What's the deal with GMO foods?

[pants]

-Yeah, lets just trust Monsanto if they say their products are safe. After all they probably learned from the previous mistakes of Agent Orange and PCB....

-It's really crazy that people buying corn from Monsanto are not even allowed to test the safety of the product.
If you want to test the safety of any product, you should be free to do so.
The American law system continues to amaze me.

-A guy being hired from Monsanto to do research on the safety of the product was fired short time after he publicly announced the negatively health impact GMOs have on rats.

-I haven't payed to much attention on GMO, but from now I'll make sure to find a politically organizations opinion before voting in the next election. Make sure we can continue to keep this shit outside Norway.

 

[K Galt]

I wrote a post on this awhile back - Biotech is Godzilla

That's an anti-Monsanto diatribe, but I'll cut to the chase and give the TLR money quote as to the primary problem with GMO crops:

Here's a recently published study on the effects of glyphosate on the human gut biome (your gut bacteria, you know, the key to your immune system). Glyphosate is the key ingredient in Round Up, the herbicide that all Monsanto crops have been genetically engineered to withstand repeated spraying to kill weeds, insects and rodents?

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup®, is the most popular herbicide used worldwide. The industry asserts it is minimally toxic to humans, but here we argue otherwise. Residues are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Glyphosate's inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body.

Here, we show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. We explain the documented effects of glyphosate and its ability to induce disease, and we show that glyphosate is the “textbook example” of exogenous semiotic entropy: the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins.

All the processed food, all the feed lot grain, gardens, lawns and golf courses have been inundated with glysophate.

Well here are a couple of AMA review articles in the unlikely event that you think scientific evidence carries more weight than internet memes.

AMA articles are not "scientific evidence."

Most times, they are flawed and/or deliberately deceptive studies done to convince the sheeple that GMO's are perfectly fine.

How does this happen? Easy. It's called the revolving door of Big Ag execs who are also appointed to various cabinet and regulatory Government agencies who then work to pass laws and promote propaganda so that the Big Ag corps like Monsanto and Cargill et al can get away with profiting off of poisoning us all.

 

[rastignac]

Europe doesn't seem to big on it:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-18/monsanto-drops-bid-to-grow-new-gm-foods-in-eu/4829634

Nor does Asia:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/30/japan-gmo-wheat-food-concerns_n_3357240.html

You can look for scientific proof that GMO is bad for you, which is the typical stance in the States and in the media, and procede until then as if everything is OK. This approach has not worked for me.

Or you can look at the effect of the food supply on a country with widespread GMO (the obese United States) versus those that do not. It is pretty easy to see the contemporary United States as a huge experiment in how to feed a people. So much of what we eat (start with HFCS, GMO foods) is banned around the world.

I stopped eating GMO, which is difficult in the U.S., during my time abroad. In short my body changed from being a typical middle-aged testosterone challenged American to a fairly, lean thin and increasingly muscular man. Sure, I went to the gym, but no more than before.

The cases about U.S. wheat (take a look at "Wheat Belly"), while not technically GMO, seems to have some legs.

My rule, if your grandparents (increasingly, great-grandparents) did not eat it, it is not food.

 

[ElJefe]

I have a few caveats:

1) Is it totally clear that the various diseases afflicting Americans is an effect that can be isolated to chemical components of the food eaten, and not just excessive eating in general?

2) Are the apparently significant increases in various diseases due to the changing population composition of the US? All the whites are getting older - thus fatter and sicker - and our young people are increasingly mexican, who are already fat at young ages, and have a high propensity towards diabetes. Unless controlled for, that would imply automatic increases of certain disease rates.

3) Are there alternative brands you can buy? If not, why not? What's keeping the market from supplying products for something so obviously in demand?

4) In a topic such as sperm count, a study was pioneered in Denmark showing how sperm-count was decreasing over time. Denmark is one of the most puritanical socieities in the world when it comes to banning chemicals, yet Danes have worse sperm counts than Americans. That doesn't seem to clearly fit the narrative.

