Support GMO foods

[tupac chopra]

Every scientific society and medical society has concluded such and released statements supporting such. The scientific consensus is as strong on this issue as it is on global warming. Are you a global warming denier? If not, why are you a GMO safety denier?

I am a person who wants long term studies done on GMO foods.
Do you want long term studies done or do you assume they aren't needed?

 

[tupac chopra]

I'm thinking the dispute over GMOs would already be over if people had seen each other buying GMO-labeled packages with no ill effects for all this time.

How would we know there are no ill effects unless we test GMO's before we release them?

 

[ApostateAbe]

There are no extra risks introduced.

You would not know. All you are doing is parroting something you heard.
But maybe I'm wrong. Why don't you explain how you know, not how you assume there are no extra risks.

You have pretty clearly shown you have not done enough research in this area. You merely post a propaganda video and try to convince people that they should spread that video.

Go and study what we know about GMO's and what we assume about them

How does anyone know anything with certainty? Direct data and strong relevant theory. Both theory and data are strongly unified on the point: there is no reason to expect that GMO foods are any less safe. I provided a link to an Excel file that contains a long list of industry-independent studies that back GMO safety. That is the data. The theory is that DNA is not dangerous. Changing the DNA of an edible species would make it dangerous only with drastic changes in the physiology such that it causes it to create poison for humans or whatever, but that would tend to be unmarketable. The DNA is otherwise simply digested and does not integrate with the DNA of the person eating it. All new varieties are tested per federal regulations, and nobody is interested in selling poison, nor is there any reason to expect they should be.

 

[bilby]

The fact is we don't know much about GMO foods.

YOU clearly don't. I, on the other hand, actually studied molecular biology at a tertiary level.

That is why you earlier wrote...

There is no obvious mechanism by which GMOs would be expected to be more harmful (or more likely to be harmful) than non-GMO crops;.

Oh dear. I guess we have to add that to the long list of things you are badly wrong about and simply don't understand.

This is pretty much your entire argument

No, it's not.

(apart from studies you extrapolate from mostly funded by corporations that profit from GMO's).

This old libel. it's amazing that Monsanto have managed to fund all these shills, and pay off all the ethical scientists; while poor little Exxon-Mobil can't manage to conceal the truth about climate change.

You assume that the long term effects of GMO's are the same as non GMO foods. You have no facts to show this but that is your devoutly held belief.

Projection.

Just because you base your position on groundless assumption does not mean we all do. Some of us went the hard yards, and actually learned some biochemistry instead.

Barely any long term studies have been done on GMO's and the short term studies (mainly funded by corporations that profit from GMO's) are then extrapolated in the assumption that testing some GMO's shows they are all safe.
You are welcome to your devoutly held belief but you should stop proselytising

Please, don't do that. Irony meters are expensive to replace.

 

[Togo]

If GMO foods are so obviously superior (as they may well be) then why do we need to bend labelling regulations on their behalf?

Requiring that the source of food is tracked has a cost, yes, but it's a cost that's applied to a great many foods in the EU. The reason for this is basic hygiene and food safety - the only thing stopping your beef burgars being produced from horse meat is the ability of the supplier to demonstrate exactly where the food has come from. The only way of showing that your wheat is not diseased or contaminated is to demonstrate where it came from. This is a basic requirement. Why bend the rules only for GMO vs non-GMO foods? Why have GMO produces asked the WTO to make requiring such labelling illegal?

Similarly, if GMO foods are better, they're going to do better in the marketplace, yes? Customers can see what a product consists of and decide for themselves. Why try to fix a free market? There seems to be something very strange about people campaigning against accurate labelling and consumer choice. If you're required to declare what county (sic) your cheese comes from, why is declaring what your cheese or flour is made from so much of a problem?

 

[arkirk]

Can somebody tell me if they like eating Roundup? Why else would it be a benefit to genetically engineer "Roundup ready" (resistant to Roundup) GMO crops if we were also getting a little roundup in our diets. Back to the drawing boards...genetically engineer humans that are resistant to corporate bullshit! When roundup and other toxic petrochemicals become so prevalent in fields where food is grown, it is a certainty those who eat that food are being exposed to these chemicals. It should be a right to know what chemicals you are eating.

FYI non-stick surfaces on cookware yield chemicals that are detectable in the blood of people who eat food prepared on them. These chemicals are not naturally occurring in the human body...just saying....do these people really care what is in your body...HELL NO!

Indeed, the chemicals they keep putting into our food is disgusting.

There isn't a single crop in the US that isn't pumped full of dihydrogen monoxide as a growth agent. Now everybody living in the US has an alarmingly large amount of the stuff lurking in their body even though there are more than 300,000 deaths each year worldwide directly attributable to dihydrogen monoxide poisoning. They should label food containing this toxic chemical so that customers can make an informed decision about what they are putting into their body.

