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Old 09-22-2012, 11:04 PM   #1
Cavernio
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Default genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

Anyone who's talked to me probably won't be surprised that I'm posting this.

We've all probably heard about people who are worried about GMOs and pesiticides. However, I myself have not really been concerned about it too much, not enough to bother eating purely organic that's for sure.

Someone posted this in my celiac forum, and I actually went into it thinking 'I bet it's a bunch of correlational research and fear-mongering'. Halfway through though, I'm pretty concerned about all non-organic foods now. There's still plenty of individual stories and correlations and speculation, but there's also a few pretty astounding studies that they talk about, and more than a few others that they don't get into because there's actually THAT much done research that warns us about this stuff.
And apparently the head of the FDA is also the head of a major agribusiness company, the one which also creates one of the most widespread pesticides in the US.

http://geneticroulettemovie.com/

It's long so it fits right in with my posts. I'm still watching it myself.
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Old 09-23-2012, 08:37 AM   #2
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

I don't think GMOs in and of themselves can be an issue. All you're doing is taking the DNA strand, cutting out a piece of it and replacing it with something else. It's not chemically modified. We can create them in the lab and GMOs are often superior to 'natural' counterparts.

Especially when you consider that just about every food on the market right now is technically a GMO. The only difference is that the genes were modified by artificial selection from humans rather than enzymatic isolation in the laboratory, and honestly, it's not like there's a difference.

Now chemicals and pesticides are a whole other matter, since it's obviously plausible that they could be harmful.
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Old 09-23-2012, 10:47 AM   #3
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

That is exactly what I thought Reach. Exactly why I went in very skeptical, and the pesticides/herbicides thing is exacty why I have been slowly switching to eat organic aready.

Just watch the whole thing. It's kinda pointless to talk about it otherwise, either in agreement or disagreement. If you want to go do other research and bring that in too, please do. I probably will. However, again, please watch the video along with it, so we at least have the same base point.

Ugh, can't help myself. One thing that one guy says somewhere near the end is that this one company (which seems to be the blame for literally for everything wrong with current GMOs), is trying to splice in strands from agent orange into some crop, so that we no longer need to spray it.
And maybe they aren't, but honestly, seeing what the Monsanto corporation has already integrated into their crops, this is 100% believable.

Last edited by Cavernio; 09-23-2012 at 10:57 AM..
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Old 09-27-2012, 03:42 PM   #4
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

http://www.barnstablecounty.org/wp-c...ell-lines2.pdf

If anyone cares.
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Old 09-27-2012, 04:39 PM   #5
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

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Originally Posted by Cavernio View Post
Just watch the whole thing. It's kinda pointless to talk about it otherwise, either in agreement or disagreement.
Can you provide a free version and/or good summary?
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Old 09-28-2012, 07:31 PM   #6
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

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Originally Posted by Reach View Post

Now chemicals and pesticides are a whole other matter, since it's obviously plausible that they could be harmful.
Well according to the American Cancer Society, they pose no significant threat whatsoever. Though I'm not certain how credible their research is.


I don't think we know enough about GMO yet to be making radical assumptions. Being a chef I've worked with every kind of produce/meat whether it be organic, backyard organic, mass produced or whatever. Honestly the only difference is size and taste. GMO from a large farm can be of much greater size but it's subjective whether the taste is better or not.
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Old 09-28-2012, 10:31 PM   #7
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

This is why I grow my own shit so I do not have to worry about anything.

Very soon...my oranges will be ready! ^^
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Old 09-29-2012, 02:07 AM   #8
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

if this is radical and life changing information, why do I have to pay for it
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Old 10-1-2012, 01:04 PM   #9
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

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if this is radical and life changing information, why do I have to pay for it
huh?
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Old 10-1-2012, 03:42 PM   #10
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odCSWY05u4Q

Oops, I watched the other one no problem?

http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-...etic-roulette/

Critique about the movie but it seems to mention things that I don't actually find in the movie? I think there may have been an older version of the documentary that has since been changed.

