What are GMOs?

GMOs tend to get a bad reputation when it comes to environmental and health concerns, but a lot of those conversations are actually about how certain GM crops are used in modern agriculture, things like pesticide use and large-scale farming practices, not just the fact that the food itself is genetically modified. At the same time, genetic engineering can also offer some pretty major benefits.

One well-known example is insulin: today, most insulin is produced using genetically modified bacteria, allowing scientists to make insulin that is much closer to human insulin than older animal-derived versions which often caused allergic reactions (21,22).

GM foods can also help protect crops from devastating diseases. In Hawaii, papaya crops were heavily damaged by the papaya ringspot virus during the 1990s. A genetically modified papaya resistant to the virus helped protect papaya production, and there is still no equally effective conventional or organic way to control this disease today (23,24).

GMOs are not simply “good” or “bad.” Understanding how they are made, used, and regulated helps put many of these concerns into context.

Thank you to @foodtruthproject for reviewing this post!