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Genetically modified food – or GM-food – is the
product of GM technology which alters or modifies a plant by inserting a foreign gene taken from a different species - say a bacteria, virus, unrelated food and non-food plants, insect, animal or even human - into the host plant with the aim of re-designing the plant to give it desired characteristics.
For instance, if scientists wish to create a frost resistant tomato they could insert a gene from an arctic fish (such as a flounder) to produce a protein with antifreeze properties.
Plants produced by genetic modification are funda-mentally different to plants produced using natural breeding methods because they carry genes taken from foreign species. Natural breeding does not cross species, and any transferring of genes between them happens within the safety of evolutionary trial and error.
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