| By George (George) on Thursday, October 04, 2001 - 05:04 pm: Edit |
Hi Folks,
I've been thinking about this for a while.
Genetically Engineered Food is a big topic with a little voice. There is plenty of "evidence" on both side of the topic but lets face it, it's all just speculation until our species has had several generations of breeding to see if it really is and issue.
My question is "Don't we have a right to make a "Freedom of Choice" decision for ourselves and our customers on whether or not we want to eat or serve products that contain Genetically Engineered components?"
Should all food products wholesale, retail, produce, grains, meat, fish etc all be required to contain full disclosure of GM ingredients or orgin?
| By Thebaker (Thebaker) on Thursday, October 04, 2001 - 06:29 pm: Edit |
Yes
If it has any GM ingriediants it should list it,,
Where I work we use organic stuff and some of the items come labeled NON GMO meaning no genetically modofied ingrediants
| By Chefspike (Chefspike) on Thursday, October 04, 2001 - 10:00 pm: Edit |
Hav'ent we been eating engineered food for years?
hothouse fruit, produce, being pushed to grow by additives, ect,ect. I don't get this issue. I for one don't want to spend the extra money on organic food or packaging with lables that I will never read. As long as its not solient green or something like it, I really don't care.
Maybe I'm just nieve(sp.)Let me know.
Peace, and now Justice.
| By Cheftim (Cheftim) on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 12:39 am: Edit |
I don't think we are talking about food that has been manipulated by cross breading only actual gene splicing.
As George has said there is evidence on both sides of the story.
Most of the anti arguments I have seen have been hysterics or just plain bad science on the gripping hand people should be informed about what they are eating. If there no problem with GM food there should not be a problem with labeling it. Of course there will be an initial resistance but again people have a right to know what they are eating and be able to make informed choices.
| By George (George) on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 08:31 am: Edit |
There is a big difference between cross breeding and pollinating and actually messing with genes on an individual level.
Here is an undisputed (I believe)story on how GM products have killed insects (Monarch Butterflies) inadvertently.
Genetically modified crops may kill Monarch Butterfly
| By Applemanmark (Applemanmark) on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 09:51 am: Edit |
I think it would be wise to approach genetically engineered food diferent than we have other things like this.For instance we've been feeding antibiotics to poultry and beef to promote growth for a long time now and we are finding that this has not been a good thing. In fact I feel its going to become one of them disasterous practices similar to DDT pesticides. Where we find out its harmful effects much too late, and have alot of dead people from super infections ,that are immune to antibiotics. If we leave this kind of stuff up to the market place to govern itself the bottom line will look great but what about public health?
| By Cheftim (Cheftim) on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 12:20 pm: Edit |
From
http://www.biotechknowledge.com/showscience.php3?science_id=8&country=us
Quote:Summary
In 1999 a Cornell University report showed that Monarch larvae which were force-fed Bt corn pollen in a laboratory had a lesser chance of survival than other larvae.
However, this experiment was conducted in a laboratory, not in the natural habitat of the Monarch butterfly. Since this experiment took place, many others have been conducted which counter the Cornell report's results. Finally, the North American monarch population has increased over the last few years -- the same years when record numbers of Bt corn was planted.
| By Cheftim (Cheftim) on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 12:57 pm: Edit |
There is great potential with GM food.
Yes, one potential is a possible environmental disaster. Another is and end to hunger.
| By George (George) on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 01:48 pm: Edit |
The concept of force feeding something to lab animals is used to help exhibit something that might happen in a larger sample.
My favorite example of that is that back in the 70's they fed the equivalent of thousands of times the amount of an artificial sweetener (was it cyclamates, not sure) that a normal rat would consume (rats drinking diet soda??) and this produced cancer in the rats so the cyclamates were prohibited by the FDA.
It turned out that the sugar industry paid for this testing. (Obviously ignoring that feeding the rats the same proportion of sugar would have caused morbid obesity and probably diabetes)
My big thing is just that we should know if these products are in our food and that we should have a choice
| By Chefspike (Chefspike) on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 09:19 pm: Edit |
ok. I did'nt know. will this affect fruit? Nuts?
and stuff pastry guys use? Flour's?
Peace.
| By Peachcreek (Peachcreek) on Sunday, October 07, 2001 - 12:25 pm: Edit |
Chefspike, grains are one of the big areas of GM research. Remember Starling Corn and Golden Rice controversies from the past few years? And then there is the problem of cross-pollenation with non-GM grains.
Pandoras' Box Redux.