Is eating genetically modified food a sin?

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I just watched a movie in school today that showed that the vast majority of food we eat is genetically modified and is in virtually any food you can think of. I haven’t eaten for the past couple of hours for fear of genetic modification.

I can see how this would be like supporting companies that approve abortion, but in that, the product you consume isn’t actually a product of something sinful.

What is the Church’s official teaching on whether it is sinful or not to eat genetically modified food?
 
Let’s start off with a preliminary question: why do you think it would be a sin?
 
The Church hasn’t spoken specifically and definitively on this subject of genetic modification of food, but it isn’t a sin.

I second the question, why do you think it might or would be?
 
Well, if genetic engineering is a sin, wouldn’t that make genetic manipulation of animals a sin? You would be participating in a sinful act by eating it, wouldn’t you?
 
McatholicN said:
Well, if genetic engineering is a sin, wouldn’t that make genetic manipulation of animals a sin? You would be participating in a sinful act by eating it, wouldn’t you?
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Nope.

Genetic manipulation of humans is sinful, not animals. We humans are created in the likeness and image of God, animals are not.
 
A type of ‘genetic manipulation’ has been going on since we first began farming.

Type is bred to type to produce certain desired traits in both plants and animals. Gregor Mendel, I believe, was a Catholic Monk who advanced the usefulness of certain food plants.
 
Thanks to selective breeding, plants are able to produce more food, therefore providing more food for humans.
Pigs are also less fatty, making them healthier to eat.

Ever since the first farmer saw a really healthy male and a really healthy female, of any animal species, and bred them, genetic modification was happening.

You haven’t eaten for HOURS? You must be a teenager! 😃 How are you surviving? :cool:
 
He mapped out the dominate and recessive gene patterns in peas by tracking blossom color.
 
Genetic engineering isn’t immoral per se. That includes selective breeding and in vitro kind of stuff.

Now, when engineering on humans takes place that strips them of their dignity, that’s a problem. Genetically modified things are typically engineered for their utility. It is immoral to engineer a human for his or her utility–that strips away the dignity of being a distinct human being.

Suppose you wanted to engineer your child to be a football star. Ignoring the immorality of the IVF that would need to take place, consider what your child has become to you–nothing more than a vehicle for your abortive athletic aspirations.
 
im confused. what is genetically modified food? its not a sin to me as I have no idea what it is. please explain
 
Despite the fear tactics of activist groups, to my knowledge there is no documented negative health impacts to humans of eating genetically modified food.

Most corn and soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically modified to resist insect pests and to permit the use of glyphosate (Round-up) as an herbicide. This reduces the application of far more toxic chemical insecticides and herbicides to such crops. Most dairy cows are treated with a genetically engineered hormone (rBST) to cause them to produce more milk, although the hormone is identical to the naturally occurring hormone and doesn’t show up in the milk. Practically all papayas from Hawaii are genetically engineered to resist papaya ringspot virus. Just some examples.

Unless you ate an organic diet, and were very careful about reading the labels, you have been eating genetically modified foods for years. Not a sin.

Others have mentioned that genetic modification (by standard breeding techniques and more recent enhanced breeding and hybrid breeding methods) has been a standard part of agriculture for millenia. Our corn, dairy cattle, and pet dogs bear very little resemblance to their natural ancestors, for example. Now we have hybrid corn, pluots, apriums, cows that produce low butterfat milk at high volume, lean hogs, toy poodles and hairless cats. We’ve been messing with Mother Nature for a very long time, long before the tools of genetic engineering became available in the 1970s.
 
For example, there are plants that have been modified to be resistant to a certain type of plant killer. This is done by adding a new gene into the DNA of the crop that prevents the herbicide from killing the plant. This way, farmers can plant this crop and spray the entire field with herbicide without fear of destroying their crop. This is a much more time- and money-efficient farming method than weeding by hand.

Another example is of a crop that only lasts one season. The genes of the plant are edited to prevent the plant from producing fertile seeds. That way, the farmer must buy new seeds from the distributor each season, instead of collecting seeds from the previous season’s crop.
 
I know about Gregor Mendel, but weren’t Twinkies the *actual *first genetically modified food? And surely they can’t be a sin!
 
So this is a definite “no”?

I had always thought that the Church taught that geneticly engineering of animals was intrinsically sinful.
 
Sailor_Kenshin said:
What made you think that?
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Last year in a book for my religion class, there was a list of the more modern cultural sins like abortion, euthenasia, etc. By genetic engineering there was a picture of a genetically engineered chicken, so I assumed the Church’s stance towards that was a definite negative. I thought genetic engineering applied to any living thing whatsoever.
 
McatholicN said:
Last year in a book for my religion class, there was a list of the more modern cultural sins like abortion, euthenasia, etc. By genetic engineering there was a picture of a genetically engineered chicken, so I assumed the Church’s stance towards that was a definite negative. I thought genetic engineering applied to any living thing whatsoever.
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Can you provide us the title and author of the book?
 
McatholicN said:
Last year in a book for my religion class, there was a list of the more modern cultural sins like abortion, euthenasia, etc. By genetic engineering there was a picture of a genetically engineered chicken, so I assumed the Church’s stance towards that was a definite negative. I thought genetic engineering applied to any living thing whatsoever.
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I’m not really sure what the book was. I’m pretty sure it had that picture and that it was by “genetic engineering”.

I don’t really know how long I had thought this genetic engineering thing was sinful.
 
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