Any Concerns About GMO In Your Diet?

[Oxide]

I think this is the right place to post this ...

GMO -- genetically modified organisms.

Lately I have been making a conscience effort to avoid GMO, been buying 'organic' not that I feel the need for organic but the definition of organic includes not being GMO. The more I learn about it, the more I am thinking GMO out of the laboratory is a really really really bad idea.

So, today a box comes from the Sausagemaker and inside is 1-lb 12-oz bottle of Soy Powder Concentrate. I freaked. Due to the almost exclusive use of genetically modified soy beans in North America, it is virtually guaranteed we are eating GMO stuff without realizing it. I'll bet my dollars to your dimes that bottle of soy powder concentrate is a bottle of GMO. I didn't think about it when I ordered it. That brand new bottle of soy powder sits on the counter, unloved. I need to find a source for organic soy powder concentrate. Suggestions?

Aging meat (salume) is a controlled organic process. I am ok with that. I am not ok with genetically modified protein in my controlled organic process.

Am I alone here, on this forum, in not wanting to eat genetically modified foods?

[ssorllih]

As far as I am concerned you are alone. Understanding the details of genetic modification of a vegetable crop is a good subject for a semester in your third year of biology. Glyphosate kills plants by interrupting their working systems. The scientists have taken the gene from a plant resistant you glyphosate but one still in the food chain and spliced it in the DNA of the soya bean. This makes the soya bean resistant to glyphosate. This is good because you can't grow beans and weeds and make a profit.
In another case they have spliced the gene that makes beans host to the nitrogen fixing bacteria to the corn DNA so that corn will host nitrogen fixing bacteria on their roots.
They are NOT making soya beans grow like sunflowers.
There are dozens of hybrid vegetable plants that have been naturally modified through breeding programs to make them fungus resistant.
GMO has more impact in politics than it does in your food.

[el Ducko]

Am I alone here, on this forum, in not wanting to eat genetically modified foods?

No, you are not alone. I agree. Unfortunately, it'll be a political stand, here. Many of this forum's inhabitants are meat-and-potatoes, gun-carrying, right-wing people. ...but not all.

Seems like I read that all African countries and most of Europe won't import our genetically-modified crops and meat products. I don't have a reference for it, though. I do remember when, five or ten years ago, genetically modified corn got loose and the company wound up buying and destroying all the yellow corn crop in the US and Mexico that year. It's only been in the last year that we could obtain decent yellow corn tortillas east of the Mississippi because, when the product goes away, so does the distribution channel. We still bring a load of yellow corn tortillas to our daughter in North Carolina when we go up there from Texas.

Good luck in your search. As for the rest of you guys out there in forum-land, uh... Death to Bambi! Bwahahaha!

[ssorllih]

The easist way to demonstrate any problems with GMO cereal grain would be to feed it to several generations of mice and see if they started coming out with two tails or some other detectable changes. A test of that sort would only take a couple of years.

[story28]

This has been going on for years and years. The first time I heard about it was in 2007 at the CIA, where it was/is a huge controversy. The craziest thing I ever heard was the splicing of deep ocean fish with strawberries. The fish's ability to endure severe cold temperatures was placed into the strawberries so they wouldn't succumb as easily to frost.

[Oxide]

The easist way to demonstrate any problems with GMO cereal grain would be to feed it to several generations of mice and see if they started coming out with two tails or some other detectable changes. A test of that sort would only take a couple of years.

Supposedly that is where we are at now ... mice are showing various gastrointestinal issues from the GMO disrupting the natural flora of the digestive system. GMO designed to resist some kind of bacteria may be retarding the grow of beneficial bacteria in the GI tract.

Supposedly all GMO testing to get FDA approval is done my the manfr (Monsanto) without gov't oversight.

Supposedly doctors that treat autistic children are look at the vast similarity between the GI issues in lab rats fed GMO and the GI issues that are common in people with autism.

Supposedly sausage casings are imported because the quality of the intestines in livestock feed a GMO based diet in the US yields them unusable.

Soy beans, zucchini, yellow crook neck squash, sugar beats, corn, Hawaiian papaya. All are GMO, you aren't going to get them 'natural' in a grocery store these days. Supposedly.

