Are We Really Eating Healthy with GMOs in Place?

DatMurse

We are not natural either. Do you think all that medication, antibiotics, and fortification we take in our food is natural?

I wouldnt worry too much about it.
Due to scientific advances and our foods we live longer. People are trying to revert back to old practices and full on nature but they seem to forget these advances are contributing factors of why we dont die at 30 anymore

Mokey41

Furthermore, why is the U.S. the only country who has not banned the GMO? Every other country has banned it and will not buy our meat either, from what I heard.

US is not the only country not banning GMO, in fact a lot of countries that have banned them are taking a sober second look at the whole issue.

If you want to start a controversial topic, at least get some facts together first.

keithf1138

With the biotech corporation, Monsanto taking over our food chain, can we really say that we are eating healthy? Will the corporation take over and drive the organic farmers out of the market? How can we tell if the fresh produce we are eating is GMO, if the grocery store does not have to disclose this information to us, and if there are no labels indicating this? Any thoughts?

Honestly if people want to avoid this stuff, they have every right to do so.
Wholesale banning of this stuff is a death sentence to a lot of the world. Without modern agricultural techniques the Earth wouldn't support the current population.

Banning and labeling are 2 different things.

Mokey41

So, conventional 5,488 lbs/acre < organic 7,767.6 lbs/acre.

Unless Jeff grew exactly the same crops as you did then you're comparing apples and oranges, literally. You can't decide your crops were better because they weighed more than his.

You do realize a good portion of the world would starve to death if we all pissed around growing an organic 2.5 acres? And a starving person 1/2 way around the world wouldn't be very appreciative of your 4 week old organic lettuce when it arrived in his village.

Like or hate GMO products, your choice, but you need to get better arguments as to why it isn't good for the rest of the world.

MudRunLvr

We've been employing the ideas behind GMOs since we started planting crops in the first place. Trying to find the best strains. A lot of people are scared of things they don't understand. Especially after watching documentaries designed to scare them into buying things they don't need.

jqh23

www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-fda-to-label-gmos

Sign the petition to tell the FDA to label GMOs

In the meantime, support your local CSAs, farmers markets, buy organic whenever possible and look for the non-GMO project verified labels on items.

jofjltncb6

In...

...because I can't decide if I want to mock the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracists...

...or join them.

Mother_Superior

In...

...because I can't decide if I want to mock the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracists...

...or join them.

chadgard

Unless Jeff grew exactly the same crops as you did then you're comparing apples and oranges, literally. You can't decide your crops were better because they weighed more than his.

You do realize a good portion of the world would starve to death if we all pissed around growing an organic 2.5 acres? And a starving person 1/2 way around the world wouldn't be very appreciative of your 4 week old organic lettuce when it arrived in his village.

Like or hate GMO products, your choice, but you need to get better arguments as to why it isn't good for the rest of the world.

Then, when you say traditional farming methods don't produce as much per acre than large scale gmo/chemical agriculture, you are comparing apples to oranges just as much as I am. Because traditional farming methods do not grow large monocultures, if you try to say growing a large monoculture of a particular crop using the inputs available to organic farmers, you are already NOT growing in the manner of a traditional farm. Like I said in an earlier post, that's like saying a monkey is a better animal than a fish, because the monkey climbs trees better. You can't claim that traditional farming methods are less productive by comparing yields in a large monoculture, because that is not a traditional farming method.

So, my first argument why large scale monoculture farming (which is the only reason you need GMO crops) isn't good for the rest of the world is that, across the world, people who use traditional methods, growing a diversity of crops on small farms produce more food per acre. It was a response to the claim that the only way to feed a growing worldwide population in the face of expanding urban area, deforestation, and desertification was to use GMOs to produce more in large mono cropped areas. But, I then showed growing a diversity of crops produces more per acre.

Also, you do realize that if traditional farms grow 2000 pounds more food per acre, and were to farm the same number of acres, that would be a lot more food and people wouldn't starve, right? If we all pissed around growing food on 2.5 acres, we would have more more food. Jeff farms ~10,000 acres. If he had farmed it all with the methods I used, he could have grown 20 million more pounds of food. There are countless repetitions of this sort of yield differential from all over the world - I just used my own example because I have ready access to my own data, and it was easy to ask Jeff for his, since he was working in his field right across the ditch, and that made for extremely similar weather and soil conditions. Also, note, that those horrible early spring weather conditions last year decimated our yield, but had no effect on his, because they occurred before he planted. In a normal year, would would have produced far more, and he only a little more.

