ARE MODIFIED FOODS NATURAL?

• Position: Brief Article

Scientists say that genetically modified foods are safe, but many individuals are still uncomfortable about eating them, maintaining that they are unnatural. In the science community, researchers become dismayed when discussing biotechnology with people who use such a vague term as "unnatural." Paul B. Thompson, the Joyce and Edward E. Brewer Distinguished Professor in Applied Ethics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., and author of Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective, says even those who label foods as unnatural don't always have an exact explanation for why they think the way they do. "It's not exactly a religious view, because it's not something they would have learned in church. It's quasi-religious, because it's a particular way of thinking about nature that's not in the direction that science has gone."

According to Thompson, there is a disparity between what people have believed since antiquity and what science is telling us about the world today. "Part of the anxiety about genetically engineered foods is that our view of how the world works is eroding away from underneath our feet. It's a shame that this anxiety has been attached so strongly to genetically engineered foods, because the feeling really exists in many areas of life."

Pure, unadulterated foods have been important as long as people have been on Earth, because contaminated foods are a danger to one's health. The idea that a gene has been added to a food that wasn't originally part of that food makes it seem impure, which, according to deep-rooted beliefs, makes it seem harmful, Thompson points out, but he argues that there is a problem with that type of reasoning. Scientists are finding that foods one might consider pure aren't, at least with respect to their biochemistry. "For me, there's nothing that connotes good food more than a late-summer ripe tomato. But is it pure? The tomato was developed from a plant that was poisonous, and that same tomato I love to eat contains mutagens, which are biochemical substances that can induce changes in cell growth. But current scientific thinking is that mutagens in our food are counterbalanced by other compounds that are antimutagens. That's what makes an ordinary tomato safe to eat."

The idea that foods considered pure and natural may contain harmful or cancer-causing substances conflicts with deep-rooted moral and cultural notions, and adds to the anxiety about what we eat. Another reason that people might consider...