Now we know where your head is....if you wish you can avoid this material you speak of because you usually can notice it in food...especially soup. You should learn to use one of these ( ) after making remarks such as were found in your post. There are far in excess of 50,000 industrial chemicals produced and distributed on a large scale in our country. Roundup is just one. We don't produce water. We may clean it up and we may use it, but we don't produce it. It was on the earth long before man appeared and will probably be here long after we are gone.

What I was pointing out is that GMO's are used to facilitate the growing of crops in chemicals that are normally toxic to them. This genetically engineered resistance to herbicides tends to hide the fact they are used in large quantities on fields used to produce food. In short, these plants are growing in a toxic environment and modified to not show the effects of their exposure to these chemicals. You will not have a clue how much roundup you are eating...only that the dose is small enough you cannot taste it perhaps. When it comes to eating these chemicals, you had better be aware they were produced to kill something. Many of these organic herbicides and pesticides are extremely persistent and non biodegradable even by GMO's.

We are not demanding that a farmer or a market tell us that water was used on their fields. We want to know what kind of industrial chemicals and weird genetic designed frankenfood we are eating...or NOT EATING. It is NOT TOO MUCH TO DEMAND.

 

[Sajara]

My take on all of this. We can get the same yields, or better, with proper management of pastures. Healthy plants can fight off most diseases by themselves if they are given proper pasture (right amount of beneficial bacteria and fungi and minerals). Pesticides aren't needed. Even in 'organic' farming, pesticides are used.

Furthermore, organic or GMO foods won't have the same bio-nutrient levels as properly managed pastures. The issue here? It is difficult to properly manage pastures even at small farm levels, let alone mega-farms or CAFO's.

As for GMO's, all food is a series of chemicals. When a new set of chemicals is manufactured as a pharma drug, then the companies are required to perform large-scale tests of the drugs. When the a new food is manufactured, is the same level of testing required (three phases, etc). From what I am aware of, I am not. There are always going to be hidden consequences to messing around with genes simply because we are only on the verge to understanding how all the DNA changes interact with eachother (we only just mapped the human genome a few years ago). Would you agree Bilby?

 

[Toni]

Really? That's pretty insulting, actually.

To whom?

My preference is not that non-GMO food be labeled as such but that GMO food be labeled as such and preferably not show up on my grocers shelves. I also prefer food raised with a minimum of pesticide use, and without the addition of artificial hormones or antibiotics in the raising and processing of the animals.

Your personal and irrational preferences are not a reason to make everyone else pay more for food.

It's healthier not just for me but for the planet.

It is demonstrably NOT healthier for you to eat non-GMOs. To say that it is healthier for the planet is to make a category error. Your opinion, no matter how devoutly held, is not something that should be allowed to overrule the facts.

Which facts are those? The truth is that widespread use of GMO crops is relatively new and we do not know how they will affect the environment. At least the USFDA has concerns:

http://rt.com/usa/usda-gmo-risk-report-537/

And the EU tightly regulates the use of GMOs.

So, what are your credentials, aside from computer and internet access?

 

[Toni]

I might support the foods, but there's no way I'm going to support them if they aren't clearly labeled.

If they are trying to sneak their foods into the diets of people who don't want to eat that, then they are evil.

They should be proud of what they're doing. "Yes, this is modified. Notice that it is cheaper and better than the unmodified stuff right next to it?"

I'm thinking the dispute over GMOs would already be over if people had seen each other buying GMO-labeled packages with no ill effects for all this time.

I would be cool with the labels, but, coupled with the fear campaign, it will mean pushing GMO foods out of the market. That is what happened in Europe. The mobs are much better at marketing fear than the agricultural industry is at marketing cost savings. It takes only a small percentage of scared consumers who refuse to buy a product before it's overtaken by competitors and it is no longer profitable to sell. If there was a fear campaign that convinces people that eating food harvested in the same constellation as your star sign will cause cancer, then they would want all foods to be forcibly labeled with the constellation of harvest on it, but it isn't evil to sell food without such labels. The hysterical people already have the option of buying foods with hysterical labels as they see fit. That is what Whole Foods is for.

That 'fear' has not pushed milk and milk products produced with the use of artificial hormones out of the market. Whole Foods is not an option for everyone, or even for most people in the US, not to mention the planet.

 

[Togo]

YOU clearly don't. I, on the other hand, actually studied molecular biology at a tertiary level.

I've met scientists working for Monsanto on GMO foods who prefer to avoid GMO foods. Presumably they have some idea what they're talking about.

