BF2S Forums GM food

I work for a large food manufacturer.  You would be surprised how many foods you allready eat that have GMO ingredients.  They are very commonplace and as a matter of fact it more odd to see non-gmo ingredients come through our doors.

To me, as long as we have been producing crops, we have been modifying plants.  They have been cross polinating corn and other crops from the very beginning.  I know not the same as genetically modifying, but very similar and they have the same result.

I prefer to eat organic food. Organic meat, organic fruit, organic vegetables...etc.

Not that I'm opposed to GM food, it's just the way I prefer. Tastes better, too.

Poseidon wrote:

Tastes better, too.

currently 90% of wheat in north america has been altered in some way (genetic engineering or selective breeding),  eat any bread or pasta? can u tell the difference?

Poseidon wrote:

<SharpShot> wrote:

Poseidon wrote:

Tastes better, too.

currently 90% of wheat in north america has been altered in some way (genetic engineering or selective breeding),  eat any bread or pasta? can u tell the difference?

From organic food to regular? Yeah. Like, when I'm at a restauraunt, I can tell the difference between foods I eat at my house.

Like I said - organic tastes better.

I think that's more due to the general difference between the shit you eat at home (which is almost all processed) and what they prepare at restaurants. I don't think that has much to do with GM food, more to do with better preparation and cooking.

Mmm....
Personally I really dont give a rats ass if the change and difference in taste is that much different.


But, like Sharpshots post, it can come to the climate for growing crops. Some guy at Army Cadets was a bio dude studying crops and that, and he's been researching new ways to make crops more adaptable to different climates. E.G, for Australia crops that use less water blah blah blah.

If you're anti-GM and pro-organic then you run into an obvious problem of how do you feed the world? GM often produce more food per unit are than regular crops and organic crops produce way less, so as the populace rises you either need more farmable land (cutting down rainforests etc.) more output pre are of land (get rid of organic and replace with GM crops) or a mass move to vegitarianism (meat production produces far less food per unit are than fruit/veg/cereals etc.)

messfeeder wrote:

PureFodder wrote:

If you're anti-GM and pro-organic then you run into an obvious problem of how do you feed the world? GM often produce more food per unit are than regular crops and organic crops produce way less, so as the populace rises you either need more farmable land (cutting down rainforests etc.) more output pre are of land (get rid of organic and replace with GM crops) or a mass move to vegitarianism (meat production produces far less food per unit are than fruit/veg/cereals etc.)

Or there is another solution, which I mentioned above. Less farms, more gardens. One plant can grow enough food to provide for an entire neighborhood if you're lucky. There was one year we didn't prune our peach tree and we counted several hundred peaches on just one branch! Every year we give away lots of peaches to our neighbors. I love it when neighbors bring over produce from their gardens. It taste so much better than from the store. Picked fresh with little distance traveled.

Not many people have nearly enough time, money or will to do that.

if they can make it fool-proof, no problems, then i dont have a problem with it, but if theres a chance i could get some hypertoxic disease then im staying away

I support GM crops.  What I don't support is the use of bovine growth hormones in cows for milk and beef.  Bovine growth hormone has been proven to accelerate the development of children (especially girls) when cows affected by this hormone are eaten or their milk is drunk, which can create many health concerns.

Last edited by Turquoise (2008-02-03 08:56:14)

More food -> more people -> more hunger -> -/
/\                                                                 /
l <-soilent green<-------------------------------/

Poseidon wrote:

<SharpShot> wrote:

Poseidon wrote:

Tastes better, too.

currently 90% of wheat in north america has been altered in some way (genetic engineering or selective breeding),  eat any bread or pasta? can u tell the difference?

From organic food to regular? Yeah. Like, when I'm at a restauraunt, I can tell the difference between foods I eat at my house.

Like I said - organic tastes better.

You do realize that meat can qualify as organic simply because they came from an "organic" breeding facility, meaning that they got their vaccinations/medicine at a facility a mile down the road where they were born/went when they were sick.  Organic is a huge face in most cases, the only way you can truly eat "organic" food is if you grow it yourself.  It's funny how the mind can tell you want you want to believe as well, a self-fulfilling prophecy, in most cases I can hardly tell the difference between organic and non-organic foods.

And Genetic Engineering is not strictly found in crops only.  Most of your fast food comes from genetically modified animals who have been modified to grow more meat. (bigger chicken breasts, cows produce more milk -- some of these things do have side effects).

