GM FOOD

[PainRack]

I don't know whether or not to put this in Science or Politics but here goes.

What are your views on the trade dispute between the EU and the US on GM food?

I for one support the EU position, although I don't support it because of their reasons. I find no inherent problems with eating GM food and will do so if they're declared to be safe and environmentally sound.

However, the majority of US transgenic crops violate the basic premise of consumer rights, deceit and organised on such a scale as to rival Microsoft in monopolising the world food supply and markets.

Why do I say this? I say this because of 2 reasons.

Deceit. We are told constantly of the promises of GM food. GM food will feed a growing populace. Make less environmental impact than industrial agriculture. We will have foods that are more noruishing, last longer on the shelves and cheap food. Food that can grow in adverse climates with little help from the farmer, thus feeding the poor. However, more than 80% of US transgenic crops are of one variety only. Herbicide resistance crops. Not crops that have a higher protein, calorie yield. Not crops with more nutrients. While there are crops like tomatoes which are GE to have a longer shelf life, they are outnumbered by Monsanto Roundup herbicide resistant crops.
Furthermore, these crops are not environmentally friendly or more healthful to us. The company executives say, these plants use less herbicides, so, the earth is not being poisoned and that less pesticides are being sprayed on crops, leaving us to assume that we consume less poisonous chemicals. However, that is not true. For one, the spraying of herbicide is conducted in two huge spraying sessions, during the germination of the crops and prior to harvest. During the process, immense amount of herbicides is dumped on the crops, relying on their inherent immunity to the herbicides. While this means the same yields are achieved for less spraying sessions and less use of herbicides in total, a larger amount of herbicide residue is left on the crops and seeps into the water and soil. So, we're actually having a massive dose of poison being injected into the ecoystem in one shot as opposed to it being dribbled in, and we're actually eating more herbicide residue. It is telling that prior to the market trials for Roundup, Monsanto convinced the US authorities to allow greater herbicide residue on crops, relying on an unverified claim that their herbicide is not poisonous to human beings. Well, science has stepped in. We don't have the evidence yet but so far, rats exposed to large doses of Roundup herbicide experience symptoms of being poisoned. Its unlikely that we'll ever consume the dosage levels that killed those rats, but then, since the active ingredient in question is fat soluble, meaning it can dissolve in our brains, that should be cause for concern.


2. Consumer rights. We now expect, as a basic consumer right to not be exposed to deliberately misleading ads that sprout mistruths and the right to know. GM companies do neither. As related above, they obsfucate the truth about the benefits of their products, make truthful claims on the benefits of GM food but do not produce any products that live up to those claims and more important, they have denied us the right to choose. They do this by denying us the right to label foods as GM. Worse of all, GM corn and wheat are routinely mixed in the silos, making it impossible to track who has been consuming GM foods and who hasn't. For a product that has not convinced the public of its safety, this is a gross abuse of justice. GM foods should be safe. Our science says so. Yet, it is only prudent to at least be capable of tracking GM food and its consumption. After all, science has been proven wrong, as Europe horror case of deformed babies, with flippers for limbs show. In that scenario, many pregant mothers took a new, prescribed drug to solve the aching problems of motherhood. Instead, they suffered a lifetime horror. America was spared this horror because regulating agencies, in a burcreautic manner, delayed the entry of this drug into the market.
Even if safety wasn't a concern, should not routine laws on labelling be upheld? Regulations dictate that foods that are irradiated, pasteurised even be labelled. Why should GM foods be exempt from this? GM companies concerns about a backlash against their products is no reason not to label them. If a negative reaction is forthcoming, educate the public via truthful ads and facts.


I am all in favour of GM foods. However, don't let it be Monsanto and other agri-business which dictate this marvel of science and technology. Let it be instead, scientists which are developing rice grains fortified with vitamin B. Let it be companies which are marketing plants which can grow in adverse conditions like droughts or floods. Let it be pioneers which are growing plants which glow to indicate a lack of nitrogen or other vital nutrients, to pioneer the advance of alternative farming techniques like precision farming. Let it be entrepaneurs who are growing au natural glow in the dark christmas trees. Don't let it be companies which are making money at our expense.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The goal behind these crops is not to make them healthier for us but to increase yield off a given area of land. This they are successful at doing, and this we need to do around the whole world to alleviate hunger. Once we've done that we can worry about making them healthier. The EU is just, honestly, displaying an incredibly irrational attitude about them. Quite simply, GE foods may be the greatest thing to happen since the steam engine, and the sooner they spread, especially to the third world, the greater a bounty can be reaped by the whole of humanity. People are dying because of the EU's attitude towards these foods.

[Joe]

Don't let it be companies which are making money at our expense.

Um, you do realize that that's how the business model works, right?