My second argument why this isn't good for the rest of the world is protection of genetic diversity. Throughout time, when one variety of a crop falls victim to a disease, climate change, insect pest, drought, too much water, soil nutrient deficiency, or whatever, there were other varieties that did not. A huge diversity of crop varieties were developed, many specific to a given region's climate, soils, pests, and whatnot. When roundup ready corn first came out, its drought tolerance was atrocious, and yields were almost disastrously low. Guess how they fixed it? By back crossing with a traditional, open-pollinated corn variety which is now extinct. GMOs in particular, and large scale monocropping in general, drive diversity of varieties available down. And, the licensing agreements of Monsanto in particular, make it illegal to do the very thing that enabled all of that diversity to develop in the first place - save and re-plant your own seed over multiple generations.

My third argument why this is not good for the rest of the world is that throughout the world, and in the developing world in particular, many people are starving not because food cannot be grown, but because they don't have meaningful employment. Traditional farming is far less productive per man hour than large monocrop farming. this, of course, is the economic driver behind GMOs: it is not a case of producing more per acre, because they don't. Rather, it's a case of producing more per farmer. The corollary to that is that traditional farming produces more JOBS per acre. As the amount of available land decreases and the number of people needing employment increases, employing more people per acre is almost as valuable as producing more food per acre.

So, using my example, Jeff farms ~10,000 acres part time. I farm 35 acres part time, if you include the portions not growing food. Jeff also has land that doesn't grow crops, but it's not part of the 10,000 acres he farms. And much of our farm is currently undeveloped and growing nothing of value, because it takes time to build things. But to be nice, we'll just go with the acreage we own vs. the acreage Jeff farms, and ignore the fact that there is enough work available on our farm that without developing the rest of it I could work full time and employ 3 people full time - we'll just stick with 1/2 FTE for 35 acres vs. 1/2 FTE for 10,000 acres. That 10,000 acres that currently provides half a job now could provide just shy of 143 jobs using traditional methods.

Finally, though your argument about shipping was nothing I had mentioned. But, it would not be in keeping with traditional farming methods for me to ship lettuce to someone on the other side of the world by rowboat and mule caravan, arriving in 4 weeks. But, if I were to ship my lettuce to the other side of the world, why would I choose a method taking 4 weeks when it takes everyone else's lettuce an average of 7 days? Of course, a point of pride and part of our branding is that we won't sell salad greens more than 12 hours after harvest, so that would serve to weaken our market position, so I wouldn't do it. But, could my boxes not end up on planes, too? But, the traditional method is to grow locally and sell locally, with regional markets adding resiliency to make up for local shortfalls. So, rather than putting farmers out of work and producing less food on more land on the other side of the world, why not encourage them to use -their- traditional, small scale, diversified methods, and sell locally. Because money spent locally is re-spent locally, and improves the local economy far more than money spent on something half a world away.

A final argument I didn't make, but is worth mentioning. My growing organically using traditional methods does not infringe upon anyone else's rights or ability to grow whatever he wants on his land, in whatever way he wants to. But the use of GMO corn all around me does infringe on my right to grow open pollinated corn, because their corn will pollinate mine, contaminating it against my will with Monsanto's patented technology (and when mine pollinates theirs, it doesn't matter because they are not allowed to re-plant it anyway). If I then re-plant it in an attempt to breed corn that does particularly well in my farm's situation, Monsanto can sue me for patent infringement. And the have done so many times. I also cannot use the outer 50 feet of my land for organic crops, because I have to have that as a buffer against chemical drift from the conventional farms (though Jeff is particularly nice and goes to a good deal of effort to prevent drift, he's definitely the exception in the area). Meanwhile, those conventional farms are madly ripping out tree lines so they can extend their center pivot irrigators another 15 feet and planting so close to the edge of their property I actually had a section of fence destroyed last week by a vacuum planter (not sure how he ever planned to get the corn head of his combine that close...). At least from an American perspective, this really violates the type of property rights that were so important to those who founded the country.

xiamjackie

As an addendum:

A lot of what I do for my concentration revolves around law and policy review. Many lobby groups manipulate data pretty heavily to make it comport to their "view". For the sake of objectivity I try to evaluate their claims based on their own data. A lot of times it simply doesn't fit.

I'm actually working on a journal entry myself this summer that has to do with media influence. I know this is somewhat of a controversial topic (I'm not using this one in my work product, but there's a LOT of debate about it), but if you look at all the studies of statins; the difference in mortality rates is not statistically significant. So while overall statin usage does show "lower incidents of mortality" (I'd argue it's well within standard deviation).