Now, all of that I got from a guy on talk radio campaigning to get GMO labeling on foods. He is very anit-GMO. I don't know how much of what he talked about is true and how much is embellished to achieve his agenda. But it got my attention.

Calif is shaping up to become the battle ground for GO labeling laws. I suspect we'll be hearing more GMO horror stories as well as having Monsanto offering a rebuttal about how safe GMO is. Personally, I have no problem with requiring a label disclosing what is in the food I am going to eat.

[ssorllih]

I read this paper today: http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pusztai.html
And I conclude that the reason for so much opinion and so little fact stems from the lack of quality testing.
Some of the tests that show damage to the GI tract in rats involves feeding unrealistic quantities of one type of food where as if the test was done with normal life diets the results would probably be different. In France geese are force fed absurd quantities of food and they develope enlarged liver. One could conclude that the food was to blame for the enlarged liver and that type of food was not healthy. The fact is the results are exactly what are sought. Because the enlarged liver is used to make Pate`.

[el Ducko]

Remember back in the fifties (well, okay, remember hearing your granddad talk about the fifties), when margarine was supposed to be healthier than butter because it contained less animal fat? Then people learned that saturated fats were bad for you, and margarine WASN'T so good for you. Then partially hydrogenated foods came into vogue, and they were healthy for you, too, until people learned about the effects of isomerization of fat molecules and discovered that trans-fats were bad for you. Nowadays, we're going for poly-unsaturated cis-isomer fat. ...or maybe you should use butter and animal fats, which are natural ingredients.

I see GM items as the same ring-around-the-rosie. And no, Monsanto will only test for the minimum required. I used to work for them. I know.

[ssorllih]

I saved couple of dozen seed bags from the spring planting last year at the farm where I was repairing a couple of houses. They planted about four hundred acres of corn and about a hundred and fifty acres of soya beans. The corn was labeled as modified to defeat corn borers and to tolerate Liberty weed control. All of this corn goes into animal feed. With feeder cows at 1.59 per pound and corn a 6.70 a bushel no farmer will feed his cows anything that won't allow them to stay healthy and to gain weight. Prior to this year this same farmerraised angus beef on grass and corn silage. The silage was cut from corn GM seed stock.

[JerBear]

Ross, one small correction on your post from 10:01, the force-feeding of ducks and geese (called gavage) is used to enlarge the liver which when harvested becomes foie gras. One product that often made with foie gras is pate, though pate is not exclusively a foie based product.

As far as GMO is concerned I feel that the public's concern is three-fold:

First of all is how the agribusinesses such as Monsanto are handling themselves, suing everyone in sight, cornering the market, etc. They're making themselves out to be quite the bully and they're not shy about it and most people find their business practices disdainful.

Second, I think that the idea of comparing natural and human influenced hybridization to GMO foods is like comparing an apple to a Chevy, not even in the same ballpark. When viewed from the 50,000' level they are in essence the same practice with GMO just being an accelerated version there are two missing components. First of which is the fact that a great majority of attempting human influenced hybrids fail, which is just what they're supposed to do. Some cross-pollination just isn't right and the plant failure is just nature's way of showing that. Second is the fact that humans, using time tested grafting and hybridization techniques would be hard pressed to cross a tomato and a salmon (maybe it was a trout, not 100% sure). Hybrids are typically two very similar fruits or vegetables (tomato vs tomato) or grafting fruit trees to existing stock. The tomato/trout combo is the most oft-quoted franken-GMO but I think that it's a solid concern. Using the salmon's ability to withstand cold and inserting that same gene into a tomato to be cold weather resistant is a good idea in concept but I think that most people agree that it's really unnatural and frankly a step in the wrong direction.

Thirdly, the fact that a majority of people would prefer to see GMO labeling but many many companies that use the products such as processors and Monsanto continue to fight GMO labels. If the product is so safe why aren't they proudly slapping a label on a product and in essence stating, "We are so confident in the safety of our product that we are comfortable with full transparency." If you say that the reason they don't label their products is because people won't buy them, you're probably right....see examples one and two.