[Slartibartfast]

I didn't know General Motors was in the food business now

[Crazy Goji]

I didn't know General Motors was in the food business now

Exactly what I thought. Mmm, Chevy Burgers. . .

[jinx]

if GM foods are most benifical to impoverished nations, then why do we care how soon they get to western Europe? I'm honestly asking, not just being snide & bitchy.

[Jawawithagun]

if GM foods are most benifical to impoverished nations, then why do we care how soon they get to western Europe? I'm honestly asking, not just being snide & bitchy.

if GM crops are most benifical to impoverished nations, then why are they so expensive to their farmers?

[Howedar]

if GM foods are most benifical to impoverished nations, then why do we care how soon they get to western Europe? I'm honestly asking, not just being snide & bitchy.

A lot of impoverished nations are turning down GM food because the Eurpoeans apparently think its dangerous.

[Crown]

It's like watching three blind men trying to describe what an elephant looks like, very amusing.

People are dying because of the EU's attitude towards these foods.

Utter bullshit. And an appeal to emotion bullshit at that. People are dying because they are too poor to afford proper nutrition, not because there isn't enough food to feed them. I mean honestly. The EU has mountains of grains, lakes of milk, and entire warehouses of cheese. Their heavy subsidised argriculture (not the only one, but since Duchess is insisting that it is the cause of death, the one I am examining), was geared (new ammedmant to the CAP has changed this now) to get farmers to produce quantity over quality.

The result is that the EU would dump its excess into the Africa markets, flooding them with cheap food, and making them un-competitive with indigenous farmers. Thus their farms go tits-up because they can't sell their more expensive produce.

India for crying out loud, is a net food exporter and yet a substantial amount of their population suffers from hunger and malnutrition.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has made a report claiming that even without GM foods, our present rate of argriculture can sustain a population upto 2030 when it's expected to be about 8 billion people.

A lot of impoverished nations are turning down GM food because the Eurpoeans apparently think its dangerous.

To expand, they are turning them down because Europeans don't want to buy them, and since Africa's larges agricultural trade is to Europe, why would they produce something that isn't going to be bought?

Would this have been a debate about whether or not GM foods are harmeful, than the people arguing they are not would be in the right. However this is also a debate as to whether consumers have a right to know what type of food they are buying and where it came from, and it is here that the US's case becomes absolute bullshit.

They can't possibly argue that labeling the contents of produce is 'un-competitive' if it is the consumer who decides whether they are going to eat it or not. They have after all the right to make up their own minds about it, wouldn't you agree?

[PainRack]

Don't let it be companies which are making money at our expense.

Um, you do realize that that's how the business model works, right?

And you do realise I'm talking about why we, the consumers should be rising up against the current business friendly models, right?

God damn it, the majority of GM foods don't have any benefits for us, the consumer. Thanks to the subsidied agriculture markets, we don't even benefit from having lower priced grains. So why on earth should I be forced to consume GM food?

Yet, without labelling, my right to choose is denied.

[Darth Wong]

Relaxed labelling laws are a grotesque obscenity against consumer rights. We have a right to know what's been done to our food before we pay for it.

[Yuri Prime]

I'm not against the use of GM but the US labeling laws are fucking bullshit. Absolutely you should have to make it known what's natural and what's not, just like you should have to make it known if your food product is 40% edible plastic. Neither is required here.

[Drewcifer]

Although I doubt it will ever happen, I wish that food labels would disclose as much as possible about what is in the food we buy. Check out the ingredients of your favorite corn chips. Probably just corn, vegetable oil, and salt. You are, however, also ingesting trace amounts of a silicone derivative (dimethlypolysiloxane) added to the oil(s) the chips are cooked in, added as a anti-foaming agent. Short term studies have shown that this additive is relatively harmless, esp in the amounts most people ingest it in, but as a consumer of corn chips, did you know any of that? I didn't until recently, and it was with some research on my part. I think that that type of information should be on the labels, ya know?

I also think GM foods should be labeled as well, and in detail. So that we, as consumers, can make informed choices, esp for consumers with food allergies.


Regarding Monsanto and artificial growth hormones (not specifically GM foods), here is an interesting article about them suing a dairy for using "hormone free" labels on their milk.

[Dahak]

When the EU decided on the new strict GM food labeling laws, some obscure official of the US government said that it would undermine the "consumer's trust" when the GM food was labeled...

And Marina: What people kills (and lets them starve) is not so much the lack of food, but the warlording, mismanagement in Africa.
That argument id only to gain the morale high ground, and force the EU from there to go along with Monsanto and their croonies to open our market, so that they can make profits.
Because without the European market, they don't have a chance to do that.

And just because Monsanto tells me those products are perfectly safe, and perfectly healthy, I prefer to wait and see. I'm sure they said the same thing about Asbestos, DDT, or Contergan before it exploded PR-wise in some spectacular fashion...

