What would the world be like if we didn’t have any laboratory created genetically modified organisms? What if we did away with all transgenic technology? If this happened we would lose much more than just a few GMO plants. Many types of medicines would not exist and we would have to farm millions of more animals to produce some of the medicines and enzymes humans use.
There are only a few types of transgenic, or “genetically modified,” plants that have been approved for commercial production in the United States. The table below shows those different plants and what genetic traits in the plants have been added or changed by scientists. These plants have one or more of the following traits modified by genetic engineering.
At dinner you look down at your plate and see something new: curly dark green leaves that look like lettuce, but taste a little bitter. It’s called kale. You would rather eat mashed potatoes instead, but your parents tell you that you have to at least try this new vegetable before you finish your dinner. Your parents are doing this for good reason: they know that kale has lots of vitamins.
