Study Of Transgenic Foods

STUDY OF TRANSGENIC FOODS

Introduction

Genetic modification in food is a controversial issue for many and a topic of interest for others. In recent years, great developments and advances in the food industry have been evidenced, and with it significant changes in food that important industries offer to the world market;This is because these industries which deal with food and consumables have dedicated themselves to a specific labor field;Genetic engineering and its constant effort to introduce genetically modified food or organisms to the market.

These organisms have been categorized as one of the most controversial fields or themes in the area of science (Kurzgesagt, 2017) as well as the processes involved in a genetic cloning and all its consequences. This is because the way of perceiving each individual with respect to genetically modified foods remains a taboo today, there is also a wide variety of positions with respect to genetic engineering, since most people belonging toCountries where these foods are distributed, including Ecuador, assume that these consumables are harmful to health because their origin does not have a purely natural source, but rather artificial.

The problem is that it is believed that these modified foods cause irreversible alterations in the body, such as resistance to medications, allergies, malformations, and even genetic and cellular alterations that can cause congenital diseases such as cancer. It also presents another large group of individuals defends that these foods have no risk for human health once they have ingested in daily food and that the human being should make the most of technology and everything it has to offer to offer.

General objective:

This research is intended to analyze each aspect of genetically modified foods in relation to the human being and what it consumes, also to make known if it has been the harmful transgenic foods for the inhabitants of the northern sector of the city of Guayaquil-Ecuador onceingested during the 2018-2019 period and if these have caused side effects having ingested them in their daily feed diet.

Components of a balanced diet

A balanced diet is based on food intake in adequate and optimal proportions for the proper functioning of the human body. A balanced diet can be considered as such as long as it meets the characteristics of variety, frequency, moderation and above all hydration. Therefore, talking about a diet in equilibrium understands mentioning the components which make up it;Among those we find:

Carbohydrates: known in the same way as carbohydrates or sugars. These are macro type molecules recognized for being the main source of energy that the cell requires to fulfill its functions, therefore, it is the primary basis of human beings food. Carbohydrates are found in fruits, seeds, cereals, rice, bread, flours, among others.

Lipids: These are organic components, their main characteristic is that they are able to provide a large amount of energy beneficial for the organism of the human being through fats;whether they are unsaturated or in turn, saturated.

Proteins: These represent approximately 71% of the weight of the cells that make. Generally lay in foods such as nuts, eggs, fish, legumes, milk, among others.

Vitamins: The quality that prevails in these molecules is to contribute to the metabolic processes of the body, including a great energy contribution. Encompassing the different vitamins we find those of soluble and insoluble type, composed of food such as fruits, dairy, vegetables and more.

What foods consume humans?

The human being is considered an omnivorous individual, that is, to eat food of both plant and animal origin. Among the foods that the human being consumes, we find, specifically cataloged by groups.

• “Group I: Cereals and food (rice, corn, potatoes, cassava, bananas, wheat flour)
• Group II: Vegetables (cabbage, lettuce, cucumber, etc.)
• Group III: fruits (pineapple, oranges, apples, etc.)
• Group IV: meats, birds, fish, beans and eggs.
• Group V: milk and dairy products (butter, cheeses)
• Group VI: Fats (animal and vegetable)
• Group VII: Sugar and sweets ”(Gastronomy & Cía, 2009)

 

But in general, the foods found in our environment are represented in two taxonomies: organic and inorganic foods, these are essential for human life.

Organic foods are characterized by the presence of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and vitamins. In addition, those inorganic foods are figured by two types: mineral salts and water.

Food laws

Quantity Law: It deals with the demand for calories necessary for our body, this demand is based on a certain amount, whose characteristic must be based on balance amounts, that is, they are not in excessive or lack of quantities for organism;In addition, the specific foods provided by the necessary calories (energies) are lipids and carbohydrates, assuring him of a full, optimal and long -lived life.

Quality Law: It consists in offering our body a diet and therefore complete nutrition, characterized by containing components such as: carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, lipids, minerals and water;By offering all this set of components to our body, we grant quality and complete food, but lacking it would refer to incomplete diet.

