Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.

Are GMOs bad for you?

11415161719

Replies

  • debrakgoogins
    debrakgoogins Posts: 2,034 Member
    Considering it requires you to study biology, chemistry, genetics, and the actual GMO processes, I would say I have a more educated view on them than most who have replied here. My certification in commercial/agricultural pesticide application also helps me understand it better.

    I have a degree in Horticulture. I also have a degree in Operations and Project Management. I am 11 courses away from my masters degree in Sustainability and Environmental Compliance. I might have a more educated view that you. Everything I have studied has reinforced that GMOs are not the enemy they are made out to be. Mind you, I AM an environmentalist. If I found non-biased (not sponsored by non-GMO proponents) research that GMOs were harmful in the long term, I wouldn't eat GMO products. I eat them. I feel based on personal and educational research that I and my family are safer eating GMOs than food laden with chemical pesticides.
  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    Considering it requires you to study biology, chemistry, genetics, and the actual GMO processes, I would say I have a more educated view on them than most who have replied here. My certification in commercial/agricultural pesticide application also helps me understand it better.

    I have a degree in Horticulture. I also have a degree in Operations and Project Management. I am 11 courses away from my masters degree in Sustainability and Environmental Compliance. I might have a more educated view that you. Everything I have studied has reinforced that GMOs are not the enemy they are made out to be. Mind you, I AM an environmentalist. If I found non-biased (not sponsored by non-GMO proponents) research that GMOs were harmful in the long term, I wouldn't eat GMO products. I eat them. I feel based on personal and educational research that I and my family are safer eating GMOs than food laden with chemical pesticides.

    Aren't some GMOs designed to withstand those chemical pesticides? Like round up ready crops?
  • debrakgoogins
    debrakgoogins Posts: 2,034 Member
    edited July 2018
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    Aren't some GMOs designed to withstand those chemical pesticides? Like round up ready crops?

    There are some. They do exactly what they are engineered to do. They are genetically, NOT CHEMICALLY, engineered. GMO is nothing new. The famous sweet pea experiment is the first scientifically documented GMO - it just didn't have a fancy name then.

    Maybe it would be better for me to say that I don't purposefully avoid GMO foods but I also don't seek them out. This isn't because of the GMO factor but more because I support local farmers and purchase from farmers markets and meat growers.
  • Josh_Friedman
    Josh_Friedman Posts: 112 Member
    GMOs themselves are safe. The Pilgrims technically used GMOs. The danger is that the most common use for GMOs is to make crops more resistant to pesticides. Opponents of GMOs are right for the wrong reasons
  • johnslater461
    johnslater461 Posts: 449 Member
    GMOs themselves are safe. The Pilgrims technically used GMOs. The danger is that the most common use for GMOs is to make crops more resistant to pesticides. Opponents of GMOs are right for the wrong reasons

    Glyphosate is far less toxic than many organic pesticides.
  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    Considering it requires you to study biology, chemistry, genetics, and the actual GMO processes, I would say I have a more educated view on them than most who have replied here. My certification in commercial/agricultural pesticide application also helps me understand it better.

    I have a degree in Horticulture. I also have a degree in Operations and Project Management. I am 11 courses away from my masters degree in Sustainability and Environmental Compliance. I might have a more educated view that you. Everything I have studied has reinforced that GMOs are not the enemy they are made out to be. Mind you, I AM an environmentalist. If I found non-biased (not sponsored by non-GMO proponents) research that GMOs were harmful in the long term, I wouldn't eat GMO products. I eat them. I feel based on personal and educational research that I and my family are safer eating GMOs than food laden with chemical pesticides.

    Aren't some GMOs designed to withstand those chemical pesticides? Like round up ready crops?

    Why are you afraid of roundup?

    oh003d8kefoo.png

    The RfD is determined by using what’s called the “toxicological end point” or the “NOEL” (No Observable Effect Limit) for the most sensitive mammalian toxicological study. The EPA uses an uncertainly factor of 100 in deriving it (which is pretty high in order to be conservative) so as to ensure the sufficiency of the RfD, and based on the assumption that certain segments of the human population could be as much as 100 times more sensitive than the species represented by the toxicology tests. In rat studies on glyphosate, doses of up to 31 mg/kg/day were administered with no observable adverse effects at all, and dog studies have gone as high as 500 mg/kg/day with no negative effects.

