Q: Are the grains now genetically modified? Finally, someone asks about genetically modified (GMO), and since there has always been a lot of talk about GMOs, today we’ll talk about GMO foods. People are always wary of the unknown or unfamiliar – it never hurts to be careful, it’s a normal protective reaction. Like Yu Dafu when he was a child, he had never seen purple potatoes, never eaten fruit corn in different colors, never eaten sage fruit, millennium, and only in recent years, he had eaten “very sweet” ugly orange “I don’t know fire” and so on…. … in the face of unseen food, people’s reaction will generally be divided into two kinds: one is “can eat?” and the other is “Is it good?” The former are those who used to be “afraid to eat crabs”, the latter are the “real foodies”. Back to the topic. First of all, we need to be clear from the logic, why do humans have to develop the technology of genetic modification, is it to poison themselves? Then directly add what heavy metals, poisons, radioactive substances, carcinogenic pollutants will not be finished, and why bother …… think about it is impossible. In fact, scientists in scientific research and technological innovation in crops, the main purpose is one: to increase production! Neither to make the food more delicious, nor to make the food look more strange (of course, the food becomes larger is also one of the methods of growth, yield = individual food weight X number of food output) In fact, this exploration has been ongoing, we should be most familiar with the “hybrid technology”, the most representative is Yuan Longping’s feat –Hybrid rice, which has fed many people in China and even in the world who once did not have enough to eat (however, hybrid rice is not good). In the process of domesticating various plants and animals, humans have intentionally or unintentionally carried out the process of “hybrid breeding and selection”, which is why our food is so abundant. Another breeding technology that has been used for decades – space breeding, is to carry some plant seeds on board a spacecraft, in the universe of high radiation, weightlessness and other extreme environments to promote its mutation, when planted back on the ground, select the mutation is conducive to the direction of food varieties for targeted culture, such as bigger ah, taste better ah and so on The first two techniques are considered to be the majority of the varieties. The first two technologies are still mostly using natural conditions to achieve “targeted selection”, while transgenic technology is more “precise” than them: directly at the genetic level, the “superior gene” of an existing species is extracted and inserted into the target species. “This is an unbelievable technology that allows the target species to quickly acquire the attributes corresponding to the dominant gene, eliminating the need to slowly crossbreed or mutate and then selectively breed, and directly “making” new species. For example, in the case of food or cash crops, to ensure stable or even increased yields, we must face natural challenges such as drought, weed competition, insect pests and high winds blowing down, and the risk of yield reduction is great. And large-scale planting situation, it is not possible to water like watering flowers, it is impossible to accurately pull out the weeds, insects natural predators predation effect is also limited, spraying pesticides are still afraid of residue, but also can not be installed in the field of wind-blocking wall …… so had to improve the crop’s own resistance to drought, herbicides, pests and inverted ability. As an example. When planting soybeans, herbicides need to be sprayed in order to control weeds. However, herbicides generally “kill a thousand enemies and damage eight hundred” because soybeans themselves are a type of grass. After the weeds are eliminated, there are not many soybeans left. What to do? Biologists have solved this problem by transferring herbicide-resistant genes from bacteria into the soybean genome so that the soybean can acquire herbicide resistance. In this way, the genome of an organism is artificially altered for human use, and the resulting food is genetically modified food. Tell us about the current situation. Currently, the only two types of GM plants that can be legally grown commercially in China are cotton and papaya (papaya is what we normally eat), while the four types of GM plants that can be imported for food processing include soybeans, corn, rape and sugar beets. So, in supermarkets, only the five types of food – papaya, soy, corn, rape and beets – and their processed products are likely to be genetically modified. All the others are not, for example, fruit corn, small peanuts, purple potatoes, purple rice, purple kale, colored peppers, small tomatoes and so on, are not genetically modified foods. In addition, we must mention the economics factor. In addition to papaya, soybeans, corn, oilseed rape and sugar beets, these crops are not directly to the original form of food for human consumption, to put it bluntly are “raw materials”: soybeans and oilseed rape (not the leafy vegetables that oilseed rape) used to extract oil, corn used to raise livestock, sugar beets used to extract cane sugar, etc., only this Only the profits from such “bulk crops” are large enough to support the high capital investment in research and development of genetic modification! If only for the sake of good taste and use of genetic modification technology to develop “holy fruit”, it does not know a few hundred years to recover the cost of it …… As for the safety of genetic modification in the end how? It is also necessary to test the time, like the “first to eat crabs” mentality, if you feel uneasy, can not choose well. The current research evidence, the international community has not yet clearly that genetically modified food is harmful to people, as for the future will be how, I do not guess. Back to mixed grains. The reason why mixed grains are called “mixed” is that the yield or taste can not replace the “staple” status, but the history of people is also very long oh. The relationship, by analogy, like China’s fifty-six ethnic groups, fifty-five minority numbers together is not more than the Han Chinese, but also can not ignore the existence of minorities ah! To sum up, why would someone suspect that mixed grains are genetically modified? In fact, it is still too unfamiliar with the staple food used to eat rice and wheat flour, to this “rusty” food category, showing a “protective” reaction. Putting it in perspective, Europeans eat mainly potatoes and wheat as their staple food. If we go to live in Europe, we bring some “purple rice”, some Europeans may also think: this strange rice grain, could it be genetically modified? Corn, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, etc. are native to the Americas, are imported, but also around the Ming Dynasty into China, it is estimated that at that time, the Chinese people, see these strange food, the first reaction may also be “what the hell is all this!