English - Genetically Modified Foods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

English - Genetically Modified Foods - Essay Example Yet, these developments are not purely benevolent. As the potential long-term effects of eating the resulting food is unknown, many consumers are afraid of future side effects and prefer foods that are naturally cultivated. Genetically modified plants and animals are, by definition, altered at their most fundamental levels, mutated in ways totally foreign to time-honored methods. One of the most significant debates presently occurring in the realm of genetically altered foods is over whether or not poultry produced via the developments of biotechnology create a healthy food supply. Although the full repercussions of consuming such meat over a lifetime will not be known for many years, I believe the prospects of better yields and stronger resistance to disease outweighs this. Genetically engineered poultry are the way of the future, and this future is to the greatest benefit to farmers, consumers and the poultry themselves. For thousands of years, mankind has domesticated fowl for eggs, meat and the breeding of subsequent generations of stock. Although using completely new methods and concepts, modern science is in fact advancing the practice of farming to achieve desired beneficial traits. Historical evidence suggests that humans have manipulated birds as required through purposeful breeding schemes and animal husbandry. Theoretically, genetic engineering is only a new potential avenue in this traditional art of bettering livestock populations. Combining the traits scientists wish to insert via biotechnology into the domesticated fowl is an ideal situation for farmers. Through this new tool in farming, consumers also benefit with lower prices, better tasting meat, and even meat which will microwave more effectively, thus answering to contemporary cooking instruments. People have always sought to enhance the desirable qualities of domesticated poultry. However, these processes may hot have anyways been humane or caring towards the animals. One such customary and fully legal practice in the United States is to starve hens for weeks at a time in order to manipulate egg production, despite the potential for serious health problems that might lead to premature death. Genetic engineering of the chickens can prevent further unethical acts towards these animals, which are regularly kept in mechanized environments and regularly mutilated, starved, forced to reproduce through artificial insemination, and left unprotected from widespread disease. Through the creation of chickens that are resistant to disease and able to mature quickly and stay in better health, the current ways of increasing the chicken growth rate can mercifully be abandoned. One of the worst negative effects of captivity is a dehabilitating leg weakness caused by tibial dyschondroplasia. In the natural environment, only 1.2 percent of chickens suffer from this condition, where 49 percent of domesticated chicken are plagued with these leg problems.1 The prospect of making chickens grow larger, leaner, and faster is very appealing to farmers, and as a biotech company president said, "I'm not sure that birds have preferences about their body shape." Genetic engineering can propagate a stock that is better suited for domestic conditions, insuring a better quality of life. Disease prevention among chickens is extremely important to both farmers and consumers,