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Week 8 [04.12 - 10.12.2017] GMO



GMO stand for Genetically modified organism, it’s the organism which genome has been altered artificially. Pests resilient crops, golden rice which synthetizes beta-carotene or herbicide immune soy are only some examples of GMO’s. Although they are designed to help humans, lots of people oppose using them as they are “unnatural”. Below you can watch short video about how GMO works.


What do you think about GMO?

Do you mind eating food made from GMO?

Comments

Magdalena Popek said…
Almost all the food we consume is genetically modified. People have been doing it by cross-pollination, which means the transfer of pollen from the flower of one plant to the flower of a plant having a different genetic constitution. But recently the genetically modified organisms have been a controversy for a very long time, because now it happens in labs. People tend to fear what they don’t know, and being a regular person makes it impossible to investigate dangers connected to genetic modification on our own. We must rely on what we read in newspapers and on the Internet. But, again, we cannot always check whether what we read is true or not.

I think nowadays we have to look for more efficient ways of growing crops as population is constantly growing. By genetic modifications we can minimise the use of chemicals for growing crops, maximise the harvest and make growing crops more efficient. Or we can use GMO to combat malnutrition, as we did with golden rice - produced through genetic engineering to biosynthesize beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, in the edible parts of rice. It was intended to produce a fortified food to be grown and consumed in areas with a shortage of dietary vitamin A.

In my opinion we should not fear GMO. Unfortunately advertising products as GMO free, even though they never contained any GM ingredients, is making the situation even worse. Because if the companies are advertising their products as GMO free, that may mean GMO is something bad for our healt. At least this is what the average consumer thinks. I think we should keep moderation in everything, especially that products labeled as "organic" are sometimes not as perfect as we would expect.
People tend to do two thinks: talk about subject they have no idea about and be vulnerable for manipulation. Fact is that GMO does not kill us. In fact it makes food healthier sometimes. Every "eco" food is a fake created to earn more money - even "eco" food has GMO in it.
There are parts of the world where without help of GMO agriculture would be impossible. There are even plans to do food that includes some drugs so it can be given to poor countries as some kind of help.
Knowing all of this I do not mind eating food with GMO. I'm more worried about food that is highly processed.
Plain bullshit how I'd like to call it. People are going crazy today about the most stupid and irrational things they can think of - like can you believe there are people that really believe vaccine is causing autism? The effect of so many generations, thousand of years, million of people that worked, contributed, tested or died working on it, now in danger because people are too stupid to even understand a thing, yet they spread this false bullshit onto others, exactly the same like how people reacted that world is not flat in freaking medieval ages. The same thing is happening with GMO - the food we're eating is already filled with chemistry, yet for some reason we live longer, with less ilness and plagues than 1000 years ago when food was 100% "natural" and "eco". I'd appreciate if people instead did actual research and prove scientifically that something is bad, instead of jumping onto assumptions they have no idea about.
The only thing I thought about during this video was how beautify it’s made! I love that all living beings are illustrated as birds. I think food with GMO have some good qualities and can be very helpful I do mind eating food that is highly processed.
Filip Sawicki said…
I think that we shouldn’t be scared of GMO. This is the future and we won’t survive without some serious advancements in agriculture as our planet is facing huge crisis with overpopulation. Natural process of growing food is already at its limits, we have no other option than to modify it for our needs. There is also other beneficial side for GMO, we can create food that is invulnerable to most of diseases, vermin and at the same time more nutritious. Personally, I don’t mind eating GMO food, possibly even prefer them over natural. However, I think that there should be more research on genes modification, as we are not fully sure what we are creating. Nevertheless, nature is still more unpredictable than human methods.
Unknown said…
I like this video because it's not only tells that there is no evidence of GMO has bad influence on human health, but also provides us why so many people have worries about this. GMO is not our enemy, the enemies are corporations in which revenue has higher priority than people's health.
The future of the GMO is also sounds great, I believe that we can make our food healthy by modifying plants accordingly.
Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said…
I would like to point out that I have very sceptical vision about such videos(articles or any information), however it has big curiousity value and it expanded my knowledge in this branch. Actually, I had very little knowledge about GMO as such, so now I may claim that GMO would probably help us to save the planet and to stop using tonnes of pesticide. But I don't feel convinced of implementing this technology around the world as fast as the humandkind needs.
I even don't check whether the food I eat contains GMO cuz it's useless, to my way of thinking. Poland abides by the standards of the EU but the country where I am from not really
Vladlen Kyselov said…
I think GMO is the thing that everyone should deside himself whether to eat it or not. Personally I guess that GMO is extremly bad for our health and try to avoid eating food that contains GMO in it.
Unknown said…
If i am fat, should i even express myself :)? Eat much, eat fast, die young that is my motto.
Magdalena Popek said…
All of the food we eat now is GMO. Do you avoid apples, tomatoes, meat, potatoes, bananas (and so on)? GMO is not dangerous at all.
I think GMO can solve problems like world hunger so I don't have any problems with GMO.
Well it is said that now everyone eat a GMO food so I don't mind eating a food made from GMO.
Unknown said…
As far as food companies have our health on the first place I have nothing against GMO. Unfortunately, it's possible that they just want more money and focus on the profit rather than consumers' health. We will see in a few years what real impact GMO food have on us.
Tomasz Morawski said…
I'm not a fan of GMO, since it's quite new approach - I believe we need honest, fair and independent research to decide if it's actually harmful or not. One thing is certain - we should work on and develop this technology, since it's probably the best way to fight with famine right now.
I believe the biggest problem with GMO food is that huge corporations are investing a lot to hide some facts about it and it's proprietary technology. Because of that they are exploiting the law to earn money by any means.
GMO - controversial topic with little to no reliable sources to read on it and almost no way of determining its influence on our genes as of yet. I believe we use GMO in a wrong way, we use it to produce more food for cheaper but we don't use that food in a good way. There are many starving countries and people around the world and we should focus on feeding them not on cutting production costs of food for mass markets.