Time will tell, genetically modifying is dangerous in many respects, I can't say it's good to mess around with nature but we've left ourselves with little choice.  There was even a case where a small farmer was sued because a huge company was growing their crops next to his farm and the crops got cross-pollinated.  Because he "stole" their protected GM foods, he had to destroy his crops.... But with the growing population, everyone has to eat, I still say we should start limiting our population before it gets really nasty -- but of course that'd be infringing on your personal rights, you can't have five kids each and expect to eat high quality food...

The argument shouldn't (IMO) be about whether or not it is wrong to "mess with mother nature".  Livestock and foodstuffs have been modified since the advent of agriculture - there is overwhelming historical precedent.  As for the supposed "problems" in the OP -

Disease - Almost non-factor.  Diseases already inherent in nature (and evolving much more efficiently than science could contend with) are much more worrisome than a possible introduction through scientifically enhanced crops.  The worst that could possibly happen is a virus becoming more resistant to attempts at quashing it - but is something that the medical/scientific community is already having to deal with (not a new problem).
Contamination - From strictly a biological diversity aspect, I think this is largely unfounded hysteria.  There are countless seed banks developed (and developing) as a way to combat already increasing biodiversity issues already inherent to mass agribusiness - it is another inherent situation within agricultural communities.  This can especially be observed in regions where there are large isolated agricultural communities- the elimination of "substandard" foodstuff to the ecologically (and perhaps nutritionally) superior crops, at a possible loss to other natural characteristics.
Screwing With Evolution - Again, largely already inherent in virtually all agriculture cultivation and production.  Yes, factors of environment already create incredibly efficient foodstuffs, and have been for years.  At the same time, scientific progress allows for a possibility of artificial assistance to evolution.

The above three arguments are based upon the idea that artificial tampering with natural elements could cause irreparable harm to foodstuffs the human population need to survive.  To me, largely unsubstantiated and simply an emotional argument that we should "leave nature alone".

The last two "problems" in the OP are what the debate about GM food should be about (IMO).  Corporate responsibility in regards to GM foods.  Corporations are leading the push for GM food - it is not humanitarian efforts to produce more food for the explosive human population - it is the incentive of profit that leads most of the progress.  Some of the first corporate-backed GM food product was corn and other crops that had increased resistance to herbicides and pesticides - allowing Monsanto to increase revenue off their Roundup pesticide by pairing it with crops that were Roundup-resistant.  Now, this (creating 'designer' crops) is certainly not inherently destructive.  But this is where the idea of contamination, intellectual property, and competition come to butt heads with the push for profit and corporate responsibility. 

An introduction of GM food into areas where there are organic or non-modified crops growing is a concern, but not necessarily from a biodiversity perspective.  There would be obvious concerns over cross-pollination from GM crops to non-modified crops.  This is largely speculative, but a very real concern: if a company or person owned a specific type of GM crop and this crop became invasive and eventually became integrated into non-GM crops, what is stopping the owner of the intellectual rights of the GM crop from suing the person who now grows the GM crops through no fault of his own - punishment simply for growing crops next to GM food, while at the same time possibly allowing the owner of the GM food to profit from a natural occurrence (cross-pollination)?  Should an entity be allowed to hold a patent on a specific type of engineered food or livestock product?  What happens if the only seeds available to commercial farmers are GM seeds for crops that cannot reproduce?  Soon the average farmer becomes reliant on the supplier of the seeds for a living, and small farms become a thing of the past, losing to large agribusiness production.  This is not a stretch of imagination by any means - it is already the direction that livestock and agriculture is heading in America, much like Wal-Mart and other super chains have impacted the independent grocery and sundry business.  Surely this is an emotional argument in the most general form, but it has undertones of a detachment-digression from a production society to a consumer society.

Looking at agribusiness in general, there could be amazing positive impacts from GM food, and there could be incredible negative consequences from GM business.  To me, the idea of GM food is not the great solution for Malthusian theory.  The introduction of advanced farming and cultivation methods to regions that largely subsistence farm is one solution.  GM food for regions that cannot otherwise produce enough could alleviate some concerns, surely.  However, the main combatant to Malthusian theory lies in the global distribution of foodstuffs and the incredible wasteful use of foodstuffs that could be more efficiently allocated.

Whether or not GM food should be eaten from a moral perspective is an entirely personal choice and should not be a discussion within this topic - it is a dietary choice that you can either choose to follow or not.

Last edited by KEN-JENNINGS (2008-02-04 03:49:18)