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What is GM food?

Genetically-modified (GM) food is produced from plants or animals which have had their genes changed in the laboratory by scientists.

Seedless Yellow WatermelonsWhen was GM food invented?

The first transgenic plant - a tobacco plant resistant to an antibiotic - was created in 1983. It was another ten years before the first commercialisation of a GM plant in the United States - a delayed-ripening tomato - and another two years (1996) before a GM product - tomato paste - hit UK supermarket shelves.
1996 was also the year that the EU approved the importation and use of Monsanto's Roundup Ready soya beans in foods for people and feed for animals. These beans have been modified to survive being sprayed with the Roundup herbicide that is applied to a field to kill weeds. This soya, together with GM maize, is now used in a variety of processed foods on sale in UK shops. The products range from crisps to pasta. A genetically-engineered version of the milk-clotting enzyme chymosin is also used in cheese-making.

Where is GM food grown?

There are up to 500 small experimental sites in the UK, but all GM food on sale in the UK has been grown aboard, much of it in the USA.

 

How is this technology different from before? Tomato

Farmers have been engaged in what we might term "traditional genetics" for thousands of years. They have long understood that like begets like, favouring the seed from plants with the most desirable characteristics. New plant types have also arisen by cross-breeding closely-related species. This is how we got oil seed rape and bread wheat. But the way genes are passed from one generation to the next through sexual reproduction is something of a lottery. Scientists have tried to speed things up by exposing experimental plants to chemicals and radiation. This has the effect of producing hundreds of mutations among the genes. Some of these may be useful, others will not and the plants will be discarded. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, is more specific. It allows scientists to select a single gene for a single characteristic and transfer that stretch of DNA from one organism to another - even between different species. An example of genetic engineering is the FlavrSavr tomato developed by Calgene. When tomatoes ripen, a gene is triggered to produce a chemical that makes the fruit go soft and eventually rot. Scientists have now modified the gene which has the effect of "switching off" the chemical. As a result, the FlavrSavr tomato softens more slowly, meaning it can stay longer on the vine to develop a fuller taste. Its longer shelf life also reduces waste.

 


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