[ssorllih]

Jerbear, The trout x tomato absurdity is typical hyperbole in arguments concerning almost any changes in the status quo. You can find the same hyperbole in arguments for and against people of color serving in the military along side white men. It was present in the debate over segregation and women's right to vote. It is still present in the debate of having women in combat roles and in the same sex marriage debate
There is much debate over certified organic versus food grown with generally recognized safe farming practices.
The agribusiness could do much in terms of education but the very vocal "don't confuse me with the facts" opposition can destroy much honest effort with a little disinformation.
A well educated population is still a dream for many people.
If you realize that most people do not know the tomatoes, potatoes and night shade are closely related then it is easy to understand why people are concerned when they hear that scientists have spliced a gene for a bacteria into the genome of a corn plant. They were concerned when Dolly the sheep was cloned and asked if we were going to start cloning people next and what would be their status as people.
Considering that millions of people are convinced that facebook is a worthwhile use of their time it is easy to see how easily a simple question cncerning GMO plants can become a full blown worry about food safety.
More people will become ill because they don't wash their hands after using a public restroom than will be sickened by GM food.

[el Ducko]

My concern is that, like it or not, there IS such a thing as genetic modification, and I'd like to know if what I'm eating was genetically modified or not. We don't know the long term effects, and likely don't know what to look for. Like my earlier post, if in 20 or 30 years we discover that there have been subtle changes in our health, how can we best find out (statistically) what to suspect? Clear labeling would help. Hiding it would have the opposite effect.

There is great interest in a Mediterranean diet, these days. Is it coincidental that they eat lots of fresh meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains, but most of our foods are processed and full of additives? The vine-ripened produce that we had on our trip to Greece a couple of months back was wonderful. My wife, who is gluten intolerant, had no problem whatsoever eating practically everything. Then we went home, and 95% of what's on restaurant menus and in packaged foods is off limits to her because it contains wheat. Much of it is not labeled properly.

Must we look for a "gluten free" label? Must we look for a "GMO-free" label? It ought to be the other way around.

[Oxide]

Jerbear, The trout x tomato absurdity is typical hyperbole in arguments concerning almost any changes in the status quo. ...

June 16, 2011

Congress Bans FDA from Approving Genetically Modified `Franken` Salmon

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a law that would effectively block the FDA from approving genetically modified `Franken` salmon. The news came after the FDA declared that the GM salmon would not be labeled, leaving customers in the dark. An advisory panel declared that more studies would be needed on the genetically altered fish before it could be considered to be safe for human consumption.

http://naturalsociety.com/congress-bans ... en-salmon/

The Frankensalmon grows to twice the size of a natural salmon in 1/2 the time as a natural salmon. One distinct difference with this fish is when the availability of food decreases, the GMO salmon turn on their own, becoming cannibalistic, eating each other. Natural salmon do not do that.

[ssorllih]

Jerbear, The trout x tomato absurdity is typical hyperbole in arguments concerning almost any changes in the status quo. ...

June 16, 2011

Congress Bans FDA from Approving Genetically Modified `Franken` Salmon

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a law that would effectively block the FDA from approving genetically modified `Franken` salmon. The news came after the FDA declared that the GM salmon would not be labeled, leaving customers in the dark. An advisory panel declared that more studies would be needed on the genetically altered fish before it could be considered to be safe for human consumption.

http://naturalsociety.com/congress-bans ... en-salmon/

The Frankensalmon grows to twice the size of a natural salmon in 1/2 the time as a natural salmon. One distinct difference with this fish is when the availability of food decreases, the GMO salmon turn on their own, becoming cannibalistic, eating each other. Natural salmon do not do that.

It has always been my understanding that The US house of representatives passes bills that the Senate considers and may approve or modify. After both houses agree the bill is presented to the President for his signature. Then it becomes law.

[Oxide]

It has always been my understanding that The US house of representatives passes bills that the Senate considers and may approve or modify. After both houses agree the bill is presented to the President for his signature. Then it becomes law.

It used to work that way. Now we have a President that waits for the House to recess then puts on his crown, and goes forth to rule us little people.

The title says "Congress" bans ... The article say "The House of Reps" passed the law ... the House is only 1/2 of Congress. Interesting the House is more supportive of big business than the Senate is, at this time. What I get form that is there must have been significant reason for the House to vote in favor of the ban.