Genetically modified food in Australia

Next time you sit down to your home cooked dinner, you may want to take a moment to ponder your plate. Your lamp chops, tomatoes, and corn-on the cob may look the same as usual, but it’s quite possible that the lamb contains human genes, the tomato has been genetically altered for a longer shelf life and the corn has modified to resist infestations from the corn borer. This may come as a surprise to you now, but it certainly isn’t news to the government agencies established to protect our food supply.

In recent years there has been much debate over the increasing use of technology in food production. Much of this has come from the sensitive subject of genetically modified food production. Also known as food biotechnology or gene technology, genetic food engineering in its broadest definition is any technique which uses biological methods to alter food crops, animals or micro-organisms. The aim of this technology being to improve the attributes, safety, quantity, quality and eas...