GMO foods should not be labelled as such

[transformation2]

its quantity over quality id rather have quality non GMO non pesticide if possible straight from mother earth = gains ****ot

See phrases like "mother earth" pretty much show that you have a bias about nature vs the lab. As if things that come out of the ground without our help are necessarily better.

The argument is the GMO foods can be better in both nutrition and require less effort/resources to grow. That's the point of technological progress.

[stevedarsh]

Strong evidence. Golden rice was pretty much a failure. I remember some part of a class I was in where we looked several peer-reviewed sources talking about that crop. It hasn't been commercialized because it ****ing failed.

Also, lol @ posting abstracts and claiming to have concrete facts. All studies offer are suggestions of causal evidence based on experimental methods and statistics. There is no such thing as "concrete proof". ****ing keyboard scientists everywhere.

There's no such thing as concrete proof of anything. You could be a brain floating in a jar somewhere with your thoughts being fed to you buy a computer. Since science has kindly given you the computer and the internet you're working on, I suggest You listen to it

[Gewichtmeister]

I´ll take the normal food, thanks.

[WingedVictory]

This thread makes me so sad . As a lover of free markets and the assumptions behind them i.e. perfect information, perfect rationality etc, I'm really sad to see that people here are demonstrating imperfect information/rationality.

This might seem like some useless rambling to you but it has DEEP policy implications. If you were perfectly rational more information would always be better and labeling would be good. But since you're not, the government literally has to baby you and keep information from you, so you make the "correct" decision.

Brahs stop being irrational.

Are you saying that GMO food is safer or better then NON-GMO food? Can you point me to some peer reviewed studies showing that GMO are better than NON-GMOs?



If there aren't numerous studies showing GMOs are better than NON-GMOs then what does it matter? Labeling of GMOs is a consumer driven project. Consumers have every right to know what is in their food.


If GMOs were safe as you say then these corporations would have no problem using the billions they have to educate the consumer just like EVERY OTHER business must do about their product. They also might not need to pay off politicians to protect them from the federal court systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_Assurance_Provision.

IF these crops are so great why aren't these companies using their massive revenue/profits educating the population about the benefits and safety of their products.... Instead they are categorically attacking those that speak against them, crushing family owned/operating farming communities, and more.


You are saying people are stupid and they need information hidden from them for their own good... its the opposite... if the information presented is the whole unfiltered truth people will respond appropriately.

In the end CONSUMERS hold the rights to know what they are consuming

[ClevageGobbler]

Thank god we're a republic and not a direct democracy. The masses don't know anything it seems

You're a ****ing fool and I'm saying that so you might realize it in time. Why would you eat something that has been synthetically ****ed with? Why eat Kale that has been tampered with when you can eat Kale that was naturally grown through organic farming methods? You side with Monsanto and disease huh? **** you then, have fun dying mother****er. And have fun spreading misinformation too. Read some. And THINK.

[Enigmal]

If people were perfectly rational and realized that gmo foods pose no threat and are cheaper and healthier then i'd be all for more information. But since people are idiots government has to baby them in this regard (I hate to say this as a lover of perfect rationality).

Please, inform me on how GMOs could be "healthier".

[transformation2]

Are you saying that GMO food is safer or better then NON-GMO food? Can you point me to some peer reviewed studies showing that GMO are better than NON-GMOs?
If there aren't numerous studies showing GMOs are better than NON-GMOs then what does it matter? Labeling of GMOs is a consumer driven project. Consumers have every right to know what is in their food.
If GMOs were safe as you say then these corporations would have no problem using the billions they have to educate the consumer just like EVERY OTHER business must do about their product. They also might not need to pay off politicians to protect them from the federal court systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_Assurance_Provision.
IF these crops are so great why aren't these companies using their massive revenue/profits educating the population about the benefits and safety of their products.... Instead they are categorically attacking those that speak against them, crushing family owned/operating farming communities, and more.
You are saying people are stupid and they need information hidden from them for their own good... its the opposite... if the information presented is the whole unfiltered truth people will respond appropriately.
In the end CONSUMERS hold the rights to know what they are consuming

I´ll take the normal food, thanks.