This rather insignificant finding has translated to "statins lower your cholesterol, which lowers your chance of heart attack". Realistically looking at the data there's very little correlation between cholesterol level and incidence of heart disease, IE having lower cholesterol doesn't inherently lower your risk of a heart attack.

So when we hear on the news "A new study shows X is good for you because it lowers your chance of heart attack", the data may show <2% difference in experimental v. control group (which is likely to be variance). So while the news isn't exactly "wrong" it's very misleading, and not the whole story.

Thank you.

Confuzzled4ever

With the biotech corporation, Monsanto taking over our food chain, can we really say that we are eating healthy? Will the corporation take over and drive the organic farmers out of the market? How can we tell if the fresh produce we are eating is GMO, if the grocery store does not have to disclose this information to us, and if there are no labels indicating this? Any thoughts?

There is a current lack of evidence that GMOs are unhealthy. Also organic fruits and veggies seem to be no better than non organic in terms of nutrient density or pesticides used

Buy USDA certified organic (there's another company that certifies as well, but their name escapes me atm) and ask the farmers what kinds of seeds they use if you go to farm markets.. current GMO practices are not healthy and we shoudln't be eating it. Putting the genes of one plant into the seed of another to create a new plant *might* be "ok" but injecting them with pesticides and herbicides is not. Unfortnuatly they dont' tell us how the plant is modified.. so if you want to eat healthy, eat organic. yes organic farmers still use pesticides.. sprayed on and washed off and it's not changing (or potentially changing) the composition of the food. I'm also on the fence about GE..but at least i'm not eating pesticides that I can't wash off with that method. (GE is what they do to wheat btw.. not GMO)

Confuzzled4ever

Please note that the Obama Administration, leading regulators, the American Medical Association and many of the most influential and independent science organizations in the country are against labeling because of its inherent deceptive nature when it comes to labeling a product in which there are no known health issues–as is the case with GM foods.

Just about all the published research so far shows GM food and crops to be safe and nutritionally equivalent or even superior (as a result of vitamin enhancement) to conventional and organic foods. There haven't been any problems found to date. Scientists do not pursue long term studies on GM food because you can’t prove a negative. It’s generally a waste of time and money. Scientists from around the world have found that GM foods are biologically equivalent to non-GMO foods. A tomato is a tomato-there isn't any "scary stuff" that's different and added in to make its profile any different. You may have a hard time believing that GM foods are not harmful but you’d feel differently if you understood genetics. Unfortunately, that often requires college level chemistry and biology study. Funny how people are okay to leave it up to the researchers when it comes to complex treatments for diseases but when it comes to their food, suddenly they are the expert.

ha... obama feeds his family Organically grown foods.. LOL.. let him put his money where his mouth is.. and i know a lot of people are turning to homeopathic remedies because they work better, are healthier and are devoid of most of the side effects caused by conventional medicines.. but anyway.. that' another topic. Plus.. most dieases is caused and cured by the foods we eat.. so fix that and fix the other.. :~)

Acg67

With the biotech corporation, Monsanto taking over our food chain, can we really say that we are eating healthy? Will the corporation take over and drive the organic farmers out of the market? How can we tell if the fresh produce we are eating is GMO, if the grocery store does not have to disclose this information to us, and if there are no labels indicating this? Any thoughts?

There is a current lack of evidence that GMOs are unhealthy. Also organic fruits and veggies seem to be no better than non organic in terms of nutrient density or pesticides used

Buy USDA certified organic (there's another company that certifies as well, but their name escapes me atm) and ask the farmers what kinds of seeds they use if you go to farm markets.. current GMO practices are not healthy and we shoudln't be eating it. Putting the genes of one plant into the seed of another to create a new plant *might* be "ok" but injecting them with pesticides and herbicides is not. Unfortnuatly they dont' tell us how the plant is modified.. so if you want to eat healthy, eat organic. yes organic farmers still use pesticides.. sprayed on and washed off and it's not changing (or potentially changing) the composition of the food. I'm also on the fence about GE..but at least i'm not eating pesticides that I can't wash off with that method. (GE is what they do to wheat btw.. not GMO)