Harmony Law: Specifically expresses that both carbohydrates, lipids and proteins should be ingested in a balanced way, harmonious a certain amount of caloric value or percentage, therefore, it is suggested to provide: sugars (fifty to sixty percent of caloric value),Fats (thirty to thirty -five percent of the caloric value), proteins (twelve to fifteen percent of the caloric value). According to the established proportions, it would even comply with the previously mentioned laws (quantity-quality), a correlation between laws is present.

Adaptation Law: It is based on understanding and understanding regarding the adaptation of food depending on the variables in relation to the characteristics that each individual presents, considering 

Nutrition from food

Nutrition is a physiological process whereby the body receives, converts and uses the chemicals obtained from food. This act is involuntary and unconscious, so it depends on the functions of the organism such as digestion, absorption and transportation of nutrients to tissues.

In order to carry out the processes that allow the human being to be alive, the organism needs nutrients. Nutrients are substances which are contained in food and are vital for human being. The essential nutrients are those that the human being cannot produce and therefore must be ingested in foods that contain it.

In food you can find: macronutrients, which are present in a greater proportion, and the micronutrients that are only present in small proportions. Macronutrients are proteins, lipids and carbohydrates. Fiber and water could also be part of this group since they are in most foods, but since they do not provide calories, they are not usually considered.

Nutrition directly intervenes in the maintenance of the health of healthy organisms and helps recovery in disease cases. It has special relevance in childhood since at this stage it is where the greatest physical and psychic development is given whose evolution will necessarily mark the future of the individual, so it is important to have healthy habits and customs since childhood.

Importance of correct food

Correct food is that which is balanced, composed of nutrients, lipids, proteins and vitamins, in which carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, proteins are consumed, among others, in a balanced and moderate way, thus achieving that the organism satisfies its needs andProvides tools that help you a good physical and mental functioning to avoid diseases and perform physical activities.

Good diet must occur in a lifetime. Although in the first years it depends purely on parents until the child can choose what food to eat, since it becomes a shared responsibility, in this way he learns to become aware of what is healthy and what does not. Food should be varied, without excluding any nutritional group, this must be adapted to the requirements of the organism, age, sex, weight.

The correct food is already important, which enables mental and intellectual development in the human being, when there is no correct food in children and young people, these will have difficulties in learning and adult will affect their work. They also allow physical development, that is, allows the growth and development of the body. A correct diet allows us to enjoy good health, strengthen the immune system, improve circulation, prevent and combat cardiovascular diseases, improve mood, combat fatigue, among others.

Transgenic foods

What are transgenic foods?

As the name implies, a transgenic food is a modified food at the level of its genes. According to (Camach, 2016) these foods are modified to grant different characteristics to the originals such as potentially increase their size, accelerate their growth time, or to be extremely resistant to the environment.

Who modifies these foods?

The great world of genetic engineering and together with it its technology occurred from 1973 in which two great scientists Herbert W. Boyer and Stanley Cohen transplanted for the first time in history the genes of a living organism to another, thus discovering genetic engineering several years later this technology potentially developed until it reached the hands of the large food industries which have offered the worldFoods with improved characteristics and unimaginable resistances to which they are already consumed normally, thus opening a new era that will allow humanity to choose between various options, transgenic foods or unmodified foods.

TRANSGENIC FOOD PRODUCTION OBJECTIVES

It is known that small farmers make use of genetically modified crops (OGM) with the vision of decreasing production time;As a direct consequence, a lower period of work is encouraged in the field of cultivation in addition to obtaining a greater favorable cost in relation to the usual.

The surveys date that "the small farmers are forced to pay every year a large monetary amount to plant the seeds preventing them from removing them from the same plant as it is traditionally done", by inducing the farmer to an annual cycle of a fairly high monetary cost,demonstrates the existence of another “priority” objective of genetically modified food producing companies.

Achieve control as time elapses from markets, consumer people and transgenic food producers;It is a strategy to increase their monetary income, "a complement to them, in addition to technological and market strategies, are patents" (Interdisciplinary Research Center in Science and Humanities.

General consequences of transgenic foods

In ancient times the human being performed genetic improvement without having any control over it, or on what could result, with the advance of science it is determined that it is happening and the genes selected for the transfer.

“The main conclusion we can reach after 130 research projects that have covered a period of more than 25 years of investigations and that have involved more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular the cropstransgenics are not more risky than conventional improvement ”.

