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Avoiding GM Foods? Monsanto Says You're Overly Fussy
blackbeak writes "The BBC today characterized those who avoid GM foods as overly fussy, the very same day that the Wall Street Journal announced that picky eating may be recognized in the 2013 DSM as a psychiatric disorder. The DSM item refers to something completely different, though I'm sure many will confuse the two. Of course, this was not done without subterfuge; the BBC's author, Professor Jonathan Jones, in no way indicates his close ties to Monsanto. Point by point Jones regurgitates the same pro-GM arguments debunked numerous times all over the net for years, while serving up some stale half facts too."
I Want to avoid Ford, Chrysler, and Toyota foods too
They're the guys overly fussy about protecting their intellectual property in genetic modification, right?
I'm sorry but TFA says 'viewpoint' quite clearly. Apparently his points have been 'debunked numerous times' and his facts are 'stale half facts', but where are the links supporting these claims?
I think the [MS Word] paperclip is a great idea. - Miguel de Icaza
I would personally prefer to stay away from Monsanto based products not because I don't trust their science, but because I dislike their business practices and media tomfoolery. GM crops are a double-edged sword by all neutral study, having definite benefits of their own but creating potentially disastrous consequences (super-bugs and super-weeds, which are nearly immune to conventional herb- or insecticides), but the Intellectual Property abuse that comes of their use is hurting more farmers than those issues for now.
Kdawson complaining about crappy news reporting...heh.
OH! That's what GM stands for. Good thing the summary mentions that. Oh, wait...
that's teh shizzle bizzle
Genetically modified foods are just foods. There's nothing "natural" about selectively bred crops. Unless you're going into the woodlands and picking wild berries for breakfast you're eating unnatural food. Welcome to the modern world.
How we know is more important than what we know.
that would be the same naturalnews that have such a firm grasp on the concept of medicine then..
For example their wonderful views on MMR http://www.naturalnews.com/025596_vaccines_immune_system_doctors.html
The best way to find the problems is to put it into mass use.
Health problems are often subtle, and frequently masquerade as something else.
As a non-obese diet caffeine free soda drinker in his early thirties that has recently found out he is diabetic ... I will eat GM food and use GM and nano products. Please make em available. If other people are to scared of the bogey man then great I'll have benefits they don't.
Like diabetes, eh?
It's completely ridiculous that they can't give GM crops to starving people because protestors,
It's completely ridiculous that there are starving people, with all the food that goes wasted or goes into ethanol/biodiesel. Mechanization -> unlimited abundance. Poverty is now a political problem more than anything else.
Please figure out a way to make carb free bread that doesn't suck.
How about this: your body can't handle bread. Stop eating it. That'd be the smart thing to do.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Why on earth do you need a carb-free bread? Unless you are allergic, just manage your eating habits in a normal way.
The point of the above sentence being: medicine is not always the best answer. Third world countries are starving because we 1. destroy their local farmers' economy by dumping free food on them (note that when the chinese are dumping textile on european / USA markets, we start adding trade taxes for a reason), and 2. destroy what food-production they still have by making it financial beneficial for individual farmers to grow cheap maize for our cattle, rather than food for their countrymen. (3. Because their governments are far from brilliant, but we're not making it easy for those governments either).
I can see that one solution is to make the few farmers these countries have be more efficient in producing grain with GM crops, but there's also the solution of 'lets stop to abuse the fcuk out of third world countries', which seems to be the higher moral ground.
I think its a worrying trend when a company attempts to have people who don't like their product as suffering from a psychiatric disorder. The corporate masters of Western society are using the same techniques as the Soviet Government. What's next, compulsory treatment of people who avoid certain foods? I know that all they probably have in mind mow is having their detractors classed as mentally unstable, but if that becomes generally accepted what will the next step be?
Eating those crops _might_ not pose a health risk, you might not die from it. This can be and will be proven again and again, but that's not the issue.
Allowing a company like Monsanto muscle itself into the world food business by IP protected crops, that's the real illness that we must protect ourselves from.
There is so much evidence that Monsanto is a dirty company, anyone who eats there GM stuff must be a Microsoft fan boy.
This Mr. Jones is on the scientific advisory board of Mendel Biotech, which states on their own web page: "Mendel's most important customer and collaborator for our technology business is Monsanto".
A) Mendel did not do engineering, he did experimentations on crossbreeding
B) He also did not then patent the genome of wheat or peas so that all german farmers would have to buy their seeds from his monastery, their fertilizer from his monastery, and their insecticides from his monastery, while suing people who would accidentally get his seeds through natural pollinization.
Die, shill
what about superweeds that are now glyphosate resistant and mirid bug plagues in Northern China because they haven't been using pesticides on their bollworm killing GM-Cotton from Monsanto. Nothing is as simple as Monsanto wants you to believe. We are only now seeing the effects of decades of use of this stuff.