One thing I noticed when in CA this summer is how the banning of various pesticides has made it impossible to keep various bugs at bay. You ban the pesticides because of fear, but instead up having to deal with destroyed vegitation. I suppose there is no clear cut answer - each approach involves trade-offs. I for one never eat organic because I believe it's a marketing scam that the NET benefit is significant. Just eat appropriately and work out. I'll let you know how it goes in 30 years.

 

[Akula]

I hate to say it, but I almost feel like everything you eat back home in the US is killing you somehow. GMO is just a part of it.

It starts with Big Agriculture, who poison almost everything we eat somehow – from GMO fruits and veggies to hormone and antibiotic-laden meats. Then the big consumer product companies like Kraft, Heinz, Campbell’s etc. use all sorts of preservatives & chemicals and load up everything you eat with excessive amounts of sugar (or rather corn syrup, which is GMO) and salt and G*d knows what else. They also put all sorts of additives into the food to literally make you crave it - the fast food companies in particular do this I think.

Then you've got Big Pharma who are pushing their 'cures' for everything and come up with all these drugs for everything imaginable, from “ED” to ‘depression’ to ‘restless leg syndrome’ to ‘irritable bowel syndrome’. I’m convinced that they literally make up half these afflictions (most of which are probably side effects from some other drug, or from eating all the GMO crap or hormonal beef 24-7, or hell even from drinking soft drinks or pasteurized milk daily).

Almost everything that’s been done in the food chain in America has been geared toward making food more attractive & colorful, less perishable, more easily transportable, easier to consume and more profitable for the big companies – as opposed to making it more healthy.

I remember leaving the US and coming to EE and being amazed that the tomatoes and other veggies seemed to have more flavor abroad - and only lasted a few days in the fridge - unlike American tomatoes which last a week or more and are modified to be really plump, red, big and preserve longer. The worry now is that these GMO crops eventually spread their way around the world and get into everyone's business.

It’s pretty awful. Every time I come home and see all these obese people, and observe the eating habits and am just shocked – no wonder the US has the most obese and unhealthy people in the history of the planet. I have noticed I start feeling sick more and more when I eat a lot of the meats and foods back home too – no joke. I guess that’s our amazing capitalist system at work – you can have all the iPhones and big-screen TVs you want, but meanwhile the food is killing you….but you’ll crave it anyway….wonderful.

Seems it would be so much easier just to eat healthy and not get sick as opposed to having treatments for all these ailments that the system has created and are unlikely to go away until something changes.
But what can we do? Not sure we can do anything at this point given how powerful Big Ag & Pharma are and all the lobbying they do in congress to prove out food is nutritious and good for us. That’s a very powerful lobby – no wonder we are where we are today.

Anyway….despite all of the above, I still just can’t help myself when I’m back home and literally HAVE to have a fountain Coke and big cheeseburger from In ‘n Out burger, and Chick-fil-a, and Chipotle at least one time when I’m back.

 

[kingjuice]

Point is nobody can sure for sure that GMO foods are safe. It might take a few generations of humans to eat these foods to find out it fucks your DNA and your kids have four heads or some crazy, terrible "side effect" like that.

I think there has been enough research to suggest, GMO may not be 100% for me and most people I know just see no reason to eat it! Also, there have been studies to show GMO food is *much* less nutricious than ordinary food.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/30/monsanto-gmo-corn.aspx

Also, to feed the world, it isn't necessary for one big company to sell them mutated seeds, but for farmers to get more intelligent about how they farm. For example Indian farmers are getting huge increases in productivity by using micronutrients.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-de...3/mar/13/india-farmers-grow-micro-enrich-soil

Fringe Research has been on this for a while but Big-Agra and Mass Media dismissed its findings. Only until Harvard came out with its study last year or so did they have to stop trying to downplay the risks. These rats were given a equivalent of 25 years of a steady diet of GMO foods and all died early and/or developed rank ass tumors:

The stuff is pretty much poison. Bees don't like it, nor do ants or animals, Monsanto scientists won't even eat the stuff and demand that their staff/company cafeterias are only stocked with non-GMO products.