See this is why ^^. Consumers refuse to listen and the European experience has shown that. The government has been smart in not letting labeling take effect while the industry is still trying to educate consumers. I think you're right. More money should be spent educating consumers that these foods are better. Maybe in 20-30 years when the consensus has shifted to a point where the majority of people realize these foods aren't bad, labeling should exist.

Right now labeling would kill the industry.

Please, inform me on how GMOs could be "healthier".

For example golden rice could save hundreds of thousands of lives lost due to vitamin a deficiency

[stevedarsh]

Organic products are far more nutrient dense. If you can find cheap organic foods then that is the obvious path to take.

GMO corn is essentially useless to the human body. In fact, it's probably just harmful. They **** with the DNA ffs and have the arrogance to label it as safe...

Lmao. How can someone so willfully ignorant be brave and stupid enough to form an opinion about something he knows nothing about? There is zero difference in the nutrient content between organic and conventional foods. The only real difference is that organic foods use more dangerous pesticides such as copper and cost more because they use up more farmland

[mikevall]

See phrases like "mother earth" pretty much show that you have a bias about nature vs the lab. As if things that come out of the ground without our help are necessarily better.

The argument is the GMO foods can be better in both nutrition and require less effort/resources to grow. That's the point of technological progress.

why are rats developing tumors then?

[TheIronAsylum]

GMOs are schit and same thing for Monsanto both need to be shut down

[AbusiveParents]

Are you saying that GMO food is safer or better then NON-GMO food? Can you point me to some peer reviewed studies showing that GMO are better than NON-GMOs?



If there aren't numerous studies showing GMOs are better than NON-GMOs then what does it matter? Labeling of GMOs is a consumer driven project. Consumers have every right to know what is in their food.


If GMOs were safe as you say then these corporations would have no problem using the billions they have to educate the consumer just like EVERY OTHER business must do about their product. They also might not need to pay off politicians to protect them from the federal court systems

~snip

Exactly. So many uneducated people cry foul when there is nothing wrong with GM foods.



"There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmen- tal effects have resulted from commercialization of ge- netically engineered crops (Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Committee on Environmental Impacts Associated with Commercialization of Transgenic Plants, National Research Council and Division on Earth and Life Studies 2002). Both the U.S. National Research Council and the Joint Re- search Centre (the European Union's scientific and tech- nical research laboratory and an integral part of the European Commission) have concluded that there is a comprehensive body of knowledge that adequately addresses the food safety issue of genetically engineered crops (Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health and National Research Council 2004; European Commission Joint Research Centre 2008). These and other recent reports conclude that the processes of genetic engineering and conventional breeding are no different in terms of unintended consequences to human health and the environment (European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2010)."

"Concerning the second pathway, crops with new traits can be associated with food safety risks, which have to be assessed and managed case by case. But such risks are not specific to GM crops. Long-term research confirms that GM technology is not per se more risky than conventional plant breeding technologies [13]. On the other hand, GM technology can help to breed food crops with higher contents of micronutrients; a case in point is Golden Rice with provitamin A in the grain [14]. Such GM crops have not yet been commercialized. Projections show that they could reduce nutritional deficiencies among the poor, entailing sizeable positive health effects [15], [16]." (the references are at the end of the article in plosone)

Sources:

http://www.genetics.org/content/188/1/11.short (peer-reviewed journal)

http://www.plosone.org/.../info%3Ado...1371%2Fjournal...

Problems can be caused by conventional breeding:

"Whereas each new genetically engineered crop variety is assessed on a case-by-case basis by three governmental agencies, conventional crops are not regulated by these agencies. Still, to date, compounds with harmful effects on humans or animals have been documented only in foods developed through conventional breeding approaches. For exam- ple, conventional breeders selected a celery variety with relatively high amounts of psoralens to deter insect predators that damage the plant. Some farm workers who harvested such celery developed a severe skin rash—an unintended consequence of this breeding strategy (Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health and National Research Council 2004)."

Source:
http://www.genetics.org/content/188/1/11.short (peer-reviewed journal)

from the first page of this thread. do you even read?

[transformation2]

why are rats developing tumors then?

That study was debunked:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...orn-to-cancer/

[Gewichtmeister]

See this is why ^^. Consumers refuse to listen and the European experience has shown that.

Listen to what ? There is absolutely zero proof so far that GM food has no negative influence on our bodies or the environment in general in the long term.
Also some of the shadiest companies known to mankind are involved in the whole process.

