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Cheerios To Go GMO-Free
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "ABC News reports that General Mills has ended the use of genetically modified ingredients in Cheerios, its flagship breakfast food. General Mills has been manufacturing its original-flavor Cheerios without GMOs for the past several weeks in response to consumer demand. Original Cheerios will now be labeled as 'Not Made With Genetically Modified Ingredients,' although that it is not an official certification. 'We were able to do this with original Cheerios because the main ingredients are oats,' says Mike Siemienas, noting that there are no genetically modified oats. The company is primarily switching the cornstarch and sugar to make the original Cheerios free of GMOs. Green America has been targeting Cheerios for the past year to raise the profile of the anti-GMO movement. 'This is a big deal,' says Green America's Todd Larsen. 'Cheerios is an iconic brand and one of the leading breakfast cereals in the U.S. We don't know of any other example of such a major brand of packaged food, eaten by so many Americans, going from being GMO to non-GMO.' For its part, General Mills says, It's not about safety,' and will continue to use GMOs in other food products."
> For its part, General Mills says, It's not about safety,' and will continue to use GMOs in other food products.
Correct. It's not about safety. It's about giving customers what they want, which is the result of scientifically illiterate scare tactics by talking heads making a career of it.
It's all one stupid cluster fuck anyway. Science keeps developing ways to make food even cheaper, and government keeps deliberately forcing the price up to help farmers.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
So you're saying that the increase in productivity of GMO grains over "traditional" grains, given the same arable land area is enough to feed an additional billion people? In a word: bullshit.
Nope, this is a lobbying message subsidized by Monsanto and co, it is actually very possible to feed everyone with the food we create and the land we have. More importantly, it hides the fact that GMOs are not at all used to feed the aforementioned starving peoples. Quite contrarily, GMO seeds have been repeatedly used for market domination through legislative bullying, most infamously ending in the suicide of farmers in india due to non-affordable seed prices after Monsanto cleared the market from other companies by undercutting and legal bullying before rising the cost.
In other news today, 1/3 of the world is now Obese.
We don't need no stinkin' GMO food, it's all about making seed banks all bound to Intellectual Property and making money for Monsanto, et al. Call a horse a horse.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm seriously sick of this ignorant crap. There is absolutely no known possible mechanism for GM foods to cause cancer because they're GM. If you're going to speculate, at least look into real possible risks like those associated with glyphosate salts used in agriculture. If you're going to attack GM, focus on the real issues like intellectual property associated with staple crops.
Also, look up mutation breeding, which is how most of our non-GM foods came into existence.
Have you actually looked into the actual court cases surrounding Monsanto?
You would be surprised. The examples that people trot out of "Farmer Brown" as you say, had the farmers lose in court as they were deliberately and knowingly taking GMO seeds.
Monsanto will in fact, pay farmers for any crops contaminated via cross pollination for farms that do not have an agreement.
The truth of the matter in agriculture is much more complex than all the IT people here on Slashdot would have you believe.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
The existence of GMOs have NOT boosted production in the slightest. What GMOs do is make the plants immune to a particular herbicide. This herbicide immunity, by the way, is an immunity being acquired by other "pest" plants which were the original target of the herbicide.
In the absense of GMOs the people would still be fed. GMOs do not represent a world-saving technology. What they represent is a danger to the world's food supply not only because it comes under control of a small collection of companies, but because it reduces the varieties of plants available. In the event a disease develops to wipe out these GMOs, there may be extreme starvation and human suffering due to the continual growth of GMO use.
Please shill for Monsanto elsewhere. You're just wrong about so much.
Well, so far, we're not too stupid to have labels required for ingredients, for % of nutrients...
We're not too stupid to have labels required on things like fish, to know what their country of origin is....
So, what's the deal with giving us a label to know if it is GMO or not? I'd dare say, most people too stupid to study this and make an "informed decision" are likely not ever going to bother looking at the labels.
But for those that do want to know..what's the harm? When is having information about your food ever a bad thing?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You're not getting it. It's not about the absolute rightness or wrongness of GMO . It's about the fact that a very significant portion of the people WANT GMO labeling.
People also want a lot of things I could do without, but so what. Who am i? Who are you? Who is Monsanto to decide we can't know true facts about the things we put in our bodies???
The worst disasters in history haven't been because people had too much information some of which was useless. The worst disasters come about because some small segment of our population thinks it knows what's good for the rest of us and tries to impose it's will on us. So that's shit like Vietnam and all kinds of imperialism generally. People want this- it means something to them. People also want kosher shit because it MEANS something to them. People want country of origin labeling for meat for GOOD reason- because some nations practice poor CJD defense and some don't. People want dolphin free tuna because it MEANS something to them and their value system. Stop telling people what should and should not be significant to them.
Just. Stop it.
Also, as a matter of fact, you don't know that all present and future GMO products are not unsafe in ways people fear. I know what because I looked into it and decided for myself that the risk it low, but by no means zero. By no means.