Transgenic Foods And Technology

Transgenic foods and technology

Transgenic foods are those that come from plants in whose cells strange genes have been introduced by genetic engineering. Which means that "cut" and "paste" genes, obtaining different plants in which a lot. Genes contain information from all the functions and structure of a living being: from the color of the eyes to the number of petals of a flower, and transmit them from parents to children.

When inserting strange genes into a cell they can produce different proteins causing different changes in plants, fruits and animals such as we can show it in corn and soy that by exchanging genes produce an insecticide toxin;fish and strawberry fish genes to make them more resistant to cold;Human genes to livethe production of these foods among others.

Reason why most genetically modified foods mostly belong to the plant world (corn, soybeans, tomato, rape.). Today, there are other foods in research and experimentation. The use of these products in human consumption and the environmental impact is causing opposite opinions in this regard. On the one hand, scientists and researchers manifest themselves in favor of them, because they constitute a group of very controlled foods, based on their safety on the continuous realization of evaluation tests and therefore, on purely scientific criteria. On the other hand, environmental associations manifest against, concerned about the possibility that crops of transgenic plants cause environmental contamination, which can endanger biodiversity.

Meanwhile, consumer associations keep their caution in this regard.

There is currently a last generation technology called: ‘Biotechnology or Genes Protection System’, which is commonly called ‘Terminator and Traitor’, which consists of creating sterile seeds and chemical -dependent plants to express their physiological processes, such asgermination, flowering, fruit maturation and the activation or deactivation of the immune system that makes a plant susceptible to a disease. These processes are controlled by adding to the cultivation of a chemical that regulates such processes. For the industry it is more profitable. Terminator is a perverse technology, because it breaks with the rights over their biological and reproductive cycles of all living beings, and because it also violates the millenary right of farmers to reproduce, store or exchange seeds (Rafi, 1999, 2001). It is an irreversible process. This concern is greater in megadiverse countries such as Colombia, which is the center of origin of much of agricultural biodiversity, there is the risk of genetically modified genes contamination of cultivated species towards wild relatives or local varieties. Likewise, it could happen with transgenic animals;For example: if the transgenic salmon that grows three times more than normal salmon is released in a river or lake, this salmon G.M. You can break the balance of the ecosystem trophic chain and make the most fragile fish disappear.

In conclusion we can say that thanks to the great advance of technology, genetic engineering and molecular biology, transgenic products have been developed. In the beginning, genetically modified products were intended to obtain advantages in the areas of agriculture and livestock. Subsequently this technique began to be applied in the field of food production for human consumption. Much controversy has been generated in relation to its use.