    The EPA’s assumption about how much people would eat was very conservative. In order to insure you don’t get over 2 mg per kg per day they use a “worst case” dietary risk model of an individual eating a lifetime of food derived entirely from glyphosate-sprayed fields with residues at their maximum levels.

    ...

    You weigh 70 kg or 154 lbs.

    To get 2 mg per kg you would need to get 140 mg of glyphosate residue.

    So you would need to eat 200 * 140, or 28,000 grams of this 5 ppm produce to get to the 2 mg per kg per day level.

    There are 28 grams in an ounce, so that’s 1,000 ounces.

    There are 16 oz in a pound, so you would need to eat 62 lbs of produce.

    We’re talking about EACH DAY here, and even if you managed that, that would only get you to a level that is 100 times less then the NOEL level in the most sensitive species tested.





    http://www.crediblehulk.org/index.php/2015/06/02/glyphosate-toxicity-looking-past-the-hyperbole-and-sorting-through-the-facts-by-credible-hulk/

    I'm not so much afraid as cautious. It's something I think can't hurt to avoid. I think it is probably dose dependent and more is not better.

    My uncle, who lived on a roundup ready farm died of brain cancer. So has all of his siblings except two: one died of pancreatic cancer and one is still cancer free. I admit that I wonder about the effect that living on that farm had on them. I don't blame roundup (sprayed from planes) but I wonder if it played a role.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Thank you for laying that out, @mangrothian . My "training" in pesticides comes from running a file room for our department of the Environment. My background has turned me in to a jack of all trades, of sorts. It is a pleasure to see a master at work.
  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    @mangrothian
    I'm not trolling, but I'm going to be blunt: if you want to avoid glyphosate due to toxicity, then you might as well not eat any fruits or vegetables ever, organic or conventional (whether the foods themselves be GE or not). Don't drink coffee either; it's more toxic than the pesticide levels you get from your fruit and veg over the year.

    Yeah, I'm sort of on my way there. LOL
  • mangrothian
    mangrothian Posts: 1,351 Member
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    @mangrothian
    I'm not trolling, but I'm going to be blunt: if you want to avoid glyphosate due to toxicity, then you might as well not eat any fruits or vegetables ever, organic or conventional (whether the foods themselves be GE or not). Don't drink coffee either; it's more toxic than the pesticide levels you get from your fruit and veg over the year.

    Yeah, I'm sort of on my way there. LOL

    Heh, I figured with your username.

    Then how about the question I posed? There’s a reason I put (not just crop) in there. What about GE lab grown meat? They’re not quite there yet, but I’m sure it’ll eventually get to the point where it’ll be more environmentally friendly to do so. When the time comes that you can get keto-specific meat grown with the perfect protein-to-fat ratio, will you switch?
  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    edited July 2018
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    @mangrothian
    I'm not trolling, but I'm going to be blunt: if you want to avoid glyphosate due to toxicity, then you might as well not eat any fruits or vegetables ever, organic or conventional (whether the foods themselves be GE or not). Don't drink coffee either; it's more toxic than the pesticide levels you get from your fruit and veg over the year.

    Yeah, I'm sort of on my way there. LOL

    Heh, I figured with your username.

    Then how about the question I posed? There’s a reason I put (not just crop) in there. What about GE lab grown meat? They’re not quite there yet, but I’m sure it’ll eventually get to the point where it’ll be more environmentally friendly to do so. When the time comes that you can get keto-specific meat grown with the perfect protein-to-fat ratio, will you switch?

    :):lol:
    I dont want to. TBH, the idea of it kind of turns my stomach. If forced to I would, but if I had the choice I would not.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Another generation bought their meat live, to make sure it was disease free and non-contaminated. Our processed, plucked, and wrapped up meats would have disgusted them.
  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Another generation bought their meat live, to make sure it was disease free and non-contaminated. Our processed, plucked, and wrapped up meats would have disgusted them.

    Possibly. But I've butchered hundreds of chickens and dozens of ruminants, so I'm just happy that someone else did the work for me when I buy my meat. ;)
  • Derpes
    Derpes Posts: 2,033 Member
    No, nor are carbs!