[Crown]

And just because Monsanto tells me those products are perfectly safe, and perfectly healthy, I prefer to wait and see. I'm sure they said the same thing about Asbestos, DDT, or Contergan before it exploded PR-wise in some spectacular fashion...

Ohh poor example, there have been numerous studies by independant researchers (including those authorised by the Commission), and they all say the same thing; as far as they can tell GM foods are safe. Now obviously this is over the short term and no-one really knows what's going to happen later down the road.

However the true point I wish to bring up, especially with the Asbestos point, to my knowledge when those things hit the market there was little to no research done as to how they would affect human health. Unlike GM food. In the short term, heaps of research has been conducted.

However as I have already pointed out (and you and I agree on this), the US's attempt to ban labeling of GM food shows that they are interested in their profits.

[Dahak]

And just because Monsanto tells me those products are perfectly safe, and perfectly healthy, I prefer to wait and see. I'm sure they said the same thing about Asbestos, DDT, or Contergan before it exploded PR-wise in some spectacular fashion...

Ohh poor example, there have been numerous studies by independant researchers (including those authorised by the Commission), and they all say the same thing; as far as they can tell GM foods are safe. Now obviously this is over the short term and no-one really knows what's going to happen later down the road.

I always look at the long-term efects

[NapoleonGH]

yes if we lable those that are GM or not, do we lable them for each and every trait we bred for in the domesticated version of the food over the last 6000 years? Because that is basically what GM does, it is just like breeding, but just faster. If you must label GM or not and what Genetic modifications are done, you should also be forced to include every trait that was bred into the plant over the course of its existance.

BAsically in order to get a tomato you will have to use 30 pages of paper to explain where it came from before buying it.

[Crown]

yes if we lable those that are GM or not, do we lable them for each and every trait we bred for in the domesticated version of the food over the last 6000 years? Because that is basically what GM does, it is just like breeding, but just faster. If you must label GM or not and what Genetic modifications are done, you should also be forced to include every trait that was bred into the plant over the course of its existance.

BAsically in order to get a tomato you will have to use 30 pages of paper to explain where it came from before buying it.

Yes because in the last 6000 years we have managed to mate a fish with a tomato.



Next time try and *think*, yeah?

[NapoleonGH]

umm I have buddy boy, you do realize that a shitload of all our breeding has changed both veggies and meats by a HUGE amount from where they started in their natural vectors right? Look at Non-gm tomatoes and compare to heirloum (sp?) tomatoes, huge difference.

THe point is that selective breeding and modern GM techniques arent really all that different and there has been no increases in risk of anything bad happening associated with GM in compared to typical selective breeding, so in reality if you want to label what GM changes are dont, you gotta do it for all the other just as potentially harmful/harmless changes done through selective breeding.

[Master of Ossus]

What's the problem with GM food? The best people can claim is that it might cause problems, but no one's showed what those problems are. No one's shown how it can cause problems (the fact that it's "unnatural" is frankly laughable, seeing as how we've substantially altered the genes of thousands of other plant species through cross-breeding and selective breeding--is a nectarine considered "frankenfood?"). They can't show why it's bad. They have no case on such grounds.

Now, they do have the right to import or refuse to import whatever they want, but there is no rational reason why GM foods should be restricted.

Painrack's allegations of deceit are totally meaningless, because it must be shown that GM foods are worse, and not that they are little or no better.

[Darth Wong]

True, but regardless of the merits of GM itself, food labelling laws are still very loose.

[Stormbringer]

If GM food is so safe why should they hide if from us? I mean why not let us know what we're eating?

[Master of Ossus]

True, but regardless of the merits of GM itself, food labelling laws are still very loose.

It's true that food labelling laws are very loose, but I don't see why anyone would care if something was labelled as being GM'ed. Frankly, I find the average food consumer to be mind bogglingly stupid. They never adopted irradiation treatments in the US, even though the process was safe and effective. The average consumer has no ability to understand a label placed on a food product, and labelling only plays on people's natural fears that if it warrants a label, it must be dangerous. Fact of the matter is, if there is no difference in quality or safety between one product and another, then there is also no reason to label both as being separate.

[Sea Skimmer]

If GM food is so safe why should they hide if from us? I mean why not let us know what we're eating?

Because so many people reject them because of unfounded fears of evil unnatural foods that might destroy the earth. At least thats the reasoning, and I think its valid.

[Master of Ossus]

If GM food is so safe why should they hide if from us? I mean why not let us know what we're eating?

Because so many people reject them because of unfounded fears of evil unnatural foods that might destroy the earth. At least thats the reasoning, and I think its valid.

I agree. Look at the furor over irradiated food products.