Outside the US, veggies that have been bio-engineered must have warning labels. Should they be labeled as bio-engineered in the US?
DebiJ
“If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?”
I think that anything that is added or altered on a vegetable should be labeled so the consumer knows. For example, a soybean seed was bread with genes from a Brazil nut to boost the protein levels. However, someone with an allergy to Brazil nuts could eat the soybean or something made with soybean and have a reaction. And they wouldn’t even know it was coming.
Here’s an article http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/JF00/pandora.html
Personally, I have no problem with bio-engineered food, vegetable or animal. In fact, I think it’s a fine idea. However, I have no objection to its being labeled as such so that folks who don’t think it’s a fine idea can easily avoid it.
FWIW, I have the same attitude towards irradiated (or is it radiated?) food. I’m virtually aglow over it.
Putting a warning label on bioengineered food assumes that there is a risk involved in consuming it. To date there hasn’t been any credible evidence to suggest any danger from eating any of these foods. If you insist on labeling them, allow the farmers to sell them as “new and improved” or whatever. Labeling them in any other way will just feed the fear born out of ignorance, not the starving.
“We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.”
Robert Wilensky
Foodstuffs should all be labelled. Not just those made from GMOs; all of them, right down to the peaches in the crates. In addition to their percentages of RDAs per (realistic-sized) serving, they can also have evocative little warnings on them, such as, “Warning: these organic Brussels sprouts were grown using manure as fertilizers, and may therefore be contaminated with E. coli”.
It is often said that “anything is possible”. In fact, very few things are possible, and most of them have already happened.
I agree that warning labels should only be mandated for products that have actually been determined to have a health risk. If a company wants to put a label on their food indicating that it has not been ‘bio-engineered’ then they are welcome to the extra business they will get from those who wish an inferior product at a higher cost.
DebiJ wrote:
The problem with this argument is that every modern crop has been genetically modified. Most of the time, it’s been through selective breeding. More recently, the genes have been modified by using harsh chemicals to make random mutations, and seeing what happens. Now, they’re just more precise about it. To get truly informative labels, it would take a PhD to figure them out. The warning label flap specific to gene-spliced plants is meant merely to scare the luddites.
I’d be suspicious of Mother Jones as a scientific source - the brazil nut allergy story is one that should be used by the other side. The engineers knew that one of the brazil nut genes was responsible for the allergy, but they didn’t know which. After they spliced in the gene to make soybeans more nutritious, they tested and found that they had indeed brought the allergen in as well, so they discontinued development of the product.
I have no problem with bioengineered foods, if it makes them more tasty, more nourishing, keeps them fresher longer or makes vegetables bigger. Most tomatoes are picked somewhat green and gas ripened, a process I’ve never been fond of, but tomatoes spoil quickly so it lengthens their market life.
Besides, I always learned that the stomach acids rip everything apart, except for some resistant bacteria, and genetic material, I would think, would die when bathed in the solution. So, what’s the problem. Current genetic treatments bypass the stomach or are given in pills designed to pass through the stomach and dissolve in the less acidic intestines.
I had no problem with irradiated foods either, except for those which changed during the process. Like, it was discovered that irradiating chicken destroyed some of the vitamins and caused some of the chemicals in the meat to change slightly into substances that MIGHT be harmful.
I mean, with the price of power going through the roof, it would be nice to have perishable foods that could sit on the shelf for months and have only a small refrigerator instead of a power guzzling monster with a huge freezer to preserve meats.
What? Me worry?’
I think all vegetables should carry a warning label that reads: “WARNING - this product is a vegetable and will thus taste icky-poo to any children it is fed to. Prepare at your own risk.”