North America has been left in the dark on this. We are in the minority as most nations have banned the stuff outright as it: (A) It ends up crossing into the native population like a invasive species, (B) It has dodgy health effects on humans long term.

The thing that is the worst is that in the Western key are staple food-crops (Wheat, Corn, Soy) are nearly 99% GMO. In Canada non-GMO wheat does not exist, it purged the real stuff out of the cycle. Non-GMO has to be imported or grown on a super small scale here and even then I don't even think the grain lobby would let you sell the stuff.

I agree that the term GMO is a blanket term. Humans have been manipulating crops for hundreds of years. Things like yellow corn, the store tomato, and I believe the store Banana were manipulated way back in the day. But it's different doing this naturally over time and not messing with genetically components in a petri-dish. Wheat now has more gluten, less fiber and fat then the old grains did. Ancient wheat was more sticky and robust, it did not cause the glycemic shock waves like typical wheat does not nor did it digest poorly. People especially kids now can't even eat bread without shitting out bricks and they still don't try to question their food and the quality of that they eat. Big-Agra poisons you with food then tries to sell you glueten-free alternatives on the other end, its a joke.

GMO is basically stripped of most nutrients. If it is processed fake nutrients are added back and in and nobody even knows if they are absorbed back into the body. One test ran on breakfast cereals found that the cardboard box had more bio-available nutrients then the actual breakfast cereal.

It makes no sense. We eat like shit here in the west and yet we how some how the most "well-off" and richest of people on earth yet we eat worse than dogs (go look how much Meat protein is present in most good quality dog foods, I assure you they are getting more beneficial proteins and ingredients from their food then you do from your salt pumped chicken breats).

To put it bluntly GMO will kill you sooner than non-GMO foods. But this does not mean go run out and stock up on Organics either that industry has a shady side also with many loop holes which in the grand scheme make it marginally healthy. One has to totally re-think their approach to food and what they expect to get out of it. Its almost impossible to be perfect unless you take matters into your own hands, or have bottomless amounts of cash, but it should be a top priority in anybody life - trying to eat the best quality food they can possibly afford and access.

Listen to this podcast for a scientist's perspective on GMO.

http://impruvism.com/gmo-foods-podcast/

Very interesting stuff.

tl;dl: There's no scientific proof that eating GMO's are going to give you cancer of the super aids.

Be wary of the pleb and hippies for they love attributing causality when it doesn't exist.

As an aside, we have very little understanding about nutrition as it is.

Especially how it affects our health.

There's no money to be made with this diet advice:

Eat a balanced and varied diet.

Don't overeat.

 

[kosko]

[Draft post removed by moderator.]

 

[Vicious]

Listen to this podcast for a scientist's perspective on GMO.

http://impruvism.com/gmo-foods-podcast/

Very interesting stuff.

tl;dl: There's no scientific proof that eating GMO's are going to give you cancer of the super aids.

Be wary of the pleb and hippies for they love attributing causality when it doesn't exist.

As an aside, we have very little understanding about nutrition as it is.

Especially how it affects our health.

There's no money to be made with this diet advice:

Eat a balanced and varied diet.

Don't overeat.

The people defending Monsanto and their ilk seem to come back to the phrase "there is no evidence of..."

A lack of scientific evidence (even if we were to ignore the studies presented in this thread) only says that we have yet to prove something with current scientific knowledge. That is not akin to saying something is safe.

The studies showing how squirrels and bees won't touch GMO foods are to me far more telling than what a scientific community with dubious objectivity can produce. Here we have living animals in their natural habitat, that have senses far more developed than what humans can understand and replicate, and they are shunning GMO crops.