I dont mind eating GMO my lifespan will probably not allow me to evaluate its potential bad effects on me, food is generally cheaper and more pleasing to eye.One more thing is that we have little to no control over what we actually eat if you eat pre-processed food of any kind.
Jakub Lisicki said…
GMO has been created to help people and end the problems like starvation and waste of food that expires either too soon or is to vunerable to insects. The idea behind it is noble. There are no short-term effects that we can observe, but we can't really know what long-term effects it would have on us, humans.

I don't mind eating GMO food, but if I had two almost identical products in front of me - one genetically modified and another natural, I would definitely go for the second one.
Marcin Górski said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Marcin Górski said…
I'm not a fan of GMO but I'm fine with that. It is very popular now, that people are shouting that there is nothing worse than GMO food! It is a kind of populism for me. I know that it isn't healthy in 100% but please, we should all keep a level head in this.
I don't pay attention for GMO when I'm buying food in the shop. I'm eating everything what I want. We should be reasonable and known that we can't die if we eat something made from GMO.
Unknown said…
GMO is yet another thingy that creates shitstorms over the world. It's bad, it mingles our genes. Well i don't care. First of all we live to short to really see the effects of GMO. Second life is to short to care about such things. Third considering our nature we will destroy ourselves in some sort of war before this will kill us so i don't really mind eating this. Either way i'll die. And nothing atm can change this.
I don’t know why but I feel like people just need to feel that they are attacked or oppressed in some way. Like there is some evil force that is trying to make their life miserable (GMO, vaccines, BigPharma, Jews etc.).
I really love the animation style too :)
I feel exactly the same way. People tend to believe that if some celebrity thinks that GMO is bad they should believe it too. Because hey it’s my favorite celebrity, he/she must know better.
It’s understandable that people might feel scared, but its because of their lack of knowledge on the subject. In my opinion there should be some informational campaigns to teach people why GMO is in fact not harmful in any way.
But why is it bad? Any particular example or experience?
Exactly! Thank you for your comment
Wow, kinda dark but I love your comment :D
I understand your decision, even though I’m pro-GMO I would probably also choose the second one.
But why should we wait? Don’t you think that not “implementing this technology around the world as fast as the humandkind needs” is inhumane?
Can't really tell what the after effects of GMO are. So we cannot really tell how it is affecting our life. It's good in some way because we can create food the way we like - it is bad because all the fuss related to our health involving it.
Marcin Mróz said…
If this video is objective and based on facts, then it changed my mind about GMO. I've always thought that it is something bad and unhealthy, but it turns out that its controversy is not about healthiness of it, but rather about interests of farmers or some companies. I think that provided that this process doesn't affect our health or state of being and has good impact on our environment and world's ecocnomics, we should start using it.
Unknown said…
I am not thinking a lot about it. I try to buy products only from Poland which are modified in minimum. I don't buy products from big markets and I prefer to spend more money on products and have a confidence that it is healthy. It is funny for me that people are so naive that they believe in comercials that shows e.g. meat for very low price. It is full of chemicals and I don't understand why they prefer to spent 5-6 polish zlotys less instead of buy fresh, good quality food.
I think GMO is bullshit and it's created for money. We all like eating strawberries don't we? So GMO followers shouldn't eat it because it comes from Wild strawberry. I don't mind eating food made from GMO.
Alicja said…
What a cute production :)

The video is very informative. I liked that it busted many popular myths surrounding GMO. I agree that the anti-GMO movement is often a critique of modern agriculture and the way this business is run.

