So, first things first: what exactly are Genetically Modified Organisms? Most simply, genetically modified organisms are plants and animals that have been biologically altered by means of genetic cloning and protein engineering.

So, how is this related to you? Basically, for the purposes of cutting down on cost and energy, many manufacturers and mass production farmers/companies now genetically alter their plants and livestock with bioengineering. For plants, this means that these crops are injected with a superficial plant organism to produce much more of the same plant at a faster, cheaper, and seemingly more qualitative rate. For animals, this means cloning livestock to do the same. For you, this means that the foods that you ingest on a daily basis are being tampered with for better or worse, and you are not only ingesting the plant or animal organisms but also the chemically-engineered additives as well.

• Food Presence – As can be expected, when you mix real organisms with engineered components, not only the engineered components, but also how they interact with the real organisms (plant and animal life) is unpredictable and potentially damaging to our health. Moreover, studies estimate that roughly 60-70% of our food supply has been tampered with in just this manner; so the full scale of how GMOs affect our bodies, health, and longetivity should be considered all the more.
• Testing- Since GMOs are so widely found in our everyday foods, you would expect that they would be regulated and tested as such, right? Sure, but they aren't. At present, GMOs are so unpredictable, that the FDA has no testing requirements for them, so that manufacturers and mass crop farmers can put whatever they want in our foods.
• Plant Pesticides- Many farmers interested in producing mass amounts of crop through GE (genetic engineering), have introduced natural anti-pest ingredients to their crops. While potentially helpful to plants on the short term, these plant organism additives have not been regulated and could be as harmful and poisonous to the human body as the pesticides themselves.
• Antibiotics- Another huge concern regarding GMOs is that by incorporating them into our foods, we are making our bodies less resistant to infection and disease. By adding more and more unnatural ingredient into our foods, we are limiting our bodies’ normal digestion and organ function processes.

Another cause for concern is how widespread use of GMOs in our foods could affect the future of human DNA forever after. Genetically Modified Organisms alter the DNA of a specific plant or animal respectively when they are added to the original, naturally made organism. More and more, GMOs are being used to make up a substantial of the foods that we eat on a daily basis. As we consume more unnatural ingredients, we become more and more prone to allergy and disease. More allergy, disease, etc leads to an altering our DNA makeup individually and as a human race.

So where can you find the most common of GMO foods? That's the problem. Almost all chemically processed foods have been altered with the top two crops, soy and corn. Not just plant organisms are treated with these bioengineered products, but livestock are also fed these two commonly used GMOs. If you have a question of whether or not a food has been altered unnaturally, chances are, it has been. The only way to distinguish GMO foods from non-GMO foods is if it is marked specifically as a non-GMO food.

Of course, there are a number of pros to using GMOs in our foods, and nutritional value can certainly be listed among them. Though would think that GMOs would have worse nutritional values than organic unmodified foods, they don't, and this is why. One up side to GMOs is that they can be altered to remove allergens, poisons, etc., that would normally cause distress or negative reaction in a person. Moreover, those suffering from deficiencies in necessary vitamins can get the enhanced amounts of these nutrients in their GMO foods.

On the other hand, as was previously mentioned, in the long term-GMOs do not have to pass FDA requirements because there isn't a system to measure them against yet. Consequently, there is quite a bit of freedom of what manufacturers and biotech departments can put in their foods; thus, the greater potential nutritional value is somewhat undone. Moreover, the makeup of GMOs might be causing more allergy issues and long term health risks and conditions.

Genetically Modified Organisms were first introduced to help the world-to help us globally address poverty, starvation, and make our foods safer, more qualitative, and cheaper. Though all of this may, in fact, be true regarding being able to mass produce a variety of key foods and food products more efficiently; unfortunately, the safety of these chemically altered foods is still unknown. In the short term, it may seem like GMOs are the answer to all of our problems, but the long term effects of unnatural substances in the human body is still yet unknown. GMOs have the power to introduce disease, resistance to poisons/antibiotics, and revamp our human DNA. We have introduced a drastic change into our world's environment and life, and it will be forever altered by these GMOs for better or for worse.

By TTS Cofounder Botanical Chef Omid Jaffari