Food Toxicology 2(2+0)

Lesson 31 : Safety of GMO foods

Benefits of GE foods

The benefits of GE foods include improvements in food quality and nutritional value, shelf life, flavor and aroma, functional properties of food components, economic potential, and processing characteristics. It also includes manipulation of fatty acid composition to present healthier oils to consumers and to improve animal feeds. By manipulation of saturation of oils numbers of double bonds in a vegetable oil can be increased. This can increase the oxidative stability and shelf life and provide advantage of the health benefits of mono-unsaturates. Increasing the saturation can also reduce hydrogenation of oils, resulting in less expensive processing and less exposure of consumers to trans fatty acids.