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Anti-GM dogma is obscuring the real debate over what level of genetic manipulation society deems acceptable. . . .
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Between organic foods and tobacco engineered to glow in the dark lie a broad spectrum of “modifications” worthy of consideration. . . .
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Plant cloning
. . . .[A]sexual reproduction is the core strategy for many plants in nature, and farmers have utilised it for centuries to perfect their crops.
Once a plant with desirable characteristics is found. . .cloning allows us to grow identical replicates. . . . if you eat a banana today, you’re eating a clone.
Induced mutations
. . . . In order to generate greater variation for conventional breeding, scientists in the 1920s began to expose seeds to chemicals or radiation.
. . . .Many common foods such as red grapefruits and varieties of pasta wheatare a result of this approach and, surprisingly, these can still be sold as certified “organic”.
GM screening
GM technology . . .can be instead used to screen for traits such as disease susceptibility or to identify which “natural” cross is likely to produce the greatest yield or best outcome. . . .
Cisgenic and transgenic
This is what most people mean when they refer to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). . . .
Cisgenic simply means the gene inserted (or moved, or duplicated) comes from the same or a very closely related species. Inserting genes from unrelated species (transgenic). . . is the only technique in our spectrum of GM technology that can produce an organism that could not occur naturally. Yet the case for it might still be compelling.
Read full, original post: All our food is ‘genetically modified’ in some way – where do you draw the line?
