from Humans Are Free:

How much do you know about the food you consume?

Sure, you might be an avid reader of food labels or an all-organic shopper. You may prioritize buying meats with no antibiotics or may not even eat meat at all. Perhaps you opt for the farmers’ market over your local grocery store.

However, an internal element of your food is harder to track: GMOs, or genetically modified organisms. What are they, exactly, and what do they mean for your health and wellness?

Simply put, GMOs are “altered with DNA from another organism, be it a bacterium, plant, virus or animal,” as Live Science explains. This ability allows geneticists to breed genetically modified foods, often resulting in a higher yield and production, such as tomatoes that are resistant to frost, potatoes that are more difficult to bruise, etc.

While the potential benefits from GMOs seem promising, there are still plenty of risks and unknown factors that warrant consideration when planning your eating habits.

Let’s take a look at a few of them to help you make the best decision possible when buying your food.

Seed Monopoly – Who Controls The GMOs

You may already know, when it comes to control over the seed supply, there are a couple of big players, one of which is Monsanto, which controls 80 percent of the GM corn market, and 93 percent of the GM soy market.

Couple that with the fact that behemoth companies such as Monsanto enjoy high levels of freedom when it comes to their activities, and it is certainly reason for concern.

As researchers on the topic report, 94 percent of our seed varieties have disappeared over the last century, leaving the remains to a handful of global corporations such as Monsanto, which is also known for its stringent control over farmers’ abilities to save seeds produced after harvest for re-planting as well as lawsuits against farmers whose non-Monsanto seeds are contaminated by the company’s GMOs.

Some even speculate that, while there is a de facto worldwide moratorium on terminator technology, or “seeds are genetically engineered to make them sterile and unusable for replanting,” companies like Monsanto may already be trying to make them a reality, further tethering a farmer’s ability to grow crops to their patronage of the company.

This wide-reaching control of the available seeds means it is already difficult, and likely to become harder for consumers to avoid purchasing GM products.

Is GMO Food Safe? Potential Health Risks

The monopolization of the seed industry through GMOs is not only a worldwide economic concern, but also a health one.

Due in part to their relatively recent inception, as well as a lack of substantial independent testing, much is not known about the possible side effects of long-term consumption of genetically modified foods.

Among the possible health effects some worry are connected to genetically modified foods are digestive issues, endocrine disruption, and possibly even gene altering.

The rise of instances of gluten intolerance and other similar digestive disorders have some pointing to GMOs as a possible environmental cause of the shift. While wheat is not a GMO, other GM crops have been engineered to withstand the weed killer called Roundup, whose active ingredient is glyphosate.

Analysis of related research suggests such components of GMOs may exacerbate or initiate gluten-related disorders, perhaps most specifically intestinal permeability, or “leaky gut.” This could be attributed to the hole-punching toxin used in GM corn, which kills insects by poking holes in their stomachs.

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