Good, then present your evidence current GMO practices are not healthy

ha... obama feeds his family Organically grown foods.. LOL.. let him put his money where his mouth is.. and i know a lot of people are turning to homeopathic remedies because they work better, are healthier and are devoid of most of the side effects caused by conventional medicines.. but anyway.. that' another topic. Plus.. most dieases is caused and cured by the foods we eat.. so fix that and fix the other.. :~)

lolololololol

There is little to no scientific evidence that shows homeopathic remedies do anything

chadgard

Buy USDA certified organic (there's another company that certifies as well, but their name escapes me atm) and ask the farmers what kinds of seeds they use if you go to farm markets.. current GMO practices are not healthy and we shoudln't be eating it. Putting the genes of one plant into the seed of another to create a new plant *might* be "ok" but injecting them with pesticides and herbicides is not. Unfortnuatly they dont' tell us how the plant is modified.. so if you want to eat healthy, eat organic. yes organic farmers still use pesticides.. sprayed on and washed off and it's not changing (or potentially changing) the composition of the food. I'm also on the fence about GE..but at least i'm not eating pesticides that I can't wash off with that method. (GE is what they do to wheat btw.. not GMO)

Some mis-information and vocab issues there... First off, the ability to wash off a pesticide is not determined by whether or not it is permitted organically. That's more an issue of whether or not it's water soluble if it's an applied pesticide. Of course, a systemic pesticide (which isn't available organically) can't be washed off because it isn't applied to the plant, but rather is IN the plant - either it's applied at planting time and absorbed through the roots and moves throughout the plant, or through genetic modification the plant itself produces the pesticide (for example, BT corn produces the toxin that BT bacteria produce, which is poisonous to insects). Obviously, if the pesticide permeates the plant, you can't wash it off.

For what it's worth, the main pest prevention method we use is crop rotation and growing a diversity of crops, followed by hand picking. The only pesticide we've needed to use is for Colorado Potato beetles, and is a Spinosad product. Spinosad is a natural toxin produced by bacteria, and is very water soluble, though it does tend to stick around (ie, doesn't degrade into other products), so it's often used on grain in storage. It doesn't do much to mammals, and washes off pretty much the first time we get a heavy dew. We hope to employ ducks to control the CPB in the future, to get away from that one product.

Meanwhile, whatever the crop, GE is what you do to create a GMO. GE = genetic engineering (or engineered). GMO = Genetically Modified Organism. So, for wheat, for instance, you use GE to create a GMO.

USDA organic is not a company. USDA is the United States Department of Agriculture, and "organic" is a legally-defined label that mostly exists for marketing purposes. Individual agencies or companies certify farms as USDA organic, and in most areas there are one or two such certifiers. The other "company" you may be thinking of might be Certified Naturally Grown. CNG is a grassroots, peer guarantee system based on the original (but now greatly weakened) organic guidelines. It's targeted for smaller farms. We've been involved in both. In our experience, CNG is more about what you actually do, while USDA Organic is more about what you say you do. CNG is more interactive, has more in-depth inspections of actual growing, and provides more professional development opportunities. USDA Organic is more expensive and paperwork-laden, but is better understood by more shoppers.

My choice is to buy from someone I know, and whose growing practices I can witness. In reality, since we grow so much ourselves, I rarely actually buy food. Instead, we do a lot of barter for those things we don't produce.

There is little to no scientific evidence that shows homeopathic remedies do anything

That depends on the homeopathic remedy. Many, many pharmaceuticals are based on the active ingredients in homeopathic remedies, because they do indeed do something, and scientific investigation showed that they indeed did. On the other hand, there are a lot of homeopathic remedies that scientific investigation has shown do nothing, and still others that scientific investigation has shown cause harm, or at least do something different than what they were supposed to do.

Acg67

"Telling someone who trusts you that you’re giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying–it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong."

conniedj

I find it rather amusing that "GMO's are safe because they haven't proven harmful". As another poster ( or several) have indicated, there are no long term safety studies on GMO's. Why? Because corps like Monsanto own the patent on the technology, and have to submit to allow for that technology to be studied. Sorry folks, but that means if you consume them (GMO's) you are saying "I'm your lab rat", because by consuming them you are unwittingly being made part of a long term study on food safety.

In theory, GE should be able to save the world. In practice, it has not done so. It has failed to increase yield, drought resistance ( remember last year in the midwest???), reduce pesticide use. I just read in a conventional farming journal that the average farmer has to use up to 6 different types of pesticides on a single crop due to superweeds becoming more resistant. This is the opposite as the claim to reduce use of toxic pesticides.

I am not convinced that corporations owning more and more of the food chain and creating mono cultures in the field is leading us in the right direction as a nation/world. I am not convinced that eating GMO's won't harm my children. And nobody harms my children--not on my watch!

