I don’t think we’re saying “GM is good”- just that GM is not new. Only GM in the laboratory is new. Some GM is probably not good- just like some sorts of selective breeding can lead to problems (like the health problems in many dog breeds).
Actually, not exactly true. When we were primarily hunter gatherers our nutrition was pretty good. When we started agriculture our size and lifespan took a nosedive, since we went from a variety of food to a small number of not very good plants. (This was before we genetically modified them to be more nutritious.) So becoming mostly vegetarian was bad for us in the short run at least.
GM foods should not be abolished but they should be labeled. Let the consumer (you know, the individual purchasing the product) make the choice.
- Honesty
Why should they be labeled? We don’t label foods with the type and concentration of pesticide used (which would be more relevant, but still unnecessary, information).
Out of all the factors that a consumer may want to know in order to make a decision, which of them do you think the law should require labels for?
Which pesticides were used?
How long since it was picked/harvested?
Whether the field workers were unionized?
The immigration status of the workers?
How long since the crops on that land were rotated?
Maybe if we required labels for all the things that consumers might want to know about, you’d get a hefty data sheet for every piece of produce you bought.
Yeah, it would be much easier for non-GM foods to be labeled, just like organic foods are labeled. We don’t require producers of non-organic foods to label their products as such. If the producers and consumers of non-GM foods care about it enough, they can set up non-GM certifications and label their foods however they wish.
The fact is, the vast majority of foods contain at least some trace-level GM ingredients. It makes a lot more sense for the minority (non-GM/organic) foods to be labeled to indicate what the producers and consumers of those foods consider to be important. Trying to impose labeling on the majority of foods, indicating something that the majority of people don’t care about, is little more than a publicity stunt for a movement that’s rooted in ignorance.
You may very well be right, but you got a cite for that? I’ve never heard that assertion before.
And what gets labeled as “GM food”? Plenty - probably most by now - crops shaped by selective breeding include variations that were created by exposing their ancestors to mutagens (radiation, chemicals, etc) and keeping the useful mutants. That’s just as much “genetic modification” as genetic engineering is; it’s just random. And as pointed out, selective breeding itself is a form of genetic modification. Whose definition of “GM food” gets used?
Besides; last I heard, most of these “anti-GM” food campaigns are pushed by food companies to drive out their rivals, especially foreign ones. You just end up exchanging one batch of “GM food” for another.
Right. As soon as you develop a test that can tell the difference, we can run every product through and label it accordingly.
That’s a hypothesis, and some local evidence supports that, but a lot of other evidence is either inconclusive or indicates a fair amount of premature death among hunter-gatherers, too. Hunter-gatherer lifestyle is no protection against parasites and a fair number of other pathogens, and nutritional deficiencies, while perhaps more episodic, can still be as devastating.
Mother nature really doesn’t care how healthy we are once we’ve successfully reproduced.
Yes. And indeed, early cultivation did start us down the “slippery slope” as Voyager points out. (And many endemic diseases arise from our proximity to similarly-overpopulated domesticated animals.)
I’m amazed that most people ignore that high population is at the root of so many of today’s problems. The attitude seems to be “people screamed about it in the 1960’s but the earth didn’t implode, therefore they were just hysterical.”
Of course, as Chief Pedant implies, no acceptable plan has been proposed for rapid population reduction. :dubious:
Here is one I found. I read it in Guns, Germs and Steel as confirmed by this link, And I was surprised by this also.
I tried to make it clear that I was not claiming hunter gatherers lived to 100 with no disease. Of course not. Things just got worse when we moved to agriculture.
But is the best way of reducing population starvation, or is it plenty of food? Compare Europe to Africa. People who fear starvation seem to have more kids to help support them, and that just makes things worse. People who have plenty to eat have fewer kids. The world is better fed than was expected 40 years ago, and our population situation is also a bit more hopeful.
It sounds as informed and nuanced as a christian fundamentalist talking about homosexuality.
That’s part of it. It seems to be the combination of women’s rights, general prosperity and birth control.
I did not suggest that GM should be banned in order to cause population reduction. :smack: Rather I consider the need for GM to be one of many unfortunate effects of overpopulation.
Uh, because I’m the consumer and I’d like to know if the seed which my food was grown has been genetically modified. It’s a personal decision and labeling should be forthright. Maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to eat corn whose seed has been transformed using a viral vector containing both prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes. I know, I know - the peanut gallery will retort that we’ve been transforming our agriculture using viral vectors since antiquity :rolleyes:. What the peanut gallery doesn’t understand (and will never comprehend) is inserting genes from other species into plants does not equate to selective breeding; unfortunately, for them, there’s no difference between Gregor Mendel and Craig Venter nor between selective breeding and in vitro genetic modifcation.
I should ask you: why do you want to stuff genetically modified food down my throat? Shouldn’t I, as the consumer (the person shelling money for the product) get an opportunity to NOT purchase genetically modified food via clear and concise labeling?
- Honesty
Why does this matter? I’m generally supportive of the labeling idea even though I think it’s pure hysteria, but I agree that if it happens it’s just going to empower people to make irrational decisions based on nonsense, poor science, and made-up industry terms of art like “natural flavors.”
Very interesting, thanks!