“Has science gone too far?” we ask ourselves as we cut open an orange only to find it has the innards of a grapefruit. And don’t even get us started on blomatoes, which are tomatoes injected with genetic material from blueberries that makes them higher in antioxidants and disconcertingly purple in color.
But these so-called Frankenfruits are hardly the most common genetically modified foods, or GMFs, out there. In fact, if we’ve eaten any corn or squash recently, or if we’ve cooked with canola oil, had a bowl of cereal, or sucked down a can of soda, we’ve most likely ingested genetically modified food.
That’s because GMFs are everywhere. They’ve been a part of our food and agriculture production since scientists first figured out how to isolate genes and then either manipulate them or transfer them to other living organisms. This is done to make the organism “better” in some way, whether it becomes tastier, healthier, more resistant to disease, or cheaper to produce and/or preserve. Almost all of the corn and soy grown on our planet has been genetically modified in some way, so if we’re eating or using any corn or soy products, there’s a good chance it falls into the GMF category.
This all sounds swell, but GMFs, which are also called “bioengineered foods,” also come with some potential drawbacks. For one, while they might be engineered to resist diseases and pests today, some make the argument that that resistance will diminish as those diseases and pests evolve. For two, if we really are what we eat, then what do we become when we eat a bunch of genetically modified food? Do we become genetically modified? Will we develop new allergies? Will we become immune to immunizations? Will we become stronger and faster and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? In other words, will we become the human version of the blomato?
There is a lot of debate about whether genetically modified foods are good, bad, both, or neither. As consumers learn more about genetic modifications, organizations are being pressured to include modification info on their food labels, or to discontinue using GMOs (genetically modified organisms) altogether. In some countries, laws have been put into place that specifically ban the use of GMOs in food products. We’ll see what this ends up meaning for the agriculture and food production industries in the long run; for now, we’ll just learn from both sides of the debate as we chow down on this delicious grorangefruit.