Labeling of GMOs is a Dumb Idea

reply to post by ColCurious

*ETA: It would also be very sloppy and poor management on parts of the factory though, IMHO.
How could they ever validate guarantee claims towards their suppliers if needed?

A simple "thought experiment".
A typical corn mill runs 24 hours a day and processes 100,000 bushels. That's 5.6 million pounds of corn. Does all that corn come from the same farm? Is production supposed to stop between loads so equipment can be cleaned?
Lets say that the corn from different sources is kept segregated from farm to mill (I have no idea). What about contamination during the milling process. Probably not a high level of contamination but again, "May contain GMO" is the only way to cover yourself.

I don't think "just label it" is the answer.

Originally posted by Phage
I don't think they are particularly harmful and there are far worse things in the food chain.

But the anti-GMO crowd just keeps saying "why not label it?" The reason is because it is not that simple.

Yes, there are far worse things in the food chain, but I am not forced to eat those things. Right now I am fed Bt Corn and allergenic wheat derived starches and sugars and preservatives without my consent. And as a frequent traveler and busy professional, I cannot 'grocery shop.' This does not make sense in real life, you are not fully cognizant of what you are saying here.

The GMO industry introduced the liability to the food chain. It is their responsibility both by court precedent and ethics, to address the labeling issue.

reply to post by Phage

Nononono.
What I meant with my comment was that it would be bad in general if a factory was unable to track their suppliers or any kind of supplies, even for the factory itself (what if one batch of corn was spoiled for example?)... totally irrespective of the debate on labeling.

But yes, the mill would probably have to either separate the processing chains, or label the way you suggested earlier, if consumers or laws demanded it.

reply to post by cuckooold

Are you suggesting that most foods these days already have GMOs in them?

Though most genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not directly involved in human consumption, "60-70 percent of processed foods have ingredients derived from GMOs," said Bill Freese of the Center for Food Safety, an anti-GMO organization.

phys.org...

Originally posted by instigatah
I dont really care who labels what....but things should be labeled. Heres the thing...the market can regulate itself if people show enough interest in something. Look at what happened with the gluten free craze....and the bpa free craze. Those are markets that were created either by the companies that had their finger to the pulse of the consumers...or a demand of the consumers for such products....or BOTH. How difficult is it for companies that want to CREATE a new market based on non-gmo labeling to attract the customer base that is interested in such products? In a way i hate to admit it but im kinda with Phage on this.....asking for MORE government involvement and regulation really isnt what im interested in.

By the way the ant or non gmo movement is growing...slowly...but steadily...and i can almost guarantee it wont be long before the big boys in food production will bend to the will of the consumer, whimsical as it may be, and start either labeling on their own, or reducing the use of gmo products to get people to continue buying.

Also....people need to not be so darn lazy. If you dont want to eat gmo its pretty easy to find out which products contain them....first just do a cursory google search on which products contain gmo....there are tons of websites that will tell you at a glance how many of our staple crops are gmo (soy, wheat, rice, corn....a couple of those are over 90 percent gmo at this point). Also theres the non gmo shopping guide to make it even easier!!!


www.nongmoshoppingguide.com...


If you care about it, share it, talk it, walk it, live it....it wont be long before the groundswell of public opinion forces the market into the direction people want it to go.

There are also a number of free phone apps now, too, which will tell you whether or not a product is likely to contain GMOs (and if it isn't in the list and comes up undefined, you can send a pic of the product label and scan-code to them and they'll look into it for later releases)

Phage, if you think this is a bad idea, your a sell out in my eyes.

As American citizens, we have the right to know what our food products contain.

I, for one, wish to boycott anything that has to do with Monsatan, Dupont, Bayer, etc. So in particular, Corn, Soy, Alfalfa, and some wheat products. Crops that were genetically engineered directly in the lab where they are then sprayed with poisons, while those companies that engineered them, reap billions in royalties.

If a product was bred naturally, or even by people selecting the strongest most resilient/strongest crops and breeding those, then that's cool.

I don't get you phage, why don't you go on a 100% Monsanto based GMO diet that features mostly Soy/Corn/Alfalfla/Wheat and tell us how you feel after a year?

Le the price go up for GMO labeling, I'll gladly pay extra for knowing what to avoid. By the way, you're starting to sound like a Monsanto schill

Originally posted by TheEthicalSkeptic

Originally posted by Phage
I don't think they are particularly harmful and there are far worse things in the food chain.

But the anti-GMO crowd just keeps saying "why not label it?" The reason is because it is not that simple.

Yes, there are far worse things in the food chain, but I am not forced to eat those things. Right now I am fed Bt Corn and allergenic wheat derived starches and sugars and preservatives without my consent. And as a frequent traveler and busy professional, I cannot 'grocery shop.' This does not make sense in real life, you are not fully cognizant of what you are saying here.

The GMO industry introduced the liability to the food chain. It is their responsibility both by court precedent and ethics, to address the labeling issue.

edit on 7-8-2013 by TheEthicalSkeptic because: (no reason given)

And, as far as labeling being 'not that easy', I would bet everything I own that it would cost less to implement the labeling process than the industry has/is paying to lobbyists and companies hired to steer the public to their side.

It has nothing to do with being difficult to implement, it has only to do with future earnings reports and fleeing investors when the public, now aware of the absolute sh*t they are selling, are able to, finally, "not agree with it, and so not buy it".

reply to post by dominicus

Le the price go up for GMO labeling, I'll gladly pay extra for knowing what to avoid. By the way, you're starting to sound like a Monsanto schill

Then you might appreciate my new sig.

