mandianna

I simply dont get why America thinks it is ok to feed us gentically modified food and then to not even label it. When the rest of the world is up in arms about it. I buy organic as much as possible but you can't really avoid it.

I also miss that wee V sign from back home telling me it is suitable for vegetarians. I don't know how many times I used to buy things then got home to find chicken broth in the vegetable soup!!! Reading labels here is essential

I just don't get it they have super high standards for other things but food they don't seem to care about. I guess its really just about the almighty $$$.

jeffreyhy

I don't understand why the rest of the world is up in arms about it. What's inherently wrong with 'new and improved'?

Granted, not all humanly-engineered genetic modifications are necessarily an improvement. Then again, neither are mother nature's genetic modifications necessarily an improvement, either. She's made some pretty nasty stuff in her day and there are plenty of organic thing out there that will make a person violently ill or that will kill them.

Regards, JEff

Pulaski

Agreed, altered genes has little if any bearing on food safety, if your tