Pros and Cons of GMO Argumentative Essay Example

For this assignment I will be defining the pros and cons to GMO. However when I first got this assignment, I had no clue what a GMO was or what GMO stood for. First let’s start off with what a GMO is if you didn’t know already; it is where an organism or DNA is modified by engineering. For example it can be plants, animal’s, bacteria and it also can get sprayed on crops, so pesticides do not eat away the crops. After realizing what a GMO was, I came to find out that there are a lot of pros and cons to it.

They say 70-80% of foods in America are GMO. So, you can imagine more than half of the things you eat have been modified. So that means they are going to be a lot of pros and cons on whether GMO is good or bad for you. First let's start off with all of the pros to GMO. One pro is that over the last 30 years of lab testing and 15 years of field research there has not been a single health risk associated with GMO consumption which is a good thing because we do not want to put our health at risk. Another pro is GMO helps reduce the cost of food and increases nutritional content which helps world hunger which is a plus because we always need nutrition in our body and not only that but it can help people in 3rd world countries who need nutrition too.

Another pro is environmental benefits such as reducing the amount of water and lower carbon emissions and it helps reduce some of the pesticides that could contaminate our crops if we lower the amount of water we have to use to treat our crops could help us in the long term for saving water. Also reducing pesticides is a great thing so they do not eat away the crops and some pesticides carry bacteria. One of the most well known con to GMO is preserving food like chickens and meats which cause it to last longer and taste better. Those are some of the main pros to GMO however all pros will have a con to it. 

For all the Pros listed there are still Cons to all the good things. For example even though there has not been any health issues in the last 30 years we still do not know the long term risk of using GMO. We do not know the long term risk because 30 years is still in some way new because GMO could take a lifetime to cause a health issue or risk to people. For another example is even though helping world hunger and getting more nutrients is great but there is a risk like if there is something over in a 3rd world country that is not over here a unknown toxin could not interact right with a GMO product which could cause people to get sick.

Also a con to spraying crops with chemicals to kill the pesticides is that those chemicals could have harmful bacteria that could hurt people in the long run. Also a con to Preserving foods like chicken and meats is that to preserve chicken or meat you have to give it chemicals to keep its taste and not to go bad also chickens that are injected with hormones to keep it from going bad suffer from ammonia, bronchitis and weakened immune system and I think it is safe to say no one wants to eat a chicken that suffers from those things. Those are some of the main cons to GMO everyone will have different opinions on if GMO is good or bad.

After all there are so many pros and cons to GMO. I think that everyone's opinion on it will be different. I think I lean more to the side of GMO is ok because I have never experienced any health issues caused by GMO. However it is always good to realize what is happening to your foods before they are cooked or before you ever eat them.