So gtfo with this ****.

[ProteenBrah]

Listen to what ? There is absolutely zero proof so far that GM food has no negative influence on our bodies or the environment in general in the long term.
Also some of the shadiest companies known to mankind are involved in the whole process.

So gtfo with this ****.

Strong double-double-negative vague argument of peace.


Only people who don't understand basic biology are against GMOs, which, unfortunately, is most of the population. The upside is that some of those uneducated fuks are confident enough not to care.

[transformation2]

Listen to what ? There is absolutely zero proof so far that GM food has no negative influence on our bodies or the environment in general in the long term.
Also some of the shadiest companies known to mankind are involved in the whole process.

So gtfo with this ****.

What do you mean zero proof? Look at all the links and research posted ITT. Even wikipedia has information on this stuff..

[Taveren]

****ing **** I just accidentally repped OP instead of negging him as I had intended

[Gewichtmeister]

Strong double-double-negative vague argument of peace.

Strong English skills.

[stevedarsh]

Listen to what ? There is absolutely zero proof so far that GM food has no negative influence on our bodies or the environment in general in the long term.
Also some of the shadiest companies known to mankind are involved in the whole process.

So gtfo with this ****.

I am an expert in molecular biology, with three advanced degrees in the field. If you knew anything about the genetic engineering processes used you would understand that they are in no way dangerous. If I had a wife and children I would feed them on GMOs exclusively, they are better for the environment and of like us to have a planet in the future

[ProteenBrah]

Strong English skills.

Welcome to the misc *******.

[WingedVictory]

See this is why ^^. Consumers refuse to listen and the European experience has shown that. The government has been smart in not letting labeling take effect while the industry is still trying to educate consumers. I think you're right. More money should be spent educating consumers that these foods are better. Maybe in 20-30 years when the consensus has shifted to a point where the majority of people realize these foods aren't bad, labeling should exist.

Right now labeling would kill the industry.



For example golden rice could save hundreds of thousands of lives lost due to vitamin a deficiency

No the Industry is killing the Industry... and a lot of the large agri-farms are killing the land.

Almost all GMOs are tied immediately to pesticides and the way large farming is ran. The industry (corporate farming and those that support GMOs) normally and systematically have modified normal staples in the food supply to be more resistant to pesticides and in return have made the pest more resistant as well calling for stronger pesticides.

This is absolutely destroying the soil and calling for more GMOs to grow in worse environmental conditions. GMOs have perpetuated a non-sustainable farming system and the companies (like Monsanto) that enable this and make money of this.

The GMO industry is destroying sustainable farming methods because they are usually the same companies selling pesticides and to deny the rise of the GMO was not directly linked to pesticides is denying facts.

Again the consumer has the right to choose. The GMO industry isn't doing the world any favors. Just because a small percentage of the industry is trying to do something good or great does not dismiss the large majority of the industry operating under immoral principles.

You guys here are arguing for GMOs (which aren't necessarily bad) and from your perspective can do a lot of good (it could) but you are ignoring the larger issues... Its like saying during WW2 I support Hitler but I don't support the Extermination Camps (no need to start debates on history its just an example)

[Taveren]

What do you mean zero proof? Look at all the links and research posted ITT. Even wikipedia has information on this stuff..

outstanding.

[PSVita]

Aren't GM foods banned in the EU?

[Gewichtmeister]

I am an expert in molecular biology, with three advanced degrees in the field. If you knew anything about the genetic engineering processes used you would understand that they are in no way dangerous. If I had a wife and children I would feed them on GMOs exclusively, they are better for the environment and of like us to have a planet in the future

So you are telling me that the genetic engineering process is the same for all sorts of GM foods?

[heynah]

I say it should, simply because I support the right of citizens to know. What choice they make is their problem, not mine.

[ClevageGobbler]

Lmao. How can someone so willfully ignorant be brave and stupid enough to form an opinion about something he knows nothing about? There is zero difference in the nutrient content between organic and conventional foods. The only real difference is that organic foods use more dangerous pesticides such as copper and cost more because they use up more farmland

Scientists don't know **** about DNA/genetics. Seeds in the ground, water, sunshine. That's the best way. That's all that is necessary hoe.

