What Are Bioengineered Food Ingredients? Revealed

You've probably gone shopping at the grocery store or even just looking in your pantry and you've probably noticed the label that says bio-engineered food ingredients or contains bio-engineered food ingredients something similar to that on many of the products that you eat Now what does this exactly mean bio-engineered food ingredients and does it have any impact on human health or even the health of our ecosystems well I wondered the same thing So I sat down and I did some research on bio-engineered food ingredients GMOs and so much more And here is what I found This is bio-engineered food ingredients revealed Let's get right into the science Let's go All right So first of all what are bioengineered food ingredients and what is bioengineering well bioengineering is the process of changing the genetic material of different organisms or living things And you might have heard the term GMOs before GMO stands for genetically modified organisms and bioengineering and genetically modified organisms are basically the same thing So we'll be referring to those two things under the same name because it basically means the same thing It just means that the genetic information or the DNA inside of these living things are altered and changed in order to get these desirable characteristics And these desirable characteristics include higher yields bigger fruit and so much more And there only a few GMO crops that are in the that have been modified commercially They include corn cotton and canola And these are only a few crops that are mod modified But these crops are found in almost everything that we eat from processed foods to even the meat that we eat Because soybeans and corn is what's used to feed cows and chickens And eventually that same bio-engineered food ingredient which is that corn or that those soybeans that are fed to the animals end up in us because that's just how food works They eat it and then we eat them and that's how the energy is transferred throughout ecosystems So these genetically modified organisms or bioengineered food ingredients basically mean that scientists are going in and changing the DNA and trying to basically isolate the genes they like the best And most of these genes that they like the best are like pest resistance herbicides that are naturally built into the plant and also higher yields These GMO crops all basically give higher yields meaning that there's more harvest and more food to eat And this is very important because the demand for food is growing exponentially and the population of the earth is also growing So we need more food to feed the entire population So that's why genetically modifying all of these the corn and soybeans all these crops that are used in almost everyday things are very important Now don't get this mixed up with hybrids are completely different and they're different from genetically modified organisms or bio-engineering Hybrids basically mean that you combine two different plants or two different varieties of a plant and cross them to make something that you like A good example of a hybrid is wheat has been crossed and hybrid and it's been bred in order to for example require less water or have higher yields But wheat hasn't been genetically modified Only crops like corn and canola and cotton have been genetically modified in order to get these desirable results that we scientists and humans want to see And that's really important because this helps us keep up with the supply of food or even supply of textiles when you think of cotton But the food and this entire industry is based on supply and demand So the more food that we have the better it is for all of society and it's really important to keep humans alive in the first place Now what impact do these genetically modified organisms or bio-engineered food ingredients have and why are they in almost everything well that's coming up right now The main health impact and the health of the ecosystems is due to the lack of biodiversity in GMOs Biodiversity is a amount of variation in a population Us humans have variation in our population as well That's why everyone's a bit different and that's also present in these plants and these animals Variation is just a natural thing But when you genetically modify these organisms that variation basically disappears and it gets less and less More of these plants are genetically identical to themselves Not exactly but they are sort of identical And this causes big dangers to our food supply and due to lack of biodiversity because let's say as an example we take corn Let's say this there's this pest that attacks corn Now scientists can isolate a gene in the corn and they could change it based on these genetically modifying techniques and they're able to basically make it resistant to the pest Now that's all good for now but what if this pest evolves or naturally selects and changes over time well that's when the problem occurs because now the corn isn't resistant to

this pest And since this genetically modified corn is being grown widespread and commercially in order to basically maintain our food supply the entire population of corn is wiped out because of this random pest that's able to change and evolve over time Now because these super bugs and super weeds are changing over time they are basically getting resistant to all of these pesticides and herbicides and even the natural things that we are putting inside of the corn and even other crops Now why is this a big problem well it means that the our entire food supply is in danger from just one pest or one weed that could basically wipe out the entire population And this also causes more pesticides and herbicides to be sprayed on these crops And this causes more pollution and more impacts to human health and animal health and the health of the soil And since we're spraying more and more pesticides the more and more super bugs and super weeds are evolving and we have to spray even more on top of that And it's just an endless cycle of spraying pesticides and genetically modifying everything And that's all big impact from GMOs Now there's also an ongoing debate right now about labeling about sustainability about basically preserving our genetically modified plants and animals and basically wiping out genetically modified organisms altogether There's still an ongoing debate and there's no set answer to it There's good and there's bad And this is still an ongoing debate And scientists are still working on finding new ways to combat these super bugs and super weeds and hopefully wipe them out and hopefully find a good solution for our food supply All right we learned a lot in this episode Let's break it down and let's get into what we learned in this episode All right so what did we learn in this episode we learned that bio-engineered food ingredients or GMOs they're interchangeable terms They're basically mean the same thing It's basically genetics and gene modification going into these living organisms and they're able to change the DNA and isolate these certain traits mostly for higher yields and pest or herbicide resistance And there's a big problem with these GMOs It's the lack of biodiversity This could cause more pesticides to be applied more super bugs and super weeds to evolve that are resistant to these pesticides and herbicides And this can cause more and more evolution and more danger to our food supply That's why it's important to look at the ethics of GMOs and the sustainability of GMOs It's still an ongoing debate but there's a lot going into it and there's a lot more in store for the future and hopefully protecting our food supplies They're in almost everything that we eat Corn soybeans cotton it's almost in everything that we eat And cotton is all in our clothes but corn and soybeans corn flour cornmeal everything that's in our food that we eat And it's really important to protect all of those food supplies And that's the deal with GMOs and bioengineered food ingredients Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Spectacular Science produced and hosted by me Akshay Jayaraman and Our theme song and additonal music are by Charan Ramachandran Please visit my podcast website spectacularsci. com to find interactive activities articles and blog posts That's spectacularsci. com Do you have science on spectacular science episode and get a special shout out well head over to spectacularsci. com/contact There you can find a contact form and send me your amazing science questions You can also tag me on Instagram @spectacularscipod That's @spectacularscipod Thank you so much Don't forget to grab your spectacular science merch at shop. spectacularsci. com and get t-shirts hoodies cups and more That's shop. spectacularsci. com Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast where you're listening right now it really encourages me and you'll be up to date on all the new episodes So go ahead and subscribe and share this podcast with your friends and family Thank you so much Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next episode of Spectacular Science next week The meantime keep thinking about science!