8 ms·

I'm not sure the point of this article. She didn't spend much time attacking specific myths. I see so many people these days running to defend these giant corp

by lotides 12y ago

I'm not sure the point of this article. She didn't spend much time attacking specific myths. I see so many people these days running to defend these giant corporations and their processes from creating food as quickly and cheaply as possible. They don't need defending. They've won. Most Americans rely on their products, whether they like it or not. I can't make the schools serve my kids healthy foods, I can't make the prisons serve prisoners real foods or make my local grocery store stock foods that are safe and healthy. Let them defend themselves. They'll be fine. If I make the decision that I don't want HFCS in my bread or certain GMO products in my lunch, why do you care? Why block the nutrition label from saying that a product is GMO? It doesn't effect you. If you're positive that no negative consequences come from us engineering our food, then go ahead and eat as much as you want. But stop attacking those of us that want to be able to find foods that meet our own personal standards. We all should have the right to know what's in our food and where it comes from. I care a lot about what I eat and the foods I make for my family. I know a lot of misinformation is out there but the appropriate response is to correct the misinformation, not attack everyone that is just trying to do what's best for themselves. For those of you that want to start caring about what you put in your body, http://examine.com http://examine.com is a good place to start. Good luck.

Spooky23 12y ago
What is the purpose of GMO labeling? What is engineering of food? If GMOs are "bad" what about hybrids developed via selective breeding? Am I poisoning myself by planting a "Better Boy" tomato that is disease resistant, or should I plant some heirloom tomato? There is no answer to these questions. There are opinions.
- dools 12y ago
  The purpose of GMO labelling (and all labelling) is to give people the opportunity to make decisions on the basis of their opinion in the absence of any clear answers. If I decide that I want to stop eating palm oil because I love orang utans, how can I make that decision if all labels just say "vegetable oils" as the ingredient? If I decide I want to boycott Monsanto because I don't like their logo, by eating only foods that contain no genetically modified ingredients, how can I make that decision unless the food is labelled adequately? In short, I should be able to decide what ingredients I wish to avoid or prefer for any reason; it's no-one else's business to say that my reasoning is invalid or I am dumb because Monsanto's logo is clearly awesome or orang utans are pests and we should eat more palm oil. Shit, if you hate orang utans or love Monsanto, maybe you want to eat MORE palm oil and GM foods... If they aren't labelled how can you know you're destroying the most lives of farmers and orang utans?? Food labelling is good for everyone.
  - greggman 12y ago
    So then should the food be labeled by the race, sex and sexual orientation of the person/people that grew/produced/shipped it? Maybe you'd also like to avoid food made by people of a certain race? Or maybe you'd like to avoid food made by people of a certain sexual orientation because you're afraid you'll catch their "disease". Just hopefully pointing out there's a spectrum of arguably good and bad labeling. Which side GMO falls on is clearly a personal opinion but it's not an obvious good.
    - dools 12y ago
      This isn't a matter of personal opinion. Even if a company wanted to it would be illegal for them to discriminate on this basis. There are examples of labelling being used to promote certain types of working conditions, though such as fairtrade; or certain production methods such as pole and line caught tuna.
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    No, it isn't. Labeling is there is express facts so you can make informed decisions related to nutrition. If you want to eat organic, no GMO popcorn without palm oils made in Brazil, you'll need to either find a manufactured product that is oriented towards your beliefs, or source the raw materials yourself.
    - dools 12y ago
      Labelling is so I can make an informed decision about anything to do with the products I buy (it doesn't only apply to food either). Which facts are relevant is a changing landscape but the more comprehensively any product is labelled, the more information I have on which to base my choices.
plorkyeran 12y ago
> Why block the nutrition label from saying that a product is GMO? Who has ever tried to do that? Opposing mandatory labeling and trying to forbid labeling are very different things.
- bpodgursky 12y ago
  Advertising a food as GMO free is banned for good reason. Labeling is supposed to be informative to the consumer, and alert them to nutritional information about the food which could impact their health--and GMO foods have decisively been shown to have no health impact. If food manufacturers were free to advertise the absence of irrelevant nutrients, they would immediately begin barraging consumers with useless or harmful information-- "now free of pyridoxal phosphate!" "no phylloquinone used in the production of this cereal!" Should the average consume have to know that these are actually vitamin K and B6? Of course not, the nutrition facts are there to inform them, and the FDA makes sure it cannot be used just for branding purposes or to confuse the consumer. Since GMO food is unequivocally proven safe, the manufacturer will not be helping the consumer make an informed decision by advertising the absence.
  - glibgil 12y ago
    Food is advertised as GMO free. Were you lying about a ban or just mistaken? Here is an example. http://i.imgur.com/9I5aPHe.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9I5aPHe.jpg
    - a_bonobo 12y ago
      A fun sidenote: There's also salt with the GM free label. http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/facepalm-of-the-week-non-gmo-salt http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/facepalm-of-the...
    - fludlight 12y ago
      Just look at this: organic, gluten free, wheat free, whole grain, nature's path, happy panda! Yet the nutritional info shows 2g protein, 2g fiber, 3.5g fat, 7g sugar (almost 2 teaspoons!) per 30g serving. Also no vitamins. Not much nutrition there. Imagine dropping 2 teaspoons of sugar into a child's glass of milk. You wouldn't do that, would you? http://us.naturespath.com/product/panda-puffstm-cereal http://us.naturespath.com/product/panda-puffstm-cereal
akiselev 12y ago
> If I make the decision that I don't want HFCS in my bread or certain GMO products in my lunch, why do you care? Why block the nutrition label from saying that a product is GMO? It doesn't effect you. If you're positive that no negative consequences come from us engineering our food, then go ahead and eat as much as you want. But stop attacking those of us that want to be able to find foods that meet our own personal standards. We all should have the right to know what's in our food and where it comes from. Bullshit. In the United States the FDA has had an advisory on GMO labeling for over a decade [1] and the EU has a regulatory framework which has been up almost as long [2]. Neither ban GMO-free labeling or its counterpart. If you want too, you can email, call, and snailmail all the businesses that your neighborhood grocery stores buy produce from and demand that they put labeling on them. But stop trying to stuff your personal boogeyman down the throat of a populace sensitive to volatility in food prices while you eat organic food sprayed by bacillus thurengiensis and other bacteria, organisms that humans have been haphazardly messing with at an evolutionary scale for almost a century in industrialized/organic farming and have been genetically modifying for more than half that. [1] http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm059098.htm http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocuments... [2] http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biotechnology/gmo_labelling_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biotechnology/gmo_labelling_en...

