First, what is food? Food is a complex build of molecules with specific abilities (nutrients) that is ingested, digested, and changed to be used for specific transactions. Food follows the natural cycle of life, utilized by the digestive process of the body to aid in cellular functioning. Food is meant to maintain health and continue the life cycle. Food started with anything the Earth provided without human intervention and has morphed into anything that can be advertised and labelled as food by human groups (i.e. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States). Once humans learned and decided to control the cycle of food availability, they altered the genetic patterns of food.
The first Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) was probably a plant that was produced from a seed forced to grow in a location that would otherwise have been unlikely in the life cycle of that plant and grown under conditions that required human maintenance like watering, soil care, and insect removal. The security of controlling ones own food supply allowed more humans to settle without moving frequently to forage. Perhaps as more people depended on food in a settled community, gardens were organized so the same types of plants grew near each other, or depending on the quality of the soil throughout the community, plants were organized to grow in designated areas. Animals were also domesticated and controlled under human care.
As humans travelled, they brought with them their own native plants and animals and traded with others, introducting species to different areas, thus altering the availability of nutrients. Imagine a new housemate moves in with their own living requirements and cycles and you and they learn to interact with each other, creating a new living environment.
As technology upgraded, so did the access to nutrients available in foods. Species of plants could be cross-pollinated and create a new breed of plant. Plants and their protected growing conditions could produce larger and sweeter fruits with less seeds, providing more food available per plant. Animals could also be altered by controlling their feeding and mobility habits. Animals could be bred to create animals with more meat and more docile behavior to grow faster and be easier to sustain.
As the number of people in settled communities grew due to favorable living conditions based on direct access to food, the demand for food increased. Somewhere in history, perhaps within the Industrialization Age, food production became an important part of the economy and was organized according to efficient production. Larger farms with single species of crops became the main supply of food for the increasing numbers of domesticated animals requiring food.
Over time, the forced production of food under human control resulted in adaptation in the natural cycles of life. Viruses and certain species of insects infected plants and animals more easily because identical host species were living closer together and lacking natural defences due to their reliance on human care. Soil lost nutrients because of the lack of diversity in plants and over-grazing of animals in a concentrated location. Humans created sprays, medications, and DNA links to build new defenses against disease and changing growing conditions.
In 2020 in the US, anywhere there is a store advertising food, there are packages of materials sold as "food" that were once plants and animals but have been severely tampered with by humans to increase their durability and usability on long journeys from one community to another. Fruits are picked under-ripe in one place, treated to stay unripe until they reach another state or country to ripen on the shelves of a supermarket or home. When humans eat their own human-controlled products, they develop illness.
And so, as humans continue to genetically modify their food supply, they continue to genetically modify their digestive process and the body's reactions to toxins. In 2020, the human body is more diseased as a reaction to conditions created by humans genetically modifying their food supply and thus modifying themselves. By altering the pattern of living in plants and animals, the survival messages passed in the DNA of those species adapts to the changes, and thus the genetic modification of even one species will continue to modify the genes of others it contacts. Changing behavior is a form of genetic modification. Each decision made is a potential modification in future genetic expressions.
So what is considered a GMO? It could be defended that every living thing is a GMO based on conscious decisions to change a pattern in living, whether by moving environments, eating different food forms, or reacting to stimuli differently than the generations before. Each modification is an adaptation to an internal message that will be carried on to new generations for their survival.
Instead of arguing if Genetically Modified Organisms are good or bad, we should be discussing what the modifications are, how modifications are affecting everything, and why modifications are being done. What is food? What is the purpose of food?