[YangGuiZi]

Being anti-GMO and specifcally anti-Monsanto has truly become a new fad among pseudo-intellectuals.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against someone who has done their research and, for whatever reason that might be (which I personally prob don't agree with though), and dislike GMO:s etc. Thats fine, maybe even legitimate and Im wrong, who knows. BUT it seems to me that a majority of these people who are vocal about this on social media are the same people that swallow any conspiracy theory that comes i their way and then claim to be enlightened and intellectual.

Brb the US never landed on the moon, it was just an illuminati cover-up by monsanto to distract the people from aliens planting GMO corn in Arizona and fertilizing it with chem trails. I'm so intellectual and enlightened, if you don't agree with me you're a sheeple.

[transformation2]

outstanding.

The use of the word "even" should have made it clear that I intended he use it only as a last, lazy resort.

Aren't GM foods banned in the EU?

NO THEY ARE NOT. the EU is not that stupid

[YangGuiZi]

Scientists don't know **** about DNA/genetics. Seeds in the ground, water, sunshine. That's the best way. That's all that is necessary hoe.

Inb4 Miscer discovers one ancient weird trick to grow plants and scientist hate him.

[AbusiveParents]

No the Industry is killing the Industry... and a lot of the large agri-farms are killing the land.

Almost all GMOs are tied immediately to pesticides and the way large farming is ran. The industry (corporate farming and those that support GMOs) normally and systematically have modified normal staples in the food supply to be more resistant to pesticides and in return have made the pest more resistant as well calling for stronger pesticides.

This is absolutely destroying the soil and calling for more GMOs to grow in worse environmental conditions. GMOs have perpetuated a non-sustainable farming system and the companies (like Monsanto) that enable this and make money of this.

The GMO industry is destroying sustainable farming methods because they are usually the same companies selling pesticides and to deny the rise of the GMO was not directly linked to pesticides is denying facts.

Again the consumer has the right to choose. The GMO industry isn't doing the world any favors. Just because a small percentage of the industry is trying to do something good or great does not dismiss the large majority of the industry operating under immoral principles.

You guys here are arguing for GMOs (which aren't necessarily bad) and from your perspective can do a lot of good (it could) but you are ignoring the larger issues... Its like saying during WW2 I support Hitler but I don't support the Extermination Camps (no need to start debates on history its just an example)

Aaaand here it is, it never takes too long: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum

congratulations

[stevedarsh]

Some of the devotion from consumers attains almost cult-like status, which is why a recent article by Stanford University researchers that was dismissive of health or nutritional benefits of organic foods created such a furor.

The study, by researchers in the university’s Center for Health Policy and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was a meta-analysis in which results from the scientific literature were combined but no new, original laboratory work was conducted. Data from 237 studies were aggregated and analyzed to determine whether organic foods are safer or healthier than non-organic foods. They concluded that fruits and vegetables that met the criteria for “organic” were on average no more nutritious than their far cheaper conventional counterparts, nor were those foods less likely to be contaminated by pathogenic bacteria like E. coli or Salmonella.


The investigators themselves were surprised by the result. “When we began this project, we thought that there would likely be some findings that would support the superiority of organics over conventional food,” according to physician Dr. Dena Bravata.

Many devotees of organic foods purchase them in order to avoid exposure to harmful levels of pesticides. But that’s a poor rationale: Although non-organic fruits and vegetables do have more pesticide residue, more than 99 percent of the time the levels are below the permissible, very conservative safety limits set by regulators – limits that are established by the Environmental Protection Agency and enforced by the Food and Drug Administration.

Ironically, the designation “organic” is itself a synthetic construct of bureaucrats that makes little sense. It prohibits the use of synthetic chemical pesticides – although there is a lengthy list of exceptions listed in the Organic Foods Production Act – but permits most “natural” ones (and also allows the application of pathogen-laden animal excreta as fertilizer).

These permitted pesticides can be toxic. As evolutionary biologist Christie Wilcox explained in a September 2012 Scientific American article (“Are lower pesticide residues a good reason to buy organic? Probably not.”): “Organic pesticides pose the same health risks as non-organic ones. No matter what anyone tells you, organic pesticides don’t just disappear. Rotenone is notorious for its lack of degradation, and copper sticks around for a long, long time. Studies have shown that copper sulfate, pyrethrins, and rotenone all can be detected on plants after harvest—for copper sulfate and rotenone, those levels exceeded safe limits. One study found such significant rotenone residues in olives and olive oil to warrant ‘serious doubts…about the safety and healthiness of oils extracted from [fruits] treated with rotenone.’” (There is a well-known association between rotenone exposure and Parkinson’s Disease.)