 

[Togo]

I would be cool with the labels, but, coupled with the fear campaign, it will mean pushing GMO foods out of the market. That is what happened in Europe. The mobs are much better at marketing fear than the agricultural industry is at marketing cost savings. It takes only a small percentage of scared consumers who refuse to buy a product before it's overtaken by competitors and it is no longer profitable to sell. If there was a fear campaign that convinces people that eating food harvested in the same constellation as your star sign will cause cancer, then they would want all foods to be forcibly labeled with the constellation of harvest on it, but it isn't evil to sell food without such labels. The hysterical people already have the option of buying foods with hysterical labels as they see fit. That is what Whole Foods is for.

That 'fear' has not pushed milk and milk products produced with the use of artificial hormones out of the market. Whole Foods is not an option for everyone, or even for most people in the US, not to mention the planet.

Or to put it another way, the price differences and quality differences are not sufficient to overcome market resistance to the product. So instead we lie to consumers, to stop them making an informed choice. Why, exactly?

 

[ApostateAbe]

That 'fear' has not pushed milk and milk products produced with the use of artificial hormones out of the market. Whole Foods is not an option for everyone, or even for most people in the US, not to mention the planet.

Or to put it another way, the price differences and quality differences are not sufficient to overcome market resistance to the product. So instead we lie to consumers, to stop them making an informed choice. Why, exactly?

Who is lying to consumers and how?

 

[ApostateAbe]

I would be cool with the labels, but, coupled with the fear campaign, it will mean pushing GMO foods out of the market. That is what happened in Europe. The mobs are much better at marketing fear than the agricultural industry is at marketing cost savings. It takes only a small percentage of scared consumers who refuse to buy a product before it's overtaken by competitors and it is no longer profitable to sell. If there was a fear campaign that convinces people that eating food harvested in the same constellation as your star sign will cause cancer, then they would want all foods to be forcibly labeled with the constellation of harvest on it, but it isn't evil to sell food without such labels. The hysterical people already have the option of buying foods with hysterical labels as they see fit. That is what Whole Foods is for.

That 'fear' has not pushed milk and milk products produced with the use of artificial hormones out of the market. Whole Foods is not an option for everyone, or even for most people in the US, not to mention the planet.

Where are there forced labels for artificial growth hormones on milk?

 

[laughing dog]

But you are completely ignoring all the steps in the supply chain. The GMO ingredients would have to be tracked every step of the way. For example, from the flour seller, to the flour buyer, to the seller who used the flour to make a new ingredient, to the buyer of that ingredient who made yet another item with it, etc. We are talking about ingredients sometimes sourced from international sources who are under no such labeling law, sources that are sometimes GMO and sometimes not GMO. Even then, you and I have no idea on the possible costs without a comprehensive analysis. You can't possibly know all the hidden costs that may arise without a through study.

Once the initial seller says it is GMO, it simply cannot be that difficult to keep track. Hell, organic food vendors do this.

Here is an estimated cost for just one state:

Annual Family 4: $500 annually best estimate with full
labeled/unlabeled product range. 2.5% food budget; $2.4 billion annually for State

http://dyson.cornell.edu/people/profiles/docs/LabelingNY.pdf

This is for an NY labeling law. Across the whole country we are talking about tens of billions. What a waste. It makes all of us a little bit poorer, and you support that? That $500 for a family of 4 at or below the poverty line is a serious hardship.

Read that study. Most of the additional "costs" are bogus (extra warehousing, etc...).

I find it fascinating that so-called market advocates and pro-competition are adamantly against one of the basic foundations of market efficiency: informed consumers.

Moreover, cost increases of any size are not automatically pushed through to consumers. The eventual price increase depends on the relative slopes of the supply and demand curves which, in turn, depend on a multitude of factors. It is both naive and misleading to assume that 100% of an expected cost increase to be passed onto consumers.

But I guess all is OK because you are on a comfortable middle class salary.

An equivalent guess is that you are okay with deliberating lying and withholding information from consumers because you don't care about market efficiency.

 

[Togo]

Or to put it another way, the price differences and quality differences are not sufficient to overcome market resistance to the product. So instead we lie to consumers, to stop them making an informed choice. Why, exactly?

Who is lying to consumers and how?

Well, if the reason for getting rid of labels is that we know that customers won't buy a product that they know is made from GMOs, then how is making such a label illegal anything other than, if not a lie, a deliberate attempt to mislead?

 

[Toni]

That 'fear' has not pushed milk and milk products produced with the use of artificial hormones out of the market. Whole Foods is not an option for everyone, or even for most people in the US, not to mention the planet.

Where are there forced labels for artificial growth hormones on milk?

I never claimed that such labeling is mandatory. Rather, there have been unsuccessful efforts to ban labeling that states milk or milk products were produced without the use if artificial hormones. Note: much of the objection to rBST has been concern over the health and well being of animals so treated.

 

[Axulus]

If GMO foods are so obviously superior (as they may well be) then why do we need to bend labelling regulations on their behalf?

