What is Genetically Engineered food?

Genetically engineered food is food that contains DNA
which has been modified through genetic engineering. The modification could be the
complete elimination of a gene, creating what is known as a "knock-out" organism, or it
could involve the addition of a gene from another organism
entirely.

A number of crops in the human food chain have
been gentically modified for various reasons. Some, such as soybeans, have been made
"Roundup
Ready", a modification that makes the plants immune to the common agricultural
herbicide RoundUp. The purpose of this modification is to allow the soybean plants to be
weeded via chemical sprays rather than manually.  Other crops, for example corn, have
had a gene introduced that makes them essentially poisonous to insects that eat the
plant. This modification, know as "BT" for Bacillus thuringensis,
the gene donor, allows the farmer to use less pesticides. These are just two examples of
a wide variety of modifications that have been
developed.

In the United States, genetically engineered
crops have not been well accepted by the public, and most are not formally approved by
the Food and Drug Adminstration for human comsumption. However the genetically modified
plants are used as animal feed, and then the meat, milk, and eggs of those animals are
consumed by humans.