Genetically Modified Food

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文- Genetically Modified Food，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了转基因食品。随着科技技术的发展，转基因食品已经走进了我们的生活，不过人们并没有完全接受转基因食品，他们对转基因食品安全的担忧主要源于对转基因食品的不熟悉。事实上，转基因食品在理论上是安全的，而且技术正在进步。人们需要更多地了解转基因食品的本质，用足够的知识和理性的分析来选择转基因食品。

Introduction

Nowadays, an increasing number of people are attaching more and more importance to the security and nutrition of food. When it comes to genetically modified (GM) food, therefore, there has been growing public attention on their application into daily life since their emergence. Despite of a number of huge social and economic benefits, the application of genetically modified food may also bring a series of potential security problems, which may be harmful to human health and ecological environment in the near future (Conner, Glare, and Nap, 19-46). There will be discussions and analysis of both advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified food in this paper.

Knowledge of GM Food

Genetic modifying means to extract the necessary genes from one organism by using some scientific method and then transfer the genes to another organism. Accordingly, the transferred genes can be recombined together with genes in another organism, thus producing specific substances with varied genetic traits. Genetically modified food can be generally divided into three categories The first are genetically modified plants, such as genetically modified maize and soybeans. The second are genetically modified animal food, such as genetically modified fish and meat. The third are genetically modified microorganism food, including genetically modified wine, beer and soy sauce.

Advantages

With years of experience, scientists have been devoting themselves to researches and experiments of genetically modified food, creating great benefits to the public.

Genetically modified technology helps to change the breeding method. Traditional breeding methods need more than long time for plants to grow. As for the hybrid breeds, they are not easy to control, with unstable inherited characters. Instead, the targeted genes can be transferred into plant cells by taking use of genetically modified technology. Benefiting from the technology, new breeds can be obtained, with shortened breeding time. In this way, the cost can be effectively reduced and the volume of production can be largely improved as well. Many scientists also believe that, with the genetically modified technology, the food productivity in a large number of developing countries can be effectively improved, and the case of Bacillus thuringiensis cotton in India demonstrates (Qaim and Zilberman, 900-902). This have provided solutions to human food shortage problems.

Genetically modified technology plays a role in cultivating good characters for the breeds. Traditional breeds have high dependence on pesticides, fertilizers and water. With GM technology, new breeds are cultivated with characters including high quality, anti-virus, high yield, insect resistance, drought resistance, cold resistance, herbicide resistance and other excellent traits. Accordingly, new breeds have a series of benefits. The environment pollution can be largely reduced with less pesticides and fertilizers. Anti-virus character make the breeds become beneficial to human health. For instance, there are GM rice breeds which can reduce the content of serum cholesterol and prevent arteriosclerosis.

GM technology helps breeds to stay away from being influenced by season and climate factors. Due to GM technology, people are able to have fresh fruits and vegetables all year around, with distinctively excellent flavor as well. Meantime, GM technology helps to extend the shelf life for fruits and vegetables.

Disadvantages

Apart from the advantages benefits brought by GM technology, there are also some inevitable side effects, with safety implications (Flint and Chesson, 817-820).

Some GM food tend to contain toxic substances and allergens, producing negative effects on human health. Even worse, they may lead to cancer or hereditary diseases. The GM food are created to achieve some expected results, however, possibly increasing the accumulation of toxins. Secondly, with changed food structure, the nutritional components are damaged. The representative are GM soybeans. When compared to average soybeans, the herbicide resistant soybeans have much less isoflavones ingredients against cancer diseases. Finally, GM food may lead to gene pollution, influencing the whole environmental and ecological systems. Genes with insect resistance character can be influential to other non-targeted organisms (Bates et al, 57-62), thus killing the useful insects and fungi in natural environment.

Conclusion

Surrounded by both advantages and disadvantages of GM food, it is unwise for consumers to totally accept GM food as the savior of mankind or to reject them with concerns. People’s concerns of GM food safety mainly result from their unfamiliarity with them. As a matter of fact, GM food are theoretically safe, and the technology is in progressing (Kuiper, 503). People need to learn more about the essence of GM food and choose them with adequate knowledge and rational analysis.

References

Bates, S. L., et al. "Insect resistance management in GM crops: past, present and future." Nature Biotechnology 23.1(2005):57-62.

Conner, A. J., T. R. Glare, and J. P. Nap. "The release of genetically modified crops into the environment. Part II. Overview of ecological risk assessment. " Plant Journal for Cell & Molecular Biology 33.1(2003):19-46.

Flint, H. J., and A. Chesson. "Safety implications of genetically modified organisms. " Feed Mix 3.9(1999):817-820.

Kuiper, H. A., et al. "Assessment of the food safety issues related to genetically modified foods. " Plant Journal for Cell & Molecular Biology 27.6(2001):503.

Qaim, M, and D. Zilberman. "Yield effects of genetically modified crops in developing countries." Science 299.5608(2003):900-902.

51due留学教育原创版权郑重声明：原创essay代写范文源自编辑创作，未经官方许可，网站谢绝转载。对于侵权行为，未经同意的情况下，51Due有权追究法律责任。主要业务有essay代写、assignment代写、paper代写、作业代写服务。

51due为留学生提供最好的essay代写服务，亲们可以进入主页了解和获取更多essay代写范文 提供代写服务，详情可以咨询我们的客服QQ：800020041。