The topics for this weekend engagement was a bit challenging; I was pondering which topic to write and I decided to take the challenge on Genetically Modified Food. I actually wasn't to knowledgeable about this topic. My knowledge was probably surface level so I actually did research on it and learned a fair bit. I will share some of the things I learned as well as add my thoughts on it in this post.
What Is Genetically Modified Food (GMF)?
In lay man terms genetically modified food is changing the genes of plants and animals; the purpose of this is to give them more favorable traits. For example, certain crops like corn, potatoes etc may have genes modified to make them more pesticide resistant. I was actually aware of this before but I never really thought about it too much. This is probably something that I don't think we really get taught in school or from our parents and it's something that we stumble upon and have to learn ourselves.
From what I read, there are some concerns about the safety of GMF from people that are aware such as health risks or allergens. There are some countries that accept it and there are some countries that ban it or have quite strict regulations on it. There is usually a government organization that approves these types of food for their safety so I think there isn't really too much too worry about in this aspect. However, there seems to be issues with the labeling. I think that GMF is trying to do what's best for humanity by making food more efficiently produced so we don't have food shortages. I am completely all for it as long as it's being done in a humane way.
This Was Kind of Disturbing
As mentioned before, I was ok with GMF as long as it was done in a humane way. Well this is an example of what I feel isn't humane. It was kind of disturbing to be aware of this and from what I see there's not much we can do about it unless laws get added. What I wanted to discuss was GMF related to the animal side more specifically the chicken. So chickens have been genetically modified through selective breeding. So according to VFC Foods, farm animals have been subject through this for their meat, milk and eggs. Chickens have been bred to grow faster and get fatter so they have more meat. I think this is fine but what disturbed me was the animal's condition. The article claimed that these gave negative consequences to the chickens health and well-being.
This modification has led to chickens who suffer immensely during their short lives. They are generally slaughtered at 42 days old. Although they are still chicks, their bodies have been engineered to balloon up so they look like full-grown birds. This unnatural growth causes the birds to suffer from bone abnormalities, fractures, and lameness, among other conditions
Here's what is directly quoted from the article. I think this is horrible. So basically, they are killing chickens for food and they haven't even grown up to be an adult yet. I know this is a harsh world but I'm so glad I wasn't born as a chicken. This article also talked about hens being genetically modified to lay more eggs. I'm not sure how a hen feels when they lay eggs. If it's similar or equivalent to a female human giving birth I feel that's horrible for the hen to go through that.
The worst part is we aren't really told about all this when we are buying the chicken or the egg. We don't know what it's been through to get to that supermarket. I guess if you buy organic you won't really have to worry about this. Then of course if we have organic, it's more expensive then the GMF version because these GMF farm animal were mainly created for profiting. There are people that don't have the money to make this choice but I think if presented at the same price most people would go organic if they were aware of how the product got to the market.
At the end of the day, I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this topic. I'm kind of torn because in a way it's good for humanity but it seems horrible the way the farm animals get treated. I hope there's a future where we don't have to rely on making animals suffer to meet the demands for food. I hope you were able to learn something new and if you wanted to go more in depth you can do your own research as well as take a read on the articles that I shared in the credits. Apologies in advance if I stated anything incorrect and feel free to let me know in the comments below. Thank you all and have a great weekend!
(A picture of my lunch today which was just Roti Canai - a type of bread and one egg; this was kind of related since eggs come from chickens!)
Credits
The articles I used to gather my thoughts to talk about this subject.
https://www.ijbel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Bus9_PAID_IJBEL_full-text_D9.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332683324_Review_of_the_Issues_and_Governance_of_Genetically_Modified_Organism_in_Malaysia
https://vfcfoods.com/gm-chicken/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791249/