We find it mixed in our food on the shelves in the supermarket and we find it growing in the test fields. Give up? The topic is genetically engineered food.

Everyone is talking about it. "Well what's the big deal?" you ask. It's nothing new.

Humans have been using bio-technology for the preparation and manufacture of food for hundreds of years; using yeast for making beer and bread and selecting the breeding plants and animals for higher productivity and nutritive value. (1) Genetic engineering is a new technology that breaks down the genetic barriers between species, humans, animals and plants. It combines genetic engineering with conventional breeding methods. It's the process of artificially modifying genes. In reality it's frightening. Genetic engineering poses ethical and social concerns as well as serious challenges to the environment, human health and the future of agriculture, but is it really safe? Many are against it and are trying to find answers to the problem?

First things first, to find out what genetically modified foods are, we will have to know wh

Already we have enormous disagreement over the first few genetic engineered products, but what we see is just the smallest tip of the giant iceberg. Already 60% of what's on our super market shelves may contain genetically engineered soya. (5) Genetically modified foods available include tomatoes, squash, yeast, corn, potatoes, and soybeans (which are used in 60 % of all processed foods, such as bread, pasta, candies, ice cream, pies, biscuits, margarine, meat products and vegetarian meat substitutes). (6) Genetically modified organisms are also used to produce chesses and canola oil. But this is just the beginning. In 10 years all commodity crops will be genetically engineered. (7) The widespread biotech food production will eliminate farming as it has been practiced since the beginning of humankind's appearance of the planet. If the trend is not stopped, the patenting of transgenic plants and animals will soon lead to tenant farming in which farmers will loose their plants and animals from biotech conglomerates and pay royalties on seeds and offspring. (8) Hundreds of millions of farmers and other workers worldwide will lose their livelihoods. The hope of creating a human, stable agriculture system will be destroyed. Even if there was some testing, the long-term affects to humans, animals and the environment from the modified genes are unknown. It may be that genetically modified can benefit us, but we cannot know that at this time because so much testing has not been done and current studies point to dangers rather than benefits. So why are they still proceeding? One reason is because there is a lot of money involved in this and mutated research- animals would help in the filed of medicine.

Never again will people know the joy of eating naturally produced, fresh foods. In a few years it may be almost impossible to find natural food. Are we prepared to accept a virtually 100% genetically engineered diet? Have we the right to force such a diet on our children and grandchildren and those yet to be born? Will we just tell them, "Sorry kids, that's all there is to eat now". We want independent research whose starting point is the problem to be solved, not a technology to sell.

Stage 1. Cleavage. The first stage is the generation of specific DNA fragments by cleavage of a genome with restriction endonulease enzymes. Different "libraries"(3) of fragments may be o

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Approximate Word count = 1606
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)