GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS 1

Genetically Modified Foods

Jacob Diaz

University of Texas at El Paso

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Jacob Diaz

RWS 1302-17424

Genre Analysis Essay

September 22, 2017

Genetically Modified Foods

The purpose of this essay will be to weigh the risks and benefits of genetically modified

foods. Genetically modified foods or genetically engineered foods are those whos genetic

structure has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. Genetically modified foods

have the potential to improve the efficiency of food production and provide potential health

benefits. For the purposes of this essay I will be focusing on the text from a research article

titled, Genetically Modified (GM) Foods and Ethical Eating and the audio from the TED Talk,

Pamela Ronald: The case for engineering our food.

TED Talks has gained a sizeable following so people may stumble across the video and

become interested on the subject of genetically modified foods. The target audience of this video

is people who have formed an opinion whether it be for or against genetically modified foods

because it aims to persuade the viewer. If the viewer happened to accidentally stumble upon the

video they not might be informed on the subject of genetically modified foods, but if they found

the video by searching for a key words they are likely to have knowledge on the subject being

explored in the video. This video is pushing for the use of genetically engineered foods from and

ethical standpoint. In my opinion the intended audience for this article is people who are

researching the topic of genetically modified foods. Since this is such a specific subject it is not
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likely that somebody who is not research the topic would accidentally stumble across this article.

This article aims to inform the reader with important information with minimal to no bias on the

topic of genetically modified foods and let the reader form their own opinion.

The speaker from TED Talks, Pamela Ronald is a plant pathologist and geneticist. She is

a professor and faculty director of the Institute for Food and Agriculture Literacy at the

University of California and received her Ph.D. in molecular and physiological plant biology

from UC Berkeley. In the video, Pamela Ronald touches on the sensitive subject of children in

under developed countries suffering from malnutrition. Particularly, the 5000 children who go

blind due to vitamin A deficiency, from which more that half will die. She then goes on to

explain how scientist where able to genetically engineer a type of rice to produce -carotene

(Ronald, 2015). The fact that genetically engineering rice has the ability to prevent thousands of

children from going blind and possibly saving their lives would appeal to the emotions of many

people. Pamela Ronald also talks about the science behind genetically engineering foods. She

explains how while rice can grow while submerged in water, if it is submerged for to long that it

will die. One of her colleagues and his graduate student were studying an ancient variety of rice

while had the ability to be submerged for to weeks and still grow. They were able to isolate this

gene and when submerged in water this variety of rice grew three time more than the

conventional kind. The article, Genetically Modified (GM) Foods and Ethical Eating was

written by a team of scientists, doctors, and nutritionists. To appeal to the emotions of the reader

the authors state that there is a rising issue of weighing the disadvantages of genetically modified

foods against the benefits, especially since genetically modified foods have the potential to help

developing nations in need of economic stimulation and food security. If such benefits do exist,
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the responsible use of genetically modified foods should be employed. By stating this there are

effectively saying that there is a way to positively impact malnutrition in developing nations

which could save hundreds of thousands of lives (Dizon and others, 2015). They go on to

explain the science of splicing the genes of plants and combining them with trace amounts of

viruses in order to make them more resistant to diseases.

For this particular genre since it is a video, but I am focusing on the audio it is limited by

lack of visuals. The structure of the video is very linear, and by that I mean that the speaker

explains the science behind engineering a certain food and then lists the potential benefits of

doing so. The video is very organized and the audience is not allowed to ask questions until the

end of the presentation due to time constraints. The structure of the article, Genetically Modified

(GM) Foods and Ethical Eating seems to be organized in the same way as a research essay. The

article explains the purpose in an introductory paragraph, goes into the science of genetically

engineering foods and the benefits of doing son in the main body of the articles. It closes with a

conclusions paragraph stating what was accomplished in the article and touches on the ethical

standpoint of engineering foods.

I believe that the video, Pamela Ronald: The case for engineering our food was more

effective in conveying its message because the speaker already had a formed opinion on whether

genetically modified foods were beneficial or not and was trying to persuade you into agreeing

with her. The article, Genetically Modified (GM) Foods and Ethical Eating was not as effective

in my opinion because it was not persuasive. While the article did provide the reader with

important information on the subject, most of which was positive, they allowed the reader to
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form their own opinion because the authors never stated whether they were for or against

genetically modifying foods.

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References

Dizon, F., Costa, S., Rock, C., Harris, A., Husk, C., & Mei, J. (2015). Genetically Modified
(GM) Foods and Ethical Eating. Journal of Food Science, 81(2). doi:10.1111/1750-
3841.13191

Ronald, P. (Director). (2015, May 4). Pamela Ronald: The case for engineering our food [Video
file]. Retrieved September 22, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ2TF8-
PGQ4&t=356s