12.11.2007 | permalink
Jayalakshmi K talks to two experts who present the two sides of genetically modified crops. Are we in Bangalore (and other parts of India) eating genetically modified (GM) food? Yes, according to Kavitha Kuruganti of Centre for Sustainable Agriculture. ”I was looking through some of the products on the shelves of the retail outlets. Lots of GM originated source material imported from US,” she says. But how can she say that? ”Any product that has soya, corn, canola, cottonseed as ingredient is quite sure to have GM components. In the US 90 percent of the soya is genetically modified variety. As they don’t have a system of segregation of GM and non-GM, you can be quite sure we are eating that.” Eating GM food is the least of the problem associated with the technology. Many tests have shown that allergens are few as ”no protein sequence used is similar to allergenic protein sequence,” says S Shantharam, an active proponent of GM technology.