Working Hypothesis – The use of GMOs in the food industry have more benefits to the public than ways that they can be harmful. (still not sure about hypothesis)

Source 1: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/9/20/4440/htm – Food Neophobia or Distrust of Novelties? Exploring Consumers’ Attitude Toward GMOs, Insects, and Cultured Meat by Elena Faccio and Lucrezia Guiotto Nai Fovino

Food Neophobia may have a correlation to the use of GM foods among the public. Food Neophobia is another way of saying the aversion of foreign foods. According to Rozin, children are going to choose foods that are more familiar to them while, rejecting foods that may be dangerous. As humans grow older, they tend to be more accepting of different foods. However, Neophobia is still present in adults in fact, Elena Faccio states adults are “influenced by different socio-demographic variables: urbanization is negatively correlated with neophobia, as is income and schooling.” This relates to GM foods by them being characterized as “distrustful” showing that many people may look away from even trying Genetically Modified foods.

Source 2: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963996920300788 – The mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods in Brazil: Consumer’s knowledge, trust, and risk perception by Mariana Piton Hakim,Luis D’Avoglio Zanetta, Julicristie Machadode Oliveira, and Diogo Thimoteoda Cunha

The United States have more of a negative outlook on GM foods when most of the public does not even know the true beneficial health that GM foods can provide. Brazil produces one of the most GM foods worldwide. The article states, “In 2018, soy production was valued at 120 billion Brazilian Reais, while maize production amounted to 40 billion Brazilian Reais.” Brazil needed to make a regulation where anything genetically modified above 1% would need to be labled. While in the US it is mandatory to label anything genetically modified at all. Which arises my question that shouldn’t everything be labeled as genetically modified then? The evolution of our staple foods have not been the complete same since the start of time, and most of these foods have been genetically modified in some way to survive and evolve with the way humans are living. Putting a label saying that a food is genetically modified turns the public away from trying the product when most of their staple foods are “genetically modified.” If mostly all food are considered genetically modified than why is it that most of the US public turn away from the foods that are actually labeled?

Source 3: https://www.nature.com/articles/497024a – Case studies: A hard look at GM crops by Natasha Gilbert

GM crops can environmentally benefit the public in different ways. For example Natasha Gilbert states, “herbicide-resistant GM crops are less damaging to the environment than conventional crops grown at industrial scale.” GM crops are the source of these foods and can help the public take a step in the right direction if they would do research about GMOs. Gilbert claims that “the introduction of herbicide-tolerant cotton saved 15.5 million kilograms of herbicide between 1996 and 2011.” Showing that these GM crops are helping the environment by not spraying as much herbicide into the environment.

I need 2 more sources I feel that these other 2 sources aren’t strong enough to assist my claim.

Topics For Small Papers

Get a deeper look into GM crops, the publics complete outlook of GM crops globally, if GM foods may have a bias from where you live, which countries are thriving on GMOs and how much they are benefitting, and which things are genetically modified without the public knowing.

The Current State of Research

Still currently trying to make my hypothesis better and finding the correct sources to help assist my claim. There are many angles I tend to take my paper and I’m not sure if it will be getting away from my claim too much. I am confident in what I want my claim to be, I just need to solidify my hypothesis more to help my research go along further.