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A few years ago I started experiencing a sharp metallic taste in my mouth. It was alarming. I explored the internet and found little news except that it was not an uncommon experience, a definite cause could rarely be found -but usually it would disappear in a few months. Such a horrible taste.

I traced all the food I had eaten. The only thing different from my usual diet was biscuits from South Africa. I returned to the store to look at the package; the label was full of small words with meanings I did not know well. But one of the main ingredients was corn syrup – in South Africa this is mostly made from genetically modified corn.

I have hardly eaten any processed food from South Africa since – I have not had the metallic taste return. Of course this is not proof that the two aspects are related- it’s just a feared correlation. Genetic engineering is a radical new technology that forces genetic information into organisms’ DNA in an unnatural way.

Genetically engineered organisms (GMOs) are created by inserting a protein from a different organism into the original organisms’ genome. This is usually done to create a plant that is more resistant to insects or diseases. Shockingly little research has been done on the effects of genetically modified organisms when ingested as food by human beings.

That is, corporations are attempting to produce the GMOs as food without doing the standard research used to test the safety of new products that will be eaten or used by human beings. For example, there is suspicion that Golden Rice, an agrobiotech industry project, may soon be cultivated commercially after more than ten years of development.