by lotides 12y ago

Spooky23 12y ago

What is the purpose of GMO labeling? What is engineering of food? If GMOs are "bad" what about hybrids developed via selective breeding? Am I poisoning myself by planting a "Better Boy" tomato that is disease resistant, or should I plant some heirloom tomato? There is no answer to these questions. There are opinions.

dools 12y ago
The purpose of GMO labelling (and all labelling) is to give people the opportunity to make decisions on the basis of their opinion in the absence of any clear answers. If I decide that I want to stop eating palm oil because I love orang utans, how can I make that decision if all labels just say "vegetable oils" as the ingredient? If I decide I want to boycott Monsanto because I don't like their logo, by eating only foods that contain no genetically modified ingredients, how can I make that decision unless the food is labelled adequately? In short, I should be able to decide what ingredients I wish to avoid or prefer for any reason; it's no-one else's business to say that my reasoning is invalid or I am dumb because Monsanto's logo is clearly awesome or orang utans are pests and we should eat more palm oil. Shit, if you hate orang utans or love Monsanto, maybe you want to eat MORE palm oil and GM foods... If they aren't labelled how can you know you're destroying the most lives of farmers and orang utans?? Food labelling is good for everyone.
- greggman 12y ago
  So then should the food be labeled by the race, sex and sexual orientation of the person/people that grew/produced/shipped it? Maybe you'd also like to avoid food made by people of a certain race? Or maybe you'd like to avoid food made by people of a certain sexual orientation because you're afraid you'll catch their "disease". Just hopefully pointing out there's a spectrum of arguably good and bad labeling. Which side GMO falls on is clearly a personal opinion but it's not an obvious good.
  - dools 12y ago
    This isn't a matter of personal opinion. Even if a company wanted to it would be illegal for them to discriminate on this basis. There are examples of labelling being used to promote certain types of working conditions, though such as fairtrade; or certain production methods such as pole and line caught tuna.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  No, it isn't. Labeling is there is express facts so you can make informed decisions related to nutrition. If you want to eat organic, no GMO popcorn without palm oils made in Brazil, you'll need to either find a manufactured product that is oriented towards your beliefs, or source the raw materials yourself.
  - dools 12y ago
    Labelling is so I can make an informed decision about anything to do with the products I buy (it doesn't only apply to food either). Which facts are relevant is a changing landscape but the more comprehensively any product is labelled, the more information I have on which to base my choices.