Transgenic foods are able to combat bad nutrition, "the data show that 12% of children die annually in a period of 12 months after having acquired blindness" (Institute, 2016) due to severe deficiency of vitamin A orretinol which helps strengthen the optic nerve. A food was developed capable of saving a large number of children from blindness, better known as goldlife.

Since the introduction of GM crops in 1996, a study published in 2015 concluded “technology has promoted changes in agricultural practices, which has decreased greenhouse gases where these crops are sown, equivalent to removing more from12.4 million vehicles from the streets.”(Barfoot, 2015), not only contributed a considerable reduction in the greenhouse effect or improve the practices used for cultivation.

The application of pesticides and herbicides in GM varieties translates to the best performance and lower use of agricultural chemicals as a significant death in fossil fuel consumption, which leads to reducing the use of equipment to be able to apply chemicals along with little careof crop.

However, the contrast with a negative tendency that exists towards transgenic foods in health is based on the fact that “liver damage affects and are able to increase the risk of acquiring tumors” (Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT), 2012). Genetic mutations are the product of viruses and bacteria in transgenic food. In this way it is affirmed that there are bacteria with greater resistance towards certain types of medicines.

The use of transgenic crops affects an increase in toxic products in the field of agriculture, this is because traditional pesticides and herbicides used in large quantity will not be necessary;Transgenic plants require different agricultural chemical.

Acquire knowledge regarding the consequences of the use of transgenic foods together with their process of obtaining, treating and care, allows to obtain a different perspective together with the positive and negative consequences of the use of this technology.

Results

"The one who survives is the one that has best adapted to the environment, not the one that seems to be stronger than the rest" (Darwin, 1859). Genetic modification seeks the supremacy of certain species that develop in the natural environment, thus monopolizing the processes that lead to what corresponds to natural selection. Natural selection is practically based on the struggle of species to survive, thus discussing factors such as water, nutrients, space, sunlight, among other factors which are immersed resistance to their environment, such as being predicted by higher species , or the simple fact of resisting pests that threaten to eliminate a species completely, as in the case of plants.

This aspect to be developed in each of the species has a great demand for time and years of evolution, which is why genetic engineering proposes the improvement of each of these species by modifying its genes to preserve the species, making it more resistant with regarding the environment in which it develops.

The improvement of genetics in food has been for many farmers the central pillar of productivity over the years (Innes, 2016) this is because foods that are genetically modified tend to be more resistant to pests, to be more colorful, more colorful and propose to the consumer a better flavor than the original food, which is known as foods of transgenic origin.

Transgenic foods correspond to a classification of genetically modified foods (GM). The transgenics are basically those that their genetics was modified through engineering, as the name implies, which changes said consumable so that they contain at least one changed gene corresponding to another totally different species altering their genetic composition, of this way new features are introduced to plants. Among these are corn, cotton, canola, and soybeans. It is for this reason that, at least one food in the diet of the human being contains genetic modifications and the individual who consumes it possibly did not know.

Human beings have modified plants and animals for thousands of years, this means that since ancient times there were indications already, of genetic modifications in nature by the hand of man. According to (Landry, 2015) humans in prehistory dedicated themselves to crossing the strongest species, and with more beneficial characteristics to each other to obtain a super species capable of surviving the changes that occur in the natural environment.

This is how these plants and cross -linked animals were further developing these characteristics that made these species other than the rest passing their generation to generation qualities. Therefore, the consumables that are known today are the product of a long genetic evolution that since its inception was changing until it became what is familiar today.

What genetic engineering proposes, unlike prehistoric selection methods, is to ensure that these foods are manageable to the point of bringing benefits to the human being and in this way influence their daily diet. Healthy and adequate eating is one of the greatest objectives of society currently to lead a healthy and without future life, so the interest of people is increasingly awakened to know what types of food are consuming.

The priority of multinational companies to create genetically modified foods which produce transgenic foods is "to think about future generations", that is, a lineage of products that provide greater security when it comes to consumption, based on a composition that is not able topersuade the decline of health and in turn provide nutritional qualities in the consumer human being. “What most people do not know is that practically all the foods they buy in a store are genetically modified foods. Is called artificial improvement." 

