Problems with Genetically Modified Foods

During the last few years we have seen a public debate, involving every social statement, concerning food products and ingredients (1 ). The appearance in the market of the first food products, or organisms, which have been improved by recombinant DNA technologies (rDNA), has been received by society in a negative manner. We are referring specifically to genetically modified (GM) food products. Several definitions can explain the concept of GM products or, in a general way, the imprecise word transgenic , a concept that comes from the seventies, even when the terms were not the same. Since then, scientists are capable of constructing recombinant DNA molecules and precisely moving them to another organism or to the original one, by direct genetic manipulation. People understand “transgenic” as food products or their ingredients, resulting from this kind of modification. In other words, “either add a gene (or a set of them) from a donor genome to a recipient one-” and you will obtain it (2 ).