plorkyeran 12y ago

> Why block the nutrition label from saying that a product is GMO? Who has ever tried to do that? Opposing mandatory labeling and trying to forbid labeling are very different things.

bpodgursky 12y ago
Advertising a food as GMO free is banned for good reason. Labeling is supposed to be informative to the consumer, and alert them to nutritional information about the food which could impact their health--and GMO foods have decisively been shown to have no health impact. If food manufacturers were free to advertise the absence of irrelevant nutrients, they would immediately begin barraging consumers with useless or harmful information-- "now free of pyridoxal phosphate!" "no phylloquinone used in the production of this cereal!" Should the average consume have to know that these are actually vitamin K and B6? Of course not, the nutrition facts are there to inform them, and the FDA makes sure it cannot be used just for branding purposes or to confuse the consumer. Since GMO food is unequivocally proven safe, the manufacturer will not be helping the consumer make an informed decision by advertising the absence.
- glibgil 12y ago
  Food is advertised as GMO free. Were you lying about a ban or just mistaken? Here is an example. http://i.imgur.com/9I5aPHe.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9I5aPHe.jpg
  - a_bonobo 12y ago
    A fun sidenote: There's also salt with the GM free label. http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/facepalm-of-the-week-non-gmo-salt http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/facepalm-of-the...
  - fludlight 12y ago
    Just look at this: organic, gluten free, wheat free, whole grain, nature's path, happy panda! Yet the nutritional info shows 2g protein, 2g fiber, 3.5g fat, 7g sugar (almost 2 teaspoons!) per 30g serving. Also no vitamins. Not much nutrition there. Imagine dropping 2 teaspoons of sugar into a child's glass of milk. You wouldn't do that, would you? http://us.naturespath.com/product/panda-puffstm-cereal http://us.naturespath.com/product/panda-puffstm-cereal

akiselev 12y ago

> If I make the decision that I don't want HFCS in my bread or certain GMO products in my lunch, why do you care? Why block the nutrition label from saying that a product is GMO? It doesn't effect you. If you're positive that no negative consequences come from us engineering our food, then go ahead and eat as much as you want. But stop attacking those of us that want to be able to find foods that meet our own personal standards. We all should have the right to know what's in our food and where it comes from. Bullshit. In the United States the FDA has had an advisory on GMO labeling for over a decade [1] and the EU has a regulatory framework which has been up almost as long [2]. Neither ban GMO-free labeling or its counterpart. If you want too, you can email, call, and snailmail all the businesses that your neighborhood grocery stores buy produce from and demand that they put labeling on them. But stop trying to stuff your personal boogeyman down the throat of a populace sensitive to volatility in food prices while you eat organic food sprayed by bacillus thurengiensis and other bacteria, organisms that humans have been haphazardly messing with at an evolutionary scale for almost a century in industrialized/organic farming and have been genetically modifying for more than half that. [1] http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm059098.htm http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocuments... [2] http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biotechnology/gmo_labelling_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biotechnology/gmo_labelling_en...