what are you eating?

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are, in my opinion, one of the most important predicaments facing us today. The issue is never reported so it has become quite esoteric and not many people know much about it.

Pessimistically, GMOs, in the form of GM food, could one day affect everybody. To avoid this scenario, it should concern everybody to know more about the health risks, environmental damage and the cynical politics that pushes and sponsors the growing of GM crops throughout the world.

I have been reading and researching this for roughly half a year and it’s about time to write some stuff…

Part 1 - The “science”

How are GMOs developed? Although the GMOs are developed in the laboratory, there is nothing scientific about it. By this I mean, the process is not calculated, controllable or even safe.
Scientists will look for certain characteristics in animals, plants, insects or even bacteria and identify a strand of DNA responsible for this unique (evolutionary) characteristic.

A particle gun is then used to randomly fire this strand at another organism’s DNA, in the hope that new organism will adopt the strand’s characteristic. This process will be done hundreds of times until the desired outcome (usually a plant) morphs out the test tube - which will be a new organism and immediately patented.

This process is random, so the scientists have no idea what else may have happened to the DNA - for example, the modified DNA could be ever so slightly damaged, or new proteins are unknowingly created - with unknown health consequences. The modified DNA turns out to be about 2-4% different from the original DNA - which doesn’t sound like much. But, to put this into perspective, the difference in DNA between a human and a monkey is less than 1%.

This is the same science behind GM crops, such as wheat and rice - both increasingly and forcedly grown in the developing world to feed millions of people.
The countless health and environmental risks as well as political ramifications from “owning the seed” will be mentioned later:

Part 2 - Your health
Part 3 - Our environment and how GMOs are spreading.
Part 4 - The politics: “control the oil and you control the countries. Control the food and you control the people”.