It’s possible that at some point you’ve heard something about GMOs being in food and that it’s bad for you, but this simply isn’t true.
GMO stands for genetically modified organism, which can be found in plants, animals or microbes that have been genetically engineered, according to MedlinePlus.
According to the same source, some of the benefits of altering the DNA structures of these organisms can lead to increased growth rate of both plants and animals, increased supply of food, disease and drought-resistant food, as well as insect-resistant plants, which can require less pesticide use.
Some of the foods that you might find GMOs in include strawberries, carrots, corn and potatoes, according to a review article from the Journal of Food Science and Technology.
This all sounds great, so who is opposed to the introduction of GMOs and why?
One organization in particular, called The Non-GMO Project, is one of the voices contributing to the resistance against GMOs.
One of the things The Non-GMO Project says on its website is that there is a lack of independent, long-term, credible studies on GMOs, so its safety is “unknown.”
But the reality is that we do know that GMOs are safe. Before being sold, foods with GMOs are examined with great care to determine they are just as safe to eat as non-GMO food, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
If the FDA is closely examining foods, especially ones it knows many people are skeptical of, it seems highly unlikely that it would approve use of GMOs without carefully looking at the evidence.
This type of “naturalist” thinking seems to be present in the anti-GMO crowd because genetic modification can’t occur naturally, but the researchers who developed GMOs weren’t some kind of evil mad scientists who want to poison the world.
The idea that GMOs are unsafe also becomes a problem when considering agricultural sustainability.
As it turns out, genetically modified organisms are good for the environment as biotechnology in agriculture can work to reduce the effects of climate change, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
One research article from Trends in Plant Science Journal found that growing genetically modified plants in the EU could reduce its total agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5%.
It might not seem like a lot, but if there is anything we can do to fight climate change, especially something so simple, we should do it.
GMOs can be part of the change we need to take and there is very little reason why we shouldn’t be doing it.
In 2021, the U.S. was responsible for about 13.49% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Climate.gov.
Of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, about 10.5% were related to agriculture and forestry, according to the USDA.
Organizations like The Non-GMO Project could be inhibiting the use of GMOs in foods when they are needed by presenting a false narrative that GMOs are unsafe.
This has already been seen in Europe, where many countries have disallowed cultivation of GMOs, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, and France, according to the World Population Review.
These countries have banned GMOs primarily because they do not feel the science has substantially proven them to be safe and that the risks highly outweigh the benefits, according to a research article from the Plant Biotechnology journal.
By banning GMOs, countries are throwing out the possibility of more sustainable agricultural practices.
Some of the risks associated with the use of GMO foods are: a proclivity to have genes that cause an allergic reaction, the possibility that added genes may cause a genetic mutation that causes cancer and the overall use of herbicides in their proximity, according to Healthline.
According to the same article, however, the evidence of these harms to consumers is relatively weak, although it should certainly be stated that more research is needed.
The logo for The Non-GMO Project shows a picture of a butterfly and a green checkmark which seems to picture what people think they are doing when they don’t consume GMOs.
If you aren’t interested in eating food that has been genetically modified because you don’t want anything unnatural going into your body, that’s okay.
However, it is important to understand that just because something is “natural,” it does not mean that it is inherently good.
This is what is called an appeal to nature logical fallacy, the idea that natural things are inherently good and unnatural things are bad.
The holes in this fallacious thinking can be seen with the example of poisonous plants or mushrooms, which are not good for your health, compared to anesthesia, which is entirely synthetic but has extreme benefits in surgery.
GMOs were created to improve the world, and as the current research suggests, there does not appear to be much risk in consuming them, especially when they are in so many foods.