But in your kneejerk response you completely missed the point.

Originally posted by dominicus
Phage, if you think this is a bad idea, your a sell out in my eyes.

As American citizens, we have the right to know what our food products contain.

I, for one, wish to boycott anything that has to do with Monsatan, Dupont, Bayer, etc. So in particular, Corn, Soy, Alfalfa, and some wheat products. Crops that were genetically engineered directly in the lab where they are then sprayed with poisons, while those companies that engineered them, reap billions in royalties.

If a product was bred naturally, or even by people selecting the strongest most resilient/strongest crops and breeding those, then that's cool.

I don't get you phage, why don't you go on a 100% Monsanto based GMO diet that features mostly Soy/Corn/Alfalfla/Wheat and tell us how you feel after a year?

Le the price go up for GMO labeling, I'll gladly pay extra for knowing what to avoid. By the way, you're starting to sound like a Monsanto schill

^^. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^^
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'---------- Everything he just said ---------'


Could.not.agree.more

We have warnings for peanuts on many products, why not GMO warnings?

reply to post by Phage


They already track the supply train. What's so hard about having a checklist saying whether it's GMO or not?

If it raises a bag of chips by a couple of cents, so what? I'm more than willing to pay that extra money to know what I'm eating.

reply to post by Quoop


Ok. Let's look at that.
What do those peanut warnings say?
"May contain or had contact with peanuts". That doesn't really tell you much, does it?

Once again, for those who seem to have missed the point. The only thing that requiring GMO labels is likely to accomplish is labeling of every product which contains soy or corn. This is because there is no reason for a manufacture to take the risk that their product might have GMO materials in it.

Just like with peanuts, the manufacturers will pretty much have to label everything because of the liability if they do not. It doesn't matter if GMO materials are there or not, the label will be applied to the product.

This is a fun thread...

It certainly gets interesting when tptb (shill or not) attempt to persuade intelligent, thinking, conspiracy minded, out of the box, constantly questioning existence and reality, beings into complacent acceptance of absurdity...

...Sorry Phage, I don't see this being a debate, I see this as being humorous....incredibly humorous...

and gives, at least a tad of, hope for the future

reply to post by R3V3L4710N5

Your amusement is noted as is your contribution to the thread.

Phage. I work in agricultural processing. My facility is organic certified, among others.

The implementation of the FSMA has already mandated a line of traceability from finished product back to the farmer if necessary. We in the industry have been breaking the bank just to please the masses. One extra label won't mean more risk. There is already so much risk that the industries are likely to collapse under the strain.

They want to take it all the way to the farmer, requiring hand washing facilities, bird netting, elimination of chicken poop and natural fertilizers, fencing to keep out rabbits and deer, if the farmer is strapped with these added expenses, the labeling issue will be a laughable side note.

But just so you understand, traceability is already mandated by all of the certification bodies. ISO, BRC, There are too many to name.

reply to post by Bobaganoosh

One extra label won't mean more risk. There is already so much risk that the industries are likely to collapse under the strain.

But not applying a "GMO" label would increase the liability exposure further, right? It would be foolish for the manufacturer not to label their product. So, like peanuts, everything that has any possibility of containing GMO material (60-70% of everything we eat?) will have that label. Wouldn't that be the logical approach for the manufacturer?

But just so you understand, traceability is already mandated by all of the certification bodies. ISO, BRC, There are too many to name.

Thanks. The information is appreciated. Rather than me trying to sort through all that and using my tortilla model, the tortilla factory in California will know the original source of all of the processed grain they use?

Simple. Seek out and Purchase foods from companies that specialize in NO GMO food stuffs and as far as labelling goes, "I" assume that most industrialized food products have GMO's and many other undesirable thangs in them, so I look for #1 Organic, (No traditional toxic chemical warfare derived "Cides" (ie insecticide , herbicide)) #2 GMO Food stuffs. They are out there!

"WE WILL ROCK MONSANTO" an Anthem of Protest! ALL HAIL SUZUKI!!!!!!
.youtu.be...

reply to post by Riffbeeper

Simple. Seek out and Purchase foods from companies that specialize in NO GMO food stuffs and as far as labelling goes, "I" assume that most industrialized food products have GMO's and many other undesirable thangs in them,

I agree that this seems to be a much more reasonable approach than mandatory labeling.

reply to post by Phage


Even if they are lazy about labeling which is what your describing to me, laziness on the part of companies and an inability to handle change, assuming things go down like that, the consumer will be at least aware of what MAY contain GMO's. Some products still won't contain GMO's like the are doing now. So they still won't be required to label things "may contain GMO's".

Thus as a result the uninformed average consumer can take at least some steps to protect themselves or avoid buying the product/s altogether.

Just because a generic label isn't as useful as a more concise one doesn't degrade it's usefulness to a person just outright trying to avoid GMO's.

Originally posted by VeritasAequitas
reply to post by Phage

 

So how does this result in a better informed consumer?

Because I can be informed that it either does or does not have GMO products, and gladly choose to pick up an another item...

I mostly shop at the co-op, where they go out of their way to stock organic products. When I can't, I look for labels that say no GMO. As long as there are places to shop like that and non-GMO labels on stuff that avoids GMO's I feel pretty good.

Are you being woefully ignorant or just obtuse?

Or maybe he's just being the tool he always was. Honesty I don't understand why this Phage guy has so many stars. It's seems pretty likely to me that he is a bought and paid for tool of ignorance in someone's pocket.

But whatever. Tools are people too.