GM foods: A potential health risk?

Scientists have shown that there is no significant health risk posed by consuming foods that contain genetically modified products.

Dear Dr K,

Do you think genetically modified foods should be labelled as such? Will such a step be useful for consumers or merely propagate the fear of GM foods?

Mono Saint

Dear Mono,

Scientists have shown that there is no significant health risk posed by consuming foods that contain genetically modified products. In general, plants and animals are genetically modified so they can be bred in greater quantities, in smaller spaces, be more resistant to disease, and carry various other ‘desirable’ traits. Genetic modification allows us to apply our knowledge of biotechnology to grow the quantities of food that the world’s growing population requires. Opponents of the move to label genetically modified food argue that since findings in the lab have shown that GM food is as healthy as unmodified food, so it is unnecessary to label them distinctly.

If all our eating decisions were based solely on impact to our health, we would have stopped consuming potato chips and sugary drinks, even jalebis and samosas, a long time ago. But we haven’t. This is because samosas are amazing and anyone who stops eating them clearly has some deeper issues that need to be addressed. We decide what to eat based on a number of factors aside from nutrition: how it tastes, smells and looks, whether or not we are of the opinion that bitter gourd or ladies finger is yucky (the correct opinion is that they are both delicious), and most importantly in this case, where the food came from, how it was made and by whom.

It’s true that these last few concerns don’t rank very highly on what consumers think about while choosing what to eat. But they are questions that we should be concerned about — what are the ethical and environmental implications of the food you are eating? GM food might be safe for you to consume, but is it safe for the farms they are grown in, is it safe for the farmers to grow, is it okay for the diversity of our endemic, unmodified varieties of crops?

Testing GM foods in a laboratory or a controlled study can only inform us of its impacts in a limited, narrow way. It is difficult to predict the long-term, complex effects of the spread of such food through the world. Banning them until a date when we can be confident of their effects is one, perhaps ideal, option, but it may be too late or unfeasible to do that in several places.

Labelling genetically modified products for what they are will at least give consumers the opportunity to be better informed, and make an appropriate decision based on what they know. Trying to hide the modified among the unmodified produce is not a way to stop fear mongering, but a kind of censorship, or deliberate misinformation. Why shouldn’t consumers be as fully informed as they can be?

Yours questionably,

Dr K