These 7 everyday items wouldn't exist as we know them without GMOs by Lydia Ramsey on Nov 29, 2015, 12:00 PM Advertisement
 GMOs as we know them today have only been around for a few decades. But in that time, we've taken to using them almost everywhere. Today, GMOs can be found in everything from the cotton in our T-shirts to the soda we sip at the movies. Here are all the things that likely wouldn't look anything like they do today without some type of genetic modifications: CHECK OUT: Here's the truth about 'healthy' milk alternatives UP NEXT: 9 surprising things your physical appearance says about you All the watermelon we eat today is a product of domestication, one of the earliest forms of modifying the genes in a crop.  The first genetic modifications, and broadest sense of the term GMO, has been happening throughout the history of farming. By picking certain traits, such as bigger fruit, more seeds, and better color, farmers are inherently selecting the genes for certain crops. That’s how the watermelon we eat became so different from versions from the 1600s. About 300 years ago, farmers and scientists started cross-breeding, or fertilizing new types of plants using two parent plants that wouldn't normally come together in nature. That’s how we get things like potatoes as we know them and many kinds of berries, Bruce Chassy, a professor emeritus of food safety and nutritional science at the University of Illinois, told Business Insider.
Corn was domesticated hundreds of years ago as well, but the stuff we eat today has been modified further — with genes from living things that are not plants.  Corn, the most widely grown crop in the US, is currently modified in two key ways: either by adding genes from Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria, known as Bt, to make it resistant to corn-loving insects, or genes from Agrobacterium, which makes it resistant to the weedkiller Roundup. Today, corn is used to make everything from the corn syrup found in soda and most candy to the sweet corn we eat on the cob. A whopping 92% of the corn we eat is genetically modified, according to the USDA.
In the 1990s, papayas in Hawaii faced extinction without help from GMO technology.  Papayas in Hawaii were facing destruction from the Ringspot virus, a disease transmitted to the fruit by insects. To fix the problem, scientists added a harmless gene from the virus into the papaya's DNA, giving papayas immunity to the virus. Today, most papayas are produced in Hawaii, though some come from Texas, California, and Florida as well. Roughly 77% of papayas made in Hawaii are GMO.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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