Jefferson

That's simply not what's going on.

Do you folks know what Hybrids are? Virtually EVERY crop that has been planted by EVERY farmer in developed countries has been a HYBRID for over 50 years. Even every apple you eat is a hybrid - unless is is from root-stock "crab apple" roots.

Virtually ALL livestock is Hybrid stock. One breed is artificially and intentionally crossed with another. In addition, almost all farmers do selective breeding.

And guess what? Though that makes these crops and this livestock Genetically Modified, it does NOT make these crops, or this livestock, bad or harmful! In fact, selective breeding and hybrid stock is why beef and pork have only a percentage of the fat they used to have. It's why chicken is more tender.


I can also assure you that most of the people who are all scared about "chemicals" and "bio-engineered" crops and meat are simply wrong. I'll refer you to the "Alar Myth".

So you're all free to pay 3x more money for "certified organic" produce and meat if you wish. But the majority of the time, you're just paying more money for the same product. I am close enough to agriculture to know exactly how this works - and, in fact, many of the people in my family are farmers. I can give you a 100% guarantee that, though they are not organic, you will NEVER find ANYTHING in the beef they sell that is NOT in organic beef. It's just not there.


But the last, and most significant, thing that puzzles me is this: Most people who are "earth friendly" and "organic" are also people who are determined to try to live the longest. If you truly believed in the environment, and that human beings are destroying it, wouldn't you try to die young? Wouldn't you WANT to die as young as possible, having had NO children, in order to be as minimally intrusive to the environment as possible? You should NOT be taking ANY kind of medication for ANYTHING - preventative or otherwise. It's just self-contradictory. Just a thought...

hevusa

Jefferson

People in this thread are not talking about food produced to amplify positive natural traits. They ARE however talking about GM food that has been given unnatural traits that were not there to begin with.

No long term study has been done to show this as being safe for the public to consume.

As much as you'd like to think it is safe, we simply don't know.

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Jefferson

For the MOST part, it's the SAME FOOD.

What do you NOT understand about that?


But you go right ahead and think whatever you want. Pay 3x more for "certified organic" foods, even though you have NO IDEA where those foods come from - of if they're being grown right across the fence from a guy who's spraying chemicals on every acre he farms (this literally happens across America). You don't even have any way of knowing exactly what "certified organic" means or entails (A farmer only has to be "organic" for 3 years to be certified - regardless of the FACT that there may be 50 years' worth of Atrazine in his soil. In addition, he can spread manure from ANYWHERE on his land, and he also can use feed supplements that are from rendered animals.).

You don't know where your "certified organic" food comes from.

I know where my "non-organic" food comes from!

hevusa

It is not food in its natural state. And noone knows what that will do to people in the long run.

I'll enjoy my organic products regardless simply because they taste better, are more safe and are a superior product overall.

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Morality is not contingent on religion to exist. Therefore religion only detracts from the purity of morality.

Jefferson

...or at least that's what you've been TOLD. But you have absolutely no way of knowing for sure - unless you're growing your own veggies. And even then, you'll be planting genetically modified seeds.

Nebraskaboy

I can't lie, I don't care enough for my own personal well-being to give two shits about organic or non organic, its all the same to me. Plus I feel like a hippie eating anything with organic in the title.

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Dylan

GM foods haven't shown any adverse effects, and we've been eating the lab sort for thirty years. You'd think something serious would have happened?

Genetic modification increases the yeild, nutrition, and resistence of a plant. It has dramatically reduced the use of pesticides. Monsanto has picked it up because fewer farmers want to use pesticide over safer methods, like genetic modification.

One of the more common methods of genetic modification is the addition of a gene from a bacteria that acts as an insect repellant. Organic farmers have been spraying it on their crops for years. The only difference now is that the bacteria is inside every cell of the plant.

I don't think that genetic modification in a lab is the same as hybridization and selective breeding, although that case could be made. At the same time, I think "Frankenfood" is an absurd, reactionary way to address science.

One thing I am conerned about is the reduced numbers of monarch butterflies, which has been attributed to Bt corn. (Bt is the bacteria that I was talking about). The population has picked up recently though, as new buffer zones and farming methods have been developed. The last report I read said that the monarch population is stabilizing.

Scientists already knew that Bt kills butterflies, but not humans.

They've tested these foods, concentrated thousands of times, on lab rats. I don't know what else you want, beyond scientific trials that show no signifigant damage. Sure, it hasn't been long enough to see if GM foods cause cancer fifty years down the line, but are you going to ignore progress for something that there is no evidence of, and probably won't change anything until the distant future?

There are very few regulations in America about what's organic and what's not. Most crops have been contaminated by GM pollen at this point. It's showed up in remote parts of Mexico, in ancient strains of maize.

Organic products are more likely to transmit diseases like Hepatitis, since they use manure for fertilizer.

Jefferson

Exactly.

Dylan

I forgot to add that organic products are overpriced. People that buy them are getting ripped off.

hevusa

Like having the highest cancer rate in the world?


I have had organic milk and regular milk in a side by side taste test. It is like night and day.

__________________
--- help me Instant Runoff Voting, you're my only hope ---

"There is no such thing as laziness. Laziness is only lack of incentive." Norman Reider, MD

Morality is not contingent on religion to exist. Therefore religion only detracts from the purity of morality.