Are GM foods safe?
This is one of the more common questions, but one of the more difficult ones to answer as a person needs to define for themselves what they mean by safe. Also, each GM crop or food needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis as they each have potentially different technology behind them, have different traits and therefore different potential risks and benefits, depending on the environment they are grown in.
Second, on that definition of safe, how safe must your food be before any potential risks become acceptable? There is no such thing as zero risk and all foods have some risk attached to eating them. The acceptability of risk will change from person to person.
One should also compare the potential risks of eating a GM food with those of eating a conventionally-bred food. For example, two commonly used conventional breeding techniques, mutagenesis and embryo rescue, involve mixing and mutating genes. This can produce a host of unknown toxins, allergens and anti-nutrients in equally unknown concentrations. What effect these changes may have on human health is often unknown. But we continue to eat this food.
So you need to assess the risks and benefits from a scientific, economic, agronomic and social/ethical perspective. From there you need to define for yourself if a particular GM food is safe – or acceptable.
More info
TechNyou Tech Talk: Arguments for and against gene technology
Food Standards Australia New Zealand: GM foods, Safety assessment of genetically modified foods
No mention of “you are what you eat” so it stands to reason, if you eat “GM foods then your own cells, DNA also becomes modified.
There is no mention becasue it is a scientifically invalid assumption – ie it doesn’t happen. If this were the case then your cells would be modified with the genes found in each of the foods you had today for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That is, every living thing contains DNA. Based on the number of genes you share, you are 66% related to a fruit fly, about 80% related to a mouse and about 30-40% related to a cabbage. DNA is DNA and whatever living thing you are (plant, bacteria, fungi, animal) DNA is made up of the same 4 chemical compounds. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the technology behind GM crops, this is the reason why science can take a gene from one species and insert it into the genome of another.
Jason, TechNyou
some times GM food is good for health but it should take in less quantity. Like we can take this in breakfast not for daily use.