Transcript GM Food -Plants

GM Food
-Plants
A first look
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What is GM Food?

GM food stands for Genetically Modified
Food
 Organisms are made up of cells containing
genes, the hereditary material which is DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid) in nature
 GM food is food with genes modified.
Genes can be transplanted by taking out
useful pieces of DNA from one organism
and merging them with the DNA in another
organism.
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Common GM Food
Maize
Tomato
Pasta
Cabbage
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Why produce GM food?
To improve the quality of food
To improve food production to feed the
world
To strengthen the resistance against herb
and pests
To cope better with climatic changes
To minimize the cost of production
To minimize loss during transport and
storage
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Herbicide Resistance
Herbicides, like glyphosate and glufosinate, are
used to eliminate weeds to maintain nutrient
content in the soil but they decrease the yield.
Scientists insert the herbicide resistance genes
via agrobacterium into food plants so that
they will not be affected by the herbicide.
This reduces the excessive use of herbicide.
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Pest resistance
Scientists insert the toxin producing gene
from Bacillus thuringienus, a kind of soil
bacterium, into maize.
Destructive insects will be killed when eating
the crop.
The loss due to destructive insects is greatly
reduced.
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Is GM food harmful?
Will it affect our health?
Will it affect the eco-system?
Will it have harmful side-effects?
Will it reduce consumer choices?
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Will GM food incur
Health Problems?
Will we suffer from toxins produced?
Will we inherit the toxin-producing genes?
Will it cause allergic reactions?
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Will GM food incur Health Problems?
GM food is consumed as DNA molecules.
As human body has been coping perfectly well
with foreign DNA for millions years. No
harm is proved at this moment.
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Harmful to eco-system?
 Will
it affect the growth of other plants?
 Will
living things lose their living
environment?
 Will
it create strange species?
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Any side-effects?
 Will
genes used to modify crops jump the
species barrier?
 Can
the possible DNA mutation be
controlled?
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Religion and choice?

What happens if vegetarians eat food which
is genetically engineered with an animal
gene?
 Will
it repel choice of food?
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Solutions…
 Add
labels to the packages
 Improve genetic
 Food
modification technology
tests
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The End
For further reference, please go to our website:
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004033
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