Genetically Modified Foods

29-03-23 00 / episode: 72

Script

Genetically modified foods.

Wow, that's a big one.

Well, genetics that's talking about genes and uh some new technology, it's not new anymore for finding out how cells make things.

It's the blueprints for all living things.

I have jeans and you have jeans and they tell if I'm gonna have this color hair or if I'm gonna be that tall.

So these genes can be changed.

Now, scientists have found a way to change them that's modifying them genetically modified foods means we take some plants, usually plants and we modify them by taking genes from other plants.

For instance, one of the examples I read about was strawberries.

They took genes from another plant that made something that could stop frost.

So then they put it in the strawberry and then on the cold nights when normal strawberries were freezing and going bad, these strawberries could stop the frost and they didn't go bad.

They could survive through very cold nights.

Other types of genetic modification help the plants resist viruses or they might put in more nutrients.

So there's more iron in the rice and that's what they've done with one kind of rice so that it's healthier and better for people to eat.

Some of them might change the plant so that it produces food faster or earlier.

They have nut trees that don't take eight years, they only take four years before they can start making nuts.

So most of these modifications seem to be good.

But a lot of people are concerned if we change these plants, they're no longer natural and what kind of problems might come out of them years later that we don't know, are gonna happen.

So, a lot of people are worried about genetically modified foods, but I was quite surprised to find out there's a lot of food that we are eating already that is genetically modified.

How about you? Are you worried about these kinds of foods?