What are transgenic foods?
Transgenic foods are foods that include in their composition some ingredient from an organism into which a genetically engineered gene from another species has been incorporated. Thanks to biotechnology, a gene can be transferred from one organism to another in order to provide it with some special quality it lacks. In this way, transgenic plants can resist pests, withstand droughts, or better resist some herbicides. In Europe, not all types of GMOs are authorised, only some of them can be cultivated and subsequently marketed.
Since their birth, transgenics have been the subject of much controversy. There are fanatical followers and unrelenting detractors. For example, Juan Felipe Carrasco, agronomist and responsible for Greenpeace’s Campaign against GMOs in Spain, believes that “industrial agriculture, which is currently being sold to us as one that produces food for all humanity, unfortunately, is also producing a great deal of irreversible damage“.