大眾食品安全與基因工程技術

食品安全問題讓人們首先想到有毒有害物質所造成的傷害。然而，人類食品安全性的本意，卻是人和作為食材的動植物彼此之間的共同演化、相互適應、並取得平衡。大眾食品安全的第一層涵義，是人類與長期共同演化和相互適應的食物品種之間的和諧與平衡的關係。在現代以商業佔居主導地位的社會中，加工食品的大量消費，引發出添加劑使用安全性的第二層涵義；當基因改造的生物技術進入農業領域，並使生產品直接或者間接成為人類食品時，基因改造作物對人類的潛在的或顯在的不安全性，構成了影響食品安全的第三層問題。因此，如何保證大眾的食品安全便成了當務之急，而其中最為重要的原則就是「穩定」：不輕易向某一地域人類食品鏈中施加過去沒有的因素。經過基因改造的生物新品種，無論是植物還是動物，都屬於這類新因素。對於存在著重大不安全性風險的基因改造食品，在沒有經過完全的安全保證之前便大量投入市場，是一種錯誤的做法，必須立即停止。

關鍵字

食品安全；共同演化；生態平衡

並列摘要

When talking about food safety, the first issue mentioned is often the danger caused by poisons in food materials caused by bacteria. However, the notion of broader and longer-term food safety is in essence one related to eco-system balance between human beings and the crops and animals used as food materials. Public food safety is at the most basic level related to a balanced and harmonious co-existence of human and crop and animal species, all of which are co-evolving in the same interconnected eco-system on earth. Processed foods have been currently widely consumed in which additives are possibly over-used. This constitutes another level of food safety problem. When GMO becomes part of agricultural practices and GMO organisms become food and feed, the potential or even direct hazards of the so-called ”new source foods” offers a bigger challenge to food safety than any other causes. The most fundamental principle for maintaining public food safety is to be conservative, i.e., not to add new elements into the food chain without thorough examination. GMO foods, whether plant or animal, are risky to human health, should not be marketed and consumed recklessly.

並列關鍵字

food safety ； co-evolution ； balance of ecosystem

參考文獻

Bajzer, Matej,Seeley, Randy J.(2006).Physiology: Obesity and gut flora.Nature.444,1009-1010.

Google Scholar

Jiao, Zhe(2010).Unintended Compositional Changes in Transgenic Rice Seeds (Oryza sativa L.), studied by spectral and chromatographic analysis coupled with chemometrics methods.Journal of agricultural and food chemistry.58,1746-1754.