IS IT TRUE GENETIC ENGINEERING ARE JUST LIKE NATURAL FOODS???

Far from it. Although biotech companies claim that genetic engineering is just an extension of traditional food processing (such as making bread, beer or wine, cheese and yoghurt ) and of natural breeding, you won't get fish or insect genetic matter in the tomatoes you grow in your backyard, no matter how hard you try to cross breed them. We use natural microorganisms that occur in nature such as yeast - not man-made, altered mutants - to make breed, cheese, wine etc. In farms we select the plants and animals we want to be bred by natural method of same or related species.


Genetic engineering is carried out in laboratories and test tubes to mix together genetic matter from completely unrelated living things - plants, animals, bacteria, viruses and man.


How unlike can the two methods be? Genetic engineers use forced entry or invasion by bacteria or viruses to insert alien genes in the host DNA. In natural breeding the DNA from both parents (plants or animals) is transferred whole to the offspring in the form of chromosomes. The ordered sequences remain unbroken and in harmony, while in the genetic engineering offspring, the natural sequences are disrupted, reconfigured in unpredictable ways.


The fact that genetic engineering fruits and vegetables contain DNA from other totally unrelated species (insects, animals, bacteria, humans even) makes them different. If not, why do biotech companies take out patents for their "creations", charge royalties for their use and bind farmer to a contract with all sorts of restrictions?