 

[rastignac]

Be wary of the pleb and hippies for they love attributing causality when it doesn't exist.

The people defending Monsanto and their ilk seem to come back to the phrase "there is no evidence of..."

A lack of scientific evidence (even if we were to ignore the studies presented in this thread) only says that we have yet to prove something with current scientific knowledge. That is not akin to saying something is safe.

When science discovers why a traditional food has a positive benefit I am highly interested. But when a traditional food purported to have some positive benefit has no known scientific cause, I will in no way take that as a cue not to try it in my diet.

Science can be a great supplement, but ignore the lived experience of generations -- old wive's tales to some -- it may be your losee.

I have following to be true, all of which were passed on to me from an 80 year old Ukrainian woman from a village:

Onions and garlics are good for colds. [science]
Watermelon is a natural viagra for men. [science]
Sitting on cold concrete will provoke a UTI. (no science or food here)

The list goes on...
Article on food folk remedies

In short, I have had better results with these folk traditions over our scientific assessment of what is good for us. These assessments (the food pyramid for example). My ideas about GMO are colored by this experience.

Ukraine has amazing bread. I was told to stop eating so much... "everyone knows bread is not good for you" and at the same time forced to eat a little bread with my soup "you need the bread to counteract the soup fats".

Historical cultures have rich ideas of the relationship of food to the body. That is why GMO is such a hard sell in places like Ukraine where people do not have blind faith in big business and big medicine.

In the U.S. we have very little food culture at least at the natural cultural level. We take a profoundly scientific view on most things... except our almost blind, pseudo-religious belief in the current state of scientific knowledge.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! A little short from David Lynch's Eraserhead that introduces new, improved chickens.

 

[Teutatis]

I just love how big Agra fights so hard and spends so much to prevent GMOs to be labeled.

This comes straight out of Monsanto's website:

We oppose mandatory labeling of food and ingredients developed from GM seeds in the absence of any demonstrated risks, as it could be interpreted as a warning or imply that food products containing these ingredients are somehow inferior to their conventional or organic counterparts.

Link

How disingenuous, deceitful and dishonest can you be? If the problem is the public's misinformation about your product than it is your duty to educate us about its safety, not lobbying and spending millions so we don't know what we're eating. Of course the real and obvious reason is that GMOs are shit and they would see a decrease in their profit margins if labeling was a reality.

These people are garbage.

 

[Teutatis]

Here's an article addressing a few of the arguments against labeling:

The Case for Labeling GMOs

 

[not_dead_yet]

This study has been discredited and the paper will be withdrawn soon.

http://retractionwatch.com/2013/11/28/controversial-seralini-gmo-rats-paper-to-be-retracted/

 

[Vicious]

This study has been discredited and the paper will be withdrawn soon.

http://retractionwatch.com/2013/11/28/controversial-seralini-gmo-rats-paper-to-be-retracted/

Did you read it?

"Unequivocally, the Editor-in-Chief found no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data."

The retraction is due to the small sample size, not because there was anything wrong with the data gathered. Personally I think the pictures speak for themselves.

 

[Katatonic]

I haven't read enough to be confident in my opinion of GMO crops but there are certain things that make me hesitant to consume it with regularity. The main reason, is that so many of those people who have authority over regulations are also involved with the very same companies being regulated. This article(http://www.mises.org/daily/6580/Monsantos-Friends-in-High-Places) specifically targets Michael Taylor as being complicit in suppressing and impeding studies and results on the effects of GMO products.

Also, have any of you looked deeply into the mice studies on GMO? I saw that they were only fed GMO corn, and although I know that mice have a different physiological make-up and needs than us, Pellagra may have caused some of those same side effects being attributed to GMO foods. I read that in Italy in the 19th century Pellagra(niacin deficiency) caused horrible defects because the Italians were only eating polenta in the Winter.

