When it comes to food, debates can go on endlessly, whether it involves the most delicious food to consume, the best restaurant to dine in, the finest wine to imbibe, the most effective diet program, or even the best TV cook show to watch.

One journalist once commented that the two biggest sellers in any bookstore are arguably cookbooks and diet books, the first telling you how to prepare the food, and the second telling you how not to eat any of it.

The Filipino has one of the most well-developed gustatory senses, probably a result of family background, thus it is no longer a surprise for Filipino chefs to excel in the international culinary arena.

Only recently, a team form the Philippines garnered the gold medal in the prestigious Hong Kong International Culinary Classic 2007, a first in our history.

In fact, the US President’s White House kitchen staff is headed by a Fil-American who has earned the highest praise form Mrs. Laura Bush.

With many and diverse ethnic groups in our midst, local eateries offer nearly all kinds of culinary styles adopted from other countries so that no foreigner should feel too far from home to partake of his country’s dishes.

Still, the search for methods of making better tasting food or for healthier nutriments – indeed, the search for food itself – has dogged humanity for a long time now.

As the world’s population grows bigger every year, the problem of feeding billions of hungry mouths will become more acute. Unless there is a formula to solve this emerging crisis, it can outpace global warming as the most serious challenge of the modern era.

One solution is the development of genetically modified organisms that can multiply our food supplies like the biblical miracle of the fishes and loaves of bread.

But it has sparked controversies involving health and even moral issues, like it may be perceived as tampering with Mother Nature. Research on GMOs is still in its infancy; it should be pursued rigorously so that the health of humanity would not be unduly imperiled.

Developed countries like Japan and the European Union have enacted law regulating genetically modified food. The Philippines has no law yet covering this new food technology.

The highly controversial stem-cell research bill, if I recall correctly, was not approved in the US because of serious moral implications.

That bill was directly linked to health enhancement. Had it been passed into law, it would have allowed disease-resistant cells, taken from other humans, to be introduced into the human body to make it more resistant to disease.

Will genetically modified food get our legislators’ nod?

If that will increase food security for the country, with a rapidly growing population now hitting 86 million, then why not?

If the people’s health will be better protected with genetically modified food, again, why not allow, even encourage, it?

If the legal axiom “salus populli suprema est lex” (the welfare of the people is the supreme law) is to be given due importance, what better way than to allow the consumption of GMOs for improving the health of the citizenry?

But is government ready, willing, and competent enough to conduct the intensive research required for this mode of supplementing our food resources?

On the other hand, will this solution not endanger the nation’s health by making guinea pigs of us all, on the pretext that with it, we can eliminate hunger form our list of national evils?

Only time will tell. Sooner or later, we will reach a crossroads, and we just have to decide which way to take.