Transcript from Upworthy
"About 10,000 years ago, people found that they didn't have to chase their food around all day. They could grow it right there where they were. It's called farming. And ever since then, we've been trying to control plants and animals for three good reasons: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now, how many cows do you think you'd see if they'd never been domesticated by humans? You ever seen a cow out in the wild fighting for its life? You think chickens will one day rise up and take over the world? No, I don't think so. Somewhere back in time, thousands and thousands of years ago, feeding ourselves changed from a little luck to a lot of science. We've been trying to improve that science ever since. Haven't we, ladies?
In the United States, grocery shelves are filled with genetically modified food. Take a look at this corn. No blemishes. Not a kernel out of place. Only in America, right? Well, not exactly. In Europe, if a food is genetically modified, it has to be labeled as such. Now, why is that? Is there something to be afraid of? Well, that's a good question, and one that's probably not asked often enough. We're getting more and more genetically modified food, faster and faster. What is it? Do we need it? Is it safe? Well, let's have a look.
Every living thing contains DNA, which includes chromosomes and genes. Now, genes provide the instructions to build a living thing. If you change one of the genes, you rewrite one of the instructions. So instead of Bill Nye, the brown eyed guy, you'd get Bill Nye with blue eyes. Some people think that would be a distinct improvement. But when we genetically modify our food, say by taking a gene from a fish, and putting it in a tomato, we're creating a whole new species. One that's never existed on Earth before. So some would say, "You've created a monster, a Frankenfood". Others would say, "No, it's still a fruit or a vegetable. I'm just making my lunch.'
"Do you, domesticated wheat, take this wild wheat to be your lawfully wedded hybrid?" See, breeding food crops is a lot like a marriage, or a wedding, a shotgun wedding, because the wheat doesn't have much say in the matter. But traditional breeding of food crops takes plenty of human intervention. Agricultural scientists have been tinkering with our food for centuries. That's why most of the food you eat cannot be found in nature.
So watermelon, tomatoes, plums, and corn bear little resemblance to their original, natural species. But now, scientists can take it another step. They can get rid of this wedding ceremony altogether and mix genes from species that are hardly related at all. So how does that go? Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something...there's nothing blue here.
This is an organically grown papaya, a tropical fruit. This particular one is infected with the very common ring spot virus. Now, people eat papayas like this all the time. This is a papaya that has been genetically modified, so that it has a tiny piece of the DNA from that very same ring spot virus embedded in its DNA. It's immune or resistant to ring spot infection. So which one do you want to eat? The natural one with lots of ring spot virus DNA or the modified one with just a little bit of that very same DNA? It's the classic dilemma of natural versus modified. Is it good versus evil? Or is it just another step in the march of agricultural progress?
Imagine being the farmer who grows corn that has been genetically engineered so that insects don't eat it. He doesn't have to spray as much pesticide. He saves money, and his crop is nearly chemical-free. If you were that farmer, you might want to grow that corn. But what about the effect of that crop on its environment? It can take years for a new organism to have an impact on an ecosystem. Not exactly the pace of business. Now corporations are developing more specialized, more complex strains of species, species that may be resistant to more diseases and more insects. It all sounds too good to be true. Is it?
One small gene to feed a man, one giant feast for mankind. At least that's the idea behind genetically modified food. But the questions consumers are asking now is "When am I eating genetically modified food?". The answer, probably more often than you think.
These fruits and vegetables are organically grown, so is this cantaloupe. But the list of the genetically modified versions of all of these foods is growing every day.
Most soybean crops today are genetically modified. And soy derivatives appear in hundreds of food products. So you're probably serving genetically modified soy to your whole family, your dog as well as your kids. See, baby food formulas commonly contain soy.
Canola is used in lots of foods, like making margarine and cooking oil, so it's in dozens and dozens of processed foods, especially snacks.
Genetically modified corn shows up on your breakfast table, in your cereal. At lunch, in your soup. At dinner, in your tacos. And even at dessert, in your cookies.
There are scientists working to genetically modify coffee plants, so they only produce decaffeinated beans. It wouldn't be the Swiss process or the water process. It would be no process. So genetically modified foods are probably here to stay. But you won't always know what you're eating just by looking at the label. The label may give you nutritional information, how many calories there are and so on, but you probably won't see the words genetically modified in the fine print.
I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Look, we've been genetically modifying crops for years. And we're fine. What's the worst that could happen?". All right, try this. Let's say we genetically modify this corn so that when insects eat it, they die. Okay, then the wind blows some of the pollen from that corn over here into these weeds. Well they're really wild flowers, and there are butterflies that rely on these flowers, and they eat some of that pollen. And all the butterflies die. Okay, so there's a whole summer without very many butterflies. Now, these are the rare butterflies that fly at night, so the bats that would normally feed on those butterflies can't get enough to eat for a whole summer. So you don't have nearly as much success at making bat babies, so that next summer, there aren't nearly as many bats around to eat the mosquitoes. Ah! Now, these are the mosquitoes that carry a deadly disease. And they feed on your blood. And they give you that disease, and then we all die. See, that would be bad. Now I admit, I made this up. But are scenarios like this possible? Or is this just alarmist hype?
Now we've been farming for 15,000 years, carefully breeding species at the pace of the seasons. But now, it's possible to introduce a new species into the Earth's ecosystem, never before seen, practically over night.
And what's the hurry? It's not a race. We're the human race. So let's farm responsibly. Let's require labels on our foods. And let's carefully test these foods, case by case. That's the way I see it. And I'll see you next time on The Eyes of Nye"
Note from Upworthyy" There may be small errors in this transcript.