Summary, summary...I've read too much around this whole thing to give a good summary of the movie anymore. But I will give an opinion-ish summary.

In very short, I took away from it is that GMO is pervasive in the US (and in Canada too, although that's not in the video at all). The questionable part of GMO is that it seems the vast majority if not all of the GMO are modified to produce pesticides/herbicides or to resist dying to Round Up. (There exist studies which show that these crops are far from benign to animals. There are a lot of anecdotes from farmers who point out that feeding GMO feed to their animals made them sick some to the point of dying. Some couldn't reproduce. There seems to be quite a few people upset that the FDA has approved things they should not have, and also claims that people within the FDA did not support these agricultural products to be released without further testing of their safety.
Not in question is that GMO have been in widespread use in the US since 1994. Soybeans, corn and canola seem to be the biggest GMOs.

At a very base level it seems that if you are worried about pesticides in/on your food, you would not want to eat any GMO food. But if you are worried about it then you wouldn't be eating it anyways since organic food can't be genetically modified.

I'm slowly reading published studies regarding some of these crops. While the only seriously alarming ones seem to be regarding increased-lectin content potatoes (which I do not believe are on the market), there seems to be enough for me, personally, to want to avoid eating any Bt product. I'm sporting some pretty serious intestinal damage from being a celiac that will likely take years to heal, I don't need other possible interactions making it slower or worse.

So much info out there though. Have barely scratched the surface.
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Old 10-1-2012, 04:29 PM   #11
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reach View Post
I don't think GMOs in and of themselves can be an issue. All you're doing is taking the DNA strand, cutting out a piece of it and replacing it with something else. It's not chemically modified. We can create them in the lab and GMOs are often superior to 'natural' counterparts.

Especially when you consider that just about every food on the market right now is technically a GMO. The only difference is that the genes were modified by artificial selection from humans rather than enzymatic isolation in the laboratory, and honestly, it's not like there's a difference.

Now chemicals and pesticides are a whole other matter, since it's obviously plausible that they could be harmful.
I think the biggest issue with GMOs is that we don't modify them to be more energy efficient or have certain nutrients in them. Monsanto likes to make money off of these GMO seeds, so you keep buying products from them.

Pesticides, I would say, are more harmful for the environment than anything else. They create deadzones and screw up the ecosystem and screw up the fishers by forcing them to fish elsewhere due to the deadzones.
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Old 10-2-2012, 01:41 AM   #12
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Default Re: genetically modified organisms and the food we eat

As it was pointed out, GMOs are not harmful per se. If you think about it, most of the food we eat was selected during the centuries. Wheat was selected to be high and prolific, tomatoes used to be tiny yellow berries at the times of roman empire and it was only recently that the red tomatoes, both big and small, emerged. Even cattle and dogs were selected from their wild counterparts.

The real, big problem lies in the kind of modification you make. Due to the high consumption of wheat based products (not to mention dairy products), in our age we have diseases that weren't so prominent a hundred years ago, or didn't exist at all! The modifications you can make via artificial selection are limited by the time it takes and the chance of the right dna string going exactly where you want to, while with genetic engineering you can modify things in a much easier way. That is, you can modify things even in the most unnatural way. Since there is a huge market and a lot of interests behind these things, i am not surprised there is bias over the effect of certain GMOs. To make some plants un-attackable by parasites, the chemical balance of said plant has to be modified, therefore what you eat can change pretty significantly from the organic version of it; if there's something potentially harmful in it, it's usually long-term health problems, which are more difficult to investigate to find their underlying causes.

Last but not least, genetically modified plants (like some animals, a blatant example is salmon fish) can end up being much more aggressive when they grow in the wild, suffocating or replacing the natural version of the same plant (or animal).

In my opinion, it's a good idea to consume local organic products as much as possible in order to preserve yourself, the environment, and your local economy.

@kommisar: you make a pretty naive argument. taste is only marginally related to the nutritional value/healthyness of a food.
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