Indeed, humans have used cross-pollination for thousands of years. However, when it comes to GMO, I find the aspect of the plants' pesticide resistance the most troubling. It leads to gradual homogeneity of crops and, as a consequence, dangerous implications for farming, nature and our nutrition. Unfortunately, without GMO we would not be able to sustain the current world population.
Unknown said…
Almost everything we eat nowadays is GMO so we don’t really have a choice, do we? ;)
Taking advantage of GMO is great, producing more, healthier, more nutritious food is the way to go.
People are scared of what they don’t fully understand. That’s why I love videos like ones Kurzgesagt makes. That’s an amazing way to spread knowledge.
Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Yevhen Shymko said…
I never have fear for GMO products since I know how it work. It is scary for thous people who don't understand how it work and it okay for people to be afraid of things they don't understand. It helped us survive through out of the history. Thus media should do a better just to spread this information.
Unknown said…
GMO... huge problem to solve. From one side it's good because it help people who are farmers because they don't need to fertilize to a large extent and spend money for that. What is more of course it hepls people who are starving. But from the other side our health loses.
I of course eat GMO food and i think that our organisms have adapted to it. But maybe not to this level so that every food we eat can be processed and good for us.
Patryk Pohnke said…
I think it a great idea. As stated in a video it is our ally not enemy. GMO helps in providing us food more efficiently, which brings us to the point where we don't need so much farms which cause less interference in our environment.
I don;t mind at all. Thanks to GMO I can eat food, which is bigger, cheaper, looks nicer and isn't harmful for me. Where is the problem? I don't see one.
Unknown said…
Today GMO is popular. Fact is that products with GMO don't taste like home made products. Big companies say something different but they can't deceive taste. For example tomato from shop and from garden taste completely different. I have a feeling that vegetables in shops are only water with a small amount of nutritional value. In tha past I read very interesting article on vegetables and fruits in the shops. Fortunately I have access to products from a farm.
I think it's not as much about MGO itself, as about people and their agendas. Fear is a powerful weapon, people have been known to act completely out of the ordinary when frightened enough.

For a good example look no further that to people fighting on the side of the axis in WW2. How do you think, how many people disliked Jews strong enough to commit genocide at an unknown before scale, and how many simply followed orders in fear of their own life.

We see the same think today in Poland. How do you think, how many of those 70-year-old ladies will have to actually deal with having an abortion in the future, and how many were simply riled up to express their lack of support, to the point where what happened happened.

The GMO is the future, and with the pull the corporations have in our society, I don't thinks there's much we can do to stop it. But if we could, would we want to? After all barely any crop or vegetable we grow today, has the same form we can find in the wild. Most of them have already been extensively modified throughout the ages of agricultural experiments.
Unknown said…
GMO for me its good technology idea. someone can tell me we are modify some products and its innatural. technology ingerating in our life in high step so some innovation like that should be illegal or people should afraid that technology. I think its good idea to make some food more healthy and with higher date to eat
Unknown said…
Well, all this ruckus around GMO is just trendy. I agree that most people even don't realize that they do consume GMO products on a daily basis. I don't mind it, I guess it's inevitable in the end given constant population growth. Let's use it to our benefit.
Unknown said…
Good point on Monsanto. And I really like the dinosaurs in nature analogy :D
1. I think GMO can be a problem or a chance. The idea was created to help people, but it is easy to cross the border between reasonable usage of such solutions and treating them as a poison.
Polish society seems to incline towards the argumentation of opponents of genetically modified organisms. As much as 75 percent Polish people are afraid of GMOs. At the same time, however, they eat such plants in the form of imported food products. Often not even knowing about it. An example of this is soy, whose preparations not only form the basis of vegetarian cuisine. Protein and so-called soy isolates are added to cold meats and bread. It is estimated that a total of 60 percent of food in the world contains soy ingredients, and more than half of them come from transgenic soy.
For me we should work on maximal control under such production, but we should not forget about the proper control process concerning “natural” products.

2. I don’t mind eating GMO food. “Normal” food can be sometimes worse than food made from GMO. We unconsciously eat meat gained from artificially fed animals, we unconsciously buy totally no ecological eggs, vegetables, fruits planted on polluted area. There is no way to avoid danger in this respect. In fact, I have only one conclusion: we should eat much less, even it is better to be hungry for most of the lifetime…

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