by an objection to large multinational corporations having enormous influence over the food supply; invoking risks from genetic modification just provides a convenient way of whipping up the masses against industrial agriculture.

Not all objections to genetically modified foods are so easily dismissed, however. Long-term health effects can be subtle and nearly impossible to link to specific changes in the environment. Scientists have long believed that Alzheimer's disease and many cancers have environmental components, but few would argue we have identified all of them. And opponents say that it is not true that the GM process is less likely to cause problems simply because fewer, more clearly identified genes are replaced.

And as U. True, the number of genes affected in a GM plant most likely will be far, far smaller than in conventional breeding techniques.

Yet opponents maintain that because the wholesale swapping or alteration of entire packages of genes is a natural process that has been happening in plants for half a billion years, it tends to produce few scary surprises today. Changing a single gene, on the other hand, might turn out to be a more subversive action, with unexpected ripple effects, including the production of new proteins that might be toxins or allergens.

Opponents also point out that the kinds of alterations caused by the insertion of genes from other species might be more impactful, more complex or more subtle than those caused by the intraspecies gene swapping of conventional breeding.

And just because there is no evidence to date that genetic material from an altered crop can make it into the genome of people who eat it does not mean such a transfer will never happen—or that it has not already happened and we have yet to spot it. These changes might be difficult to catch; their impact on the production of proteins might not even turn up in testing.

It is also true that many pro-GM scientists in the field are unduly harsh—even unscientific—in their treatment of critics. GM proponents sometimes lump every scientist who raises safety questions together with activists and discredited researchers. Most of them are nonscientists, or retired researchers from obscure institutions, or nonbiologist scientists, but the Salk Institute's Schubert also insists the study was unfairly dismissed.

Schubert joins Williams as one of a handful of biologists from respected institutions who are willing to sharply challenge the GM-foods-are-safe majority. Both charge that more scientists would speak up against genetic modification if doing so did not invariably lead to being excoriated in journals and the media.

These attacks, they argue, are motivated by the fear that airing doubts could lead to less funding for the field. Both scientists say that after publishing comments in respected journals questioning the safety of GM foods, they became the victims of coordinated attacks on their reputations.

Schubert even charges that researchers who turn up results that might raise safety questions avoid publishing their findings out of fear of repercussions.

There is evidence to support that charge.