Requiring that the source of food is tracked has a cost, yes, but it's a cost that's applied to a great many foods in the EU. The reason for this is basic hygiene and food safety - the only thing stopping your beef burgars being produced from horse meat is the ability of the supplier to demonstrate exactly where the food has come from. The only way of showing that your wheat is not diseased or contaminated is to demonstrate where it came from. This is a basic requirement. Why bend the rules only for GMO vs non-GMO foods? Why have GMO produces asked the WTO to make requiring such labelling illegal?

Similarly, if GMO foods are better, they're going to do better in the marketplace, yes? Customers can see what a product consists of and decide for themselves. Why try to fix a free market? There seems to be something very strange about people campaigning against accurate labelling and consumer choice. If you're required to declare what county (sic) your cheese comes from, why is declaring what your cheese or flour is made from so much of a problem?

Should the foods also have a label requirement indicating which astrological period the ingredients were harvested in, so that consumers who believe in astrology can avoid the ones harvested in the periods there horoscope indicates they should avoid? Customers should be able to decide for themselves if they want to buy foods harvested during Libra or Scorpio, no? It would be very strange for you to object to such accurate labeling and consumer choice.

 

[Axulus]

Who is lying to consumers and how?

Well, if the reason for getting rid of labels is that we know that customers won't buy a product that they know is made from GMOs, then how is making such a label illegal anything other than, if not a lie, a deliberate attempt to mislead?

And if we know that labeling that a product was harvested during Libra will cause some customers to avoid buying it, then how is making such a label not mandatory anything other than, if not a lie, a deliberate attempt to mislead?

 

[Togo]

If GMO foods are so obviously superior (as they may well be) then why do we need to bend labelling regulations on their behalf?

Requiring that the source of food is tracked has a cost, yes, but it's a cost that's applied to a great many foods in the EU. The reason for this is basic hygiene and food safety - the only thing stopping your beef burgars being produced from horse meat is the ability of the supplier to demonstrate exactly where the food has come from. The only way of showing that your wheat is not diseased or contaminated is to demonstrate where it came from. This is a basic requirement. Why bend the rules only for GMO vs non-GMO foods? Why have GMO produces asked the WTO to make requiring such labelling illegal?

Similarly, if GMO foods are better, they're going to do better in the marketplace, yes? Customers can see what a product consists of and decide for themselves. Why try to fix a free market? There seems to be something very strange about people campaigning against accurate labelling and consumer choice. If you're required to declare what county (sic) your cheese comes from, why is declaring what your cheese or flour is made from so much of a problem?

Should the foods also have a label requirement indicating which astrological period the ingredients were harvested in, so that consumers who believe in astrology can avoid the ones harvested in the periods there horoscope indicates they should avoid? Customers should be able to decide for themselves if they want to buy foods harvested during Libra or Scorpio, no? It would be very strange for you to object to such accurate labeling and consumer choice.

If it helps shift product, why not? The question is whether we should support making such labelling illegal, to prevent those products produced under less desirable astrological signs being disadvantaged. That's what the GMO companies were campaigning for. We already have labelling indicating whether food is prepared in a manner compatible with various religious beliefs (Halal, Kosher, etc., so technically astrology isn't much of a stretch.

Unless you think that government should be dictating to customers what are and are not valid concerns when buying a product. We could get rid of all those 'not made from concentrate' labels for a start, since there's no scientific evidence that it changes the taste. And if you can't taste the difference between horse and pig, what possible reason is there to require accurate labels on burgers? I mean, meat's meat, right?

 

[Axulus]

Read that study. Most of the additional "costs" are bogus (extra warehousing, etc...).

Your assertions that this study is full of bogus costs are not convincing. Maybe I should contact the authors and see what they have to say to your assertion that the study is bogus.

And I assume you can point us to a non-bogus study? Because right now your statements that the costs are negligible is empty air.

I find it fascinating that so-called market advocates and pro-competition are adamantly against one of the basic foundations of market efficiency: informed consumers.

And consumers are informed, the GMO-free foods and organic foods are voluntarily labeled. I find it fascinating that you have failed to address this point.

I also ask you the same question I asked Togo, would you be against a labeling requirement to list which astrological period each ingredient was harvested during? Why or why not? Are you against informing consumers and market efficiency?

Moreover, cost increases of any size are not automatically pushed through to consumers. The eventual price increase depends on the relative slopes of the supply and demand curves which, in turn, depend on a multitude of factors. It is both naive and misleading to assume that 100% of an expected cost increase to be passed onto consumers.

Just hot air and mere assertion if you can't back this up with a rigorous study. Can you please provide a link, or is empirical data not relevant?

An equivalent guess is that you are okay with deliberating lying and withholding information from consumers because you don't care about market efficiency.

And you are okay with deliberate lying and withholding information on the astrological harvest period from consumers because you don't care about market efficiency. Or are you actually in support of that too? One can't tell with you.