Edit to add: To the OP, when shopping--stay away from processed food that contain soy, corn, sugar ( cane sugar is marked as such--sugar beet is GMO), canola. Beyond buying organic, look for the non-gmo label. For fresh fruits and veggies--you can look up "the dirty dozen"~ top 12 foods that contain the highest level of pesticide residue. Also "the clean 15"~conventionally grown fruits and veggies that are ok to eat non-organic. Stay away from Papaya from hawaii and mexico....about 50% of those are GMO. Lastly--and this is a sad one for the summertime---before you buy that sweet corn--check with your grocer and see where it came from. The BT corn went to market for the first time last summer. Most of the growers in the early season are inFlorida--which are conventionally grown, but not GMO. However, as the season progresses, the growers move up to the midwest....which are going to be higher concentrations of GMOcorn this year!

PaleoPath4Lyfe

With the biotech corporation, Monsanto taking over our food chain, can we really say that we are eating healthy? Will the corporation take over and drive the organic farmers out of the market? How can we tell if the fresh produce we are eating is GMO, if the grocery store does not have to disclose this information to us, and if there are no labels indicating this? Any thoughts?

Honestly if people want to avoid this stuff, they have every right to do so.
Wholesale banning of this stuff is a death sentence to a lot of the world. Without modern agricultural techniques the Earth wouldn't support the current population.

That is what they want you to believe..........

I just read an article about how GMO crops are primarily used to feed Americans and to feed domestic animals, which feed Americans. Monsanto isn't trying to do anything noble, countries with starving populations cannot afford the US exports nor are they purchasing Monsanto's seeds for planting. In addition, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine whose company deals with US exports of goods and she attended a seminar that dealt with the problems related to our export taxes being so high that they prohibit many countries from buying our goods and services.

So in short, Monsanto saving the world sounds pretty far fetched.

Acg67

With the biotech corporation, Monsanto taking over our food chain, can we really say that we are eating healthy? Will the corporation take over and drive the organic farmers out of the market? How can we tell if the fresh produce we are eating is GMO, if the grocery store does not have to disclose this information to us, and if there are no labels indicating this? Any thoughts?

Honestly if people want to avoid this stuff, they have every right to do so.
Wholesale banning of this stuff is a death sentence to a lot of the world. Without modern agricultural techniques the Earth wouldn't support the current population.

That is what they want you to believe..........

I just read an article about how GMO crops are primarily used to feed Americans and to feed domestic animals, which feed Americans. Monsanto isn't trying to do anything noble, countries with starving populations cannot afford the US exports nor are they purchasing Monsanto's seeds for planting. In addition, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine whose company deals with US exports of goods and she attended a seminar that dealt with the problems related to our export taxes being so high that they prohibit many countries from buying our goods and services.

So in short, Monsanto saving the world sounds pretty far fetched.

Which taxes are so high?

http://www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/bychapter/index.htm

silversnow7

This is why I grow my own food in my backyard and stay away from farm factory dead animals, plus milk laced with hormones, etc., etc., and the list goes on, problem solved

medic2038

With the biotech corporation, Monsanto taking over our food chain, can we really say that we are eating healthy? Will the corporation take over and drive the organic farmers out of the market? How can we tell if the fresh produce we are eating is GMO, if the grocery store does not have to disclose this information to us, and if there are no labels indicating this? Any thoughts?

Honestly if people want to avoid this stuff, they have every right to do so.
Wholesale banning of this stuff is a death sentence to a lot of the world. Without modern agricultural techniques the Earth wouldn't support the current population.

That is what they want you to believe..........

I just read an article about how GMO crops are primarily used to feed Americans and to feed domestic animals, which feed Americans. Monsanto isn't trying to do anything noble, countries with starving populations cannot afford the US exports nor are they purchasing Monsanto's seeds for planting. In addition, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine whose company deals with US exports of goods and she attended a seminar that dealt with the problems related to our export taxes being so high that they prohibit many countries from buying our goods and services.

So in short, Monsanto saving the world sounds pretty far fetched.

What?

Here's US census data regarding exports. Most starving countries don't buy it, they get it in aid (which is included in export totals).
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0848.pdf

Wheat for 2010: 27,592,000 TONS, which equals 60,812,768,000 lbs (almost 61 billion lbs).
Feed grains : 54,794,000T= 120,765,976,000lbs.

How many people do you think that wheat alone feeds?