There is another important but unobvious point about humans’ ingestion of pesticides: The vast majority of pesticidal substances that we consume occur in our diets “naturally,” and they are present in organic foods as well as conventional ones. In a landmark research article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, biochemist Bruce Ames and his colleagues found that “99.99 percent (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. Only 52 natural pesticides have been tested in high-dose animal cancer tests, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens; these 27 are shown to be present in many common foods.”

The bottom line of Ames’ experiments: “Natural and synthetic chemicals are equally likely to be positive in animal cancer tests. We also conclude that at the low doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant.”

In other words, consumers who buy overpriced organic foods in order to avoid pesticide exposure are focusing their attention on 0.01% of the pesticides they consume.

There seems to be confusion about these issues even at the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP), which in October released a report that appeared to endorse organic produce because of its lower levels of pesticide residues, while at the same time admitting, “in the long term, there is currently no direct evidence that consuming an organic diet leads to improved health or lower risk of disease.”

Perhaps the most illogical tenet of organic farming is the exclusion of “genetically engineered” plants – but only if they were modified with the newest, best, most precise and predictable techniques. Except for wild berries and wild mushrooms, virtually all the fruits, vegetables and grains in our diet have been genetically improved by one technique or another – often as a result of seeds being irradiated or genes being moved from one species or genus to another in ways that do not occur in nature. But because genetic engineering is more precise and predictable, the technology is at least as safe as – and often safer than – the modification of food products in cruder, “conventional” ways that can qualify as organic.

There are examples of new varieties of plants, including two varieties each of potatoes and squash and one of celery, that have sickened or killed consumers, but all of these were the result of conventional genetic modification – which would qualify for organic farming.

The organic community remains unswayed by either biology or history, however, and modern genetic engineering remains prohibited from organic agriculture. This bias against genetic engineering in organic agriculture makes recommendations such as those of the American Association of Pediatrics especially dubious because as genetically engineered “biofortified” foods with enhanced levels of vitamins, antioxidants and so on appear, none of them will be available to organophiles.

Another rationale for buying organic is that it’s supposedly better for the natural environment. But the low yields of organic agriculture – typically 20-50 percent lower than conventional agriculture – impose various stresses on farmland and especially on water consumption. A British meta-analysis published in September of this year in the Journal of Environmental Management identified some of the environmental stresses that were higher in organic, as opposed to conventional, agriculture: “ammonia emissions, nitrogen leaching and nitrous oxide emissions per product unit were higher from organic systems,” as was “land use, eutrophication potential and acidification potential per product unit.”

An anomaly of the way that “organic” is defined is that it is not focused on the composition, quality or safety of the actual food; it is essentially a set of acceptable practices and procedures that a farmer intends to use. So, for example, chemical pesticide or pollen from genetically engineered plants wafting onto an organic crop from an adjacent field does not cause the harvest to lose its organic status.

In an article entitled “The Organic Fable,” New York Times columnist Roger Cohen had some pithy observations stimulated by the Stanford study. “Organic has long since become an ideology, the romantic back-to-nature obsession of an upper middle class able to afford it and oblivious, in their affluent narcissism, to the challenge of feeding a planet whose population will surge to 9 billion before the middle of the century and whose poor will get a lot more nutrients from the two regular carrots they can buy for the price of one organic carrot.”

Finally, many who are seduced by the romance of organic farming ignore the human toll it exacts. Missouri farmer Blake Hurst offers this reminder: “In the many places around the world where organic farming is the norm, a large proportion of the population is involved in farming. Not because they choose to do so, but because they must. Weeds continue to grow, even in polycultures with holistic farming methods, and without pesticides, hand weeding is the only way to protect a crop.” He might have added that in many places, the back-breaking drudgery of hand-weeding falls largely to women and children.

Save your money. It’s more cost-effective, environmentally responsible and humane to buy conventional food than the high-priced organic stuff.