Who knows? Until I know with some certainty that GMO crops are safe, I'd rather err on the side of caution and limit the amount of GMO products I put in my body. The last fucking thing I want is to become sterile. My seed shall inherit the earth.

 

[Wutang]

Nassim Taleb has commented on GMOs in the past. An argument he makes against it is how it takes a way a lot of genetic diversity in crops so if there's ever some sort of blight it'll pretty much destroy nearly the entirety of whatever is planted at the moment.

 

[Aliblahba]

Do you guys think there's a correlation between GMO and gluten allergies?


http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...why-is-wheat-gluten-disorder-on-the-rise.aspx

 

[roberto]

Eventually we will need every boost we can get. Bring on GMO. The Earth can barely support 7 billion people let alone 10 billion. Humans are a cancer to the Earth no doubt about it.

To quote (or misquote, I can't find the original article online, but it stuck in my head pretty well) David Richardson from British magazine Farmer's Weekly:

"We keep hearing the fact that 'the world will need to support an extra three billion people by 2040', used as justification for GMOs and other 'neccessary' advances in science. As if three billion people will just live on fresh air whilst farmers play catch up"

He's right. The human population is like any other species- self limiting due to resource availability. This is not seen so much in the Western world, but is a basic fact of like in Africa etc.

Should we happen to make it to an extra three billion by 2040 thanks to GMOs, we will need to gain exponentially greater advances in food production technology over the next decades.

It has to stop somewhere. It may as well stop here. Ban GMOs and let the human race limit it's growth. Bleating on about the poor in Africa is all very well, but if you help them eat they will just breed more. Plenty of members on here I'm sure are already doing their bit by not reproducing.

There's no magic bullet for this, no fairy tale happy ending. GMOs will intensify and compound human misery in the long term, regardless of whether they are bad for our health or not.

My view? If a Monsato exec told me it was raining, I'd go outside to check...

 

[Unplugged Beta]

You can't say that all GMO crops are going to be unhealthy across the board. As they are modifying specific parts of a genome will vary depending on the crop, saying they are unhealthy across the board is like saying all bacteria will kill you dead because anthrax does.

What matters is what is being modified and what effect that modification has on the species.

 

[Wutang]

Nassim Taleb has been going on an anti-GMO crusade recently, thought some people want to follow since I know he has a big following here (I'm a fan myself). He spent years calling out big bank and financial firms for creating the conditions that allowed for the financial meltdowns we've seen in recent years and looks like big food is his next target

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/498229204446887936

He's claiming some Monstanto lobbyist is going out of his way to smear his reputation:

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/498035197024411648

 

[xmlenigma]

1. Monsanto is a CHEMICAL and PESTICIDE company first.. They made GMO foods so that their pesticides dont kill the natural CROP itself.
... Glycosulphate and what not..

2. They are way IN with the Govt & FDA..

3. Imagine world food supply in the hands of few companies like Monstanto. That is their goal. Once you use their products.. you can grow much on that land.. in new nations.. they start with freebies.. jack up prices.. non seed bearing fruits & crops.. have farmers by the BALLS.. CONTROL WORLD FOOD SUPPLY..
EVIL.. even worse than HYDRA (avengers)

4. If you believe GMOs are good for YOU to EAT... Please LABEL IT.. Let PEOPLE .. CHOOSE.. Dont block the other side with your DOLLARS and PROPOGANDA..

5. They are in the same boat as McDonalds and General Mills.. Fuck with Natures foods.. give you unhealthy diet..
Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Health.. Big ...Lobbyists..

6. Stop suing small farmers because some of your TOXIC seeds landed on their ORGANIC Non GMO farm.. On the other hand PLEASE PAY PENALTY.. to them for CORRUPTING their NATURAL LAND.

7. GMOs & strong PESTICIDES are dangerous.. PERIOD.. See the rise of wierd new syndromes and diseases in all cultures globally..

BOTTOMLINE.. I hate them. .. they've been the cause of farmer suicides and what not..