I'm afraid that "debunked numerous times all over the net" isn't a persuasive argument. Any nutcase can claim to "debunk" anything, and many do. You can find many self-proclaimed "debunkers" of climate change, evolution, the Holocaust, Obama's nationality ... anything. Having a bunch of bloggers attacking a topic doesn't have a damn thing to do with how scientifically accurate an idea is. Why didn't this guy actually cite some SCIENTIFIC refutations instead of a scaremongering blog?
Personally I think that Monsanto has some pretty evil business practices, but as for health effects to consumers, I have no problem. I don't believe Monsanto could cover up evidence of that if they tried. There are already a lot of unpleasant things in food -- pesticides, rat droppings, steroids, antibiotics, radioactives, etc, etc. As much in "organic" foods as anything else. Not to say these are fine, but that there are no perfectly pure and healthy foods if you examine them in microscopic detail. You have to measure and set a limit; but zero is just impossible. The real world is imperfect.
At least in Europe, this is really Monsanto's problem. The fact is that "the people" have spoken and the vast majority have decided that they'd rather pay more than eat GM food. The majority of people don't want it, so the shops won't sell it, so the farmers won't grow it. There isn't a step in that chain that wouldn't jump at GM if they thought it would increase their profits and they could get away with it.
There isn't a restaurant in the UK that doesn't have a sign "We do not knowingly use GM ingredients". Quite frankly, if they could be sure to not use them accidentally then there would instead be a sign "We do not use GM ingredients".
It's somewhat refreshing that, for once, "the people" have chosen a path that I want to follow. My concern about GM foods isn't that they couldn't be safer, or even better, than non-GM foods but that the drive to GM is being driven by the search for profit.
BP was drilling in the Gulf in the quest for profit. It made the choices it made because it felt at the time that they had the best return on investment. It doesn't really matter whether they were criminally negligent, too laissez-faire, or just unlucky, the results are the same. There's no reason to suppose that a similar scale of accident couldn't happen with GM crops.
Corporations have too much power and too little interest in "doing the right thing". They have as little regard for their host, the human race, as the malaria parasite has for its host.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
The misinformation they spread about GM foods is just as bad, if not worse, than the lack of information about which products are and aren't genetically modified.
The evidence is currently against pro GM food blind faith supporters - the fact is that Pro GM food really "don't know WTF they're talking about". Quote from the link:
As of January 2009 there has only been one human feeding study conducted on the effects of genetically modified foods
ONE STUDY. So much for peer review. On the other hand, there have been numerous non human studies, and every single one that has found evidence that indicate that things might not be as rosy as Monsanto and friends claim has been contested by the GM industry - in some cases not attacking the science, but resorting to character assassination and smear campaigns.
If you claim that GM food skeptical consumers don't know WTF they are talking about - what does that make GM supporters, given the massive void of research into long term effects of GM Food? Personally I would call it blind faith - so I prefer my food to be clearly labeled and my politicians to be unbiased, so I can make an informed choice for me. You can eat whatever you want.
The only thing ridiculous is your ignorance of science.
There is nothing in glyphosate that will stick around beyond a very short period or leech itself into the ground and modify it future non-glyphosate protected seeds will no grow.
Please show some scientic info that even hints at soil being modified by glyphosate protected seeds so they will not grow other seeds.
You do more damage to the soil for a longer time by using vinegar based herbicides then you do with round-up and glyphosate
This is right, roundup does not prevent non-resistent plants from growing where it was applied. So yes, Monsanto is evil, but the grandparent AC claim is false, unless AC wants to log in and clarify.
...too many people are far too full of their own self-importance these days to "never have the time" for anything - this is one thing you start to realise when you get to middle-age like me.
As soon as you hand over too much personal responsibility to big, evil corporations like Monsanto, they will exploit you for financial gain - that is the purpose of a corporation.
The solution is to take your head out of your backside and make time to grow a few things yourself - in plastic tubs, on a small patch of soil, whatever. No, you don't need to be self-sufficient, grow a few things so that you can feed yourself to a degree, then with the money you save use it to buy better produced home-grown foodstuffs.
Companies like Monsanto exist because there are certain problems that are created when you try to grow foodstuffs in places where it wouldn't normally grow or when it's only economical to grow it there in the first place if there is a certain minimum yield per acre, hectare, etc. We ourselves create those problems because we expect food at a certain price and refuse to eat based on seasonal produce.
Monsanto is a demon created by our own consumer demand - go back 40 years and foodstuffs were transported less, more of it was homegrown and took up a higher proportion of incomes because local producers had to pay reasonable pay to their workers.
I'm not one of these green "loonies" either, I'm more scared about the power we willingly give to huge corporations over what we may or may not be doing to the planet.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.