Transgenic foods are mainly produced and elaborated in highly developed countries which have the economic and technological capacity to carry out these genetic processes in food. However, it is knowledge that these powers clearly distribute their production to the rest of the world, as evidenced in the image below that large producers (large brands) and the countries in which it is distributed (small brands are observed (small brands)

The map shows that, if focused in South America, respectively Ecuador, this is one of the countries that potentially consumes transgenic or at least in which food of this type has been distributed in the market, but are these consumedfor Ecuadorians openly and without any fear? The answer is provided by a study to a sample of people in 11 different cities in the country, among those Guayaquil in which it was obtained that almost half of the respondents (56%) would consume genetically modified foods, and the other part did notwould do (44%);These figures certify the aforementioned that is the fear that radiates in the people of the sample since it was stated that they would not consume them in their entirety for the possible unexpected consequences in the long term;That is why the Ecuadorian press (Commerce, 2018) shows that there is no indication that modified foods affect the health of Ecuadorians, and this is certified by the Royal Association in its most recent investigation in which the hypothesis denieswhich stops a large group of people to introduce genetically modified foods in their daily diet. This research emphasizes that there are no collateral effects in the intake of modified consumables, do not alter people’s genes.

"Most of the food we consume contains genes, even those that we cook or those that have been prosecuted" this means that modified foods do not have apparent risk as long as they have been treated, controlled and produced under rigorous tests and standards ofquality, since in various parts of the world genetic modification is practiced without previous research or studies which could cause serious havoc on people’s health, such as resistance to antibiotics, infections, among others, among others. The foods that contain transgenics are not able to influence people’s genes once ingested. Most plants and animals contain around 30000 genes. (AM) contain around 1 to 10 genes in their cells. It manifests itself in the same way that the digestive system is able to degrade them without any problem and without causing modifications in each of the genes of the person who consumes them.

Even so, in the Ecuadorian country a law was approved that allowed the entry of transgenic seeds in the same only in order to investigate and not produce modified elements for sale to Ecuadorians;For some citizens belonging to different political movements this action mocks the National Constitution, which stipulates that Ecuador is the only South American country that the entry of transgenics into its constitution, a free country for the management of these crops since 2008. (CNE)

For the introduction and use of transgenics for a research approach, economist Rafael Correa Delgado, ex -president of the Republic of Ecuador, made use of an exception found in article 401 of the Magna Carta in which it is established that only insituations of national interest will be allowed to enter the country of seeds and crops that are genetically modified. "In this way research and regulation can be done, there is no talk of commercialization".

Illegal transgenics are considered in crops because the Constitution prohibits them and yet importation as much as consumption is totally legal in the country. “Ecuador imports soy and genetically modified corn from the US.UU. and Argentina that serves in the elaboration of balanced for consumption animals and compaction of sausages respectively.".

It is in this way how genetic engineering and large companies, creating transgenic foods, seek to solve problems and needs of society. Although part of the population tends to reject this type of food Gabriel Rangel belonging to Harvard University holds there is no certified evidence in which the production of transgenic foods causes serious effects on people, even states that they are highly higherto conventional food as long as they have been treated by companies or organizations specialized in the subject.

conclusion

Despite all the controversy that these types of food have. While some think and claim that this technology should be eradicated, others think it is a great step for humanity and its unstoppable search to eliminate hunger in the world, improve the quality of life, among others. The purpose is to extend all over the world and be accepted in the food market so that countries such as Ecuador are aware of the development of this technology that tends to be promising for each of the people.

It is necessary to highlight that the prohibition of transgenic food consumption is increasingly complicated in Ecuadorian society, because it goes against consumer law towards its free choice;In addition to the pressure involved in the food industry for introducing its products to the market and that these are widely accepted.

Healthy and adequate eating is one of the greatest objectives of society today to carry out a healthy life and without possible future complications. Therefore, the interest of people is increasingcontent of the food that is distributed in supermarkets as it is in the case of the well -known food chains in the city of Guayaquil.

But even so, the distribution of foods of transgenic origin in the main consumable distributors already mentioned in the city of Guayaquil (north) is evident since the 2018 period where its mandatory labeling has increased to modified foods in which products suchAs meats and processed sausages they have on the front of the packaging "this food contains transngenic" which shows that the Guayaquil have already been consuming foods of this origin, and over time no alterations or discomforts have not been evidenced by thesame. So, these foods have really been a problem for society despite not having shown evidence of any damage to its consumption? Or, is it rather an ethical, moral or religious rejection that slows the acceptance of this new technology and its consumption by Ecuadorians in their daily diets?

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