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 Post subject: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 3:51 pm 
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(first, note the new forum, Food News, for this sort of topic)

This election, California will have a proposition on the ballot (37), which proposes to require labelling of "genetically engineered food" sold in California. Info here: http://www.carighttoknow.org/

On balance, I'm voting against it.

I have a variety of reasons to be against the initiative: a general hatred of initiatives, the fact that we have far more important food issues facing us, or the fact that it's liable to be overturned in court by the FTC. However, given Monsanto's opposition to the measure, I might be inclined to vote for it anyway just to give them tsuris. But I'm going to vote against the initiative for one simple reason:

Nobody can clearly define what a "genetically modified food" is.

Unless you're subsisting entirely on a diet of Emmer Wheat and wild-caught squirrel, everything you eat is "genetically modified". Some of it was modified in a lab, and some was modified the old-fashioned way (selective breeding and hybridizing), but it's modified all the same. Take the pictures of the corn on the home page of CARightToKnow: that corn is the product of 1000 years of selective breeding followed by 60 years of labratory engineering. "Wild" corn looks nothing like that.

In the absence of a clear definition, the "GMO" label will be applied haphazardly and politicially. Assuming the whole thing doesn't get thrown out in court.

Not that I have an opinion or anything. :?

Are there initiatives like this in other states? What do other board members think of campaigns to label or ban genetically modified foods?

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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 4:40 pm 
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To me there is a difference in the "genetic modification" of hybridizing vs. laboratory gene splicing. The lab created GMO may contain sequences that would likely never happen in nature (i.e. fish gene sequence in a strawberry). I'm not sure what kind of lab modification was done prior to the late 90s or so--my guess most agricultural lab work previously was for developing pesticides and herbicides. But maybe I'm wrong on that.

I don't think we know enough about gene splicing types of modification to declare it safe, and I don't want to eat anything involving this if I can avoid it. I would like to see labeling for laboratory GMOs (even if they are using similar species DNA) so I may make an informed decision. I try to buy only open-pollinated heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables. Grains are trickier, and GMOS drive my organic purchases--organic varieties at least won't be the "Roundup Ready" ones.

That said, I have no idea if the initiative would accomplish this or not--my guess is that GMO isn't defined well enough.


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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 5:04 pm 
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Darcie,

The problem, as I see it, is that there's no clear line between foods which are improved varietals and foods which are lab-spliced. It's a continuum, and while the end points are distinct (emmer wheat on one end and corn with mice genes on the other) there's no clear line of division between. So any place we choose to draw the line is going to be pretty arbitrary, and thus misleading and unfair.

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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 5:17 pm 
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If the genetic modification was done via gene-splicing in a lab, I think it should be labeled--even if they were using genes from a related plant that could have been hybridized "the old-fashioned" way. I think we could/should use the process to define it. Perhaps that is not fair to Monsanto, but they aren't high on my list of priorities for caring. ;)

Most people don't care one way or the other; I think the labeling should be there for those of us who do.


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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 8:06 pm 
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Not a popular view I am sure, but given the money that will be spent to fight this issue in court, to pay folks to monitor it, then fight some more in courts, I would rather the money be used to feed the people in this country that are starving.

People have been modifying food since the beginning of time, grafting plants, creating hybrids that did not exist in nature before they were created. I for one, am grateful for seedless cucumbers and watermelons, pluots, meyer lemons, etc. Whether done by hand in the field or tried first in the lab....

Then again, I love the newfangled devices, such as electricity, moving carriages, phones that work without visible phone lines, and watching the Olympics events live as they are happening. Just my unpopular .02.

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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 9:36 pm 
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TheFuzzy wrote:
Nobody can clearly define what a "genetically modified food" is.


Hybridization and selective breeding are generally 'plausible', naturally speaking; the process could occur naturally. Well, individual 'steps' could but admittedly the 'whole' is wildly unlikely. However, in any case, genetically modified typically refers to modifications that are, in essence, impossible occurrences in nature, or at least in a single step or so wildly unlikely as to be reasonably termed impossible.

I propose that all foods have their actual strain specified, and documentation on that strain be made available publicly and freely. No hidden information. No judgement calls on whether it falls into a [somewhat] arbitrary class of food.


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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:48 am 
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I think that the main function of the government in food is to provide me with the information I require to make informed decisions in my purchases. Past that, government should stay out of my shopping cart and kitchen.

Requiring labeling is not that much of a government intrusion to me. However, seldom do rules and laws remain static. Someone is going to propose that the info be used to limit my choices.


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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:58 am 
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Cubangirl wrote:
...Then again, I love the newfangled devices, such as electricity, moving carriages, phones that work without visible phone lines, and watching the Olympics events live as they are happening. ...

:lol:

Although I will disagree with you on the seedless watermelons. 1- they can be flavourless and 2 - I no longer have seeds to spit at the person across from me. My mom has a picture of the 3 of us eating watermelon with seeds. She claims she took it to remind herself never to buy it again and for us to look at when we whined for watermelon.


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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:00 am 
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As a resident of a state that allows neither ballot initiatives nor referendums, I believe that Californians should jealously guard their right to take issues directly to the people.

Since GMO’s are an unknown quantity and I trust the aggregate consumer more than I trust either politicians or the board of directors of a fortune 500 company, I do not see how a labeling requirement can be detrimental to the public in long run.

It is highly likely that population growth, climate change, and water distribution wars will change the face of America’s food supply in the coming decades and make the GMO argument moot when drought and pest resistant crops that use water more efficiently are the only way to assure sufficient production to meet our needs.

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 Post subject: Re: Why I'm not voting for GMO labelling
PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:07 pm 
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Gotta wonder if it will also be posted on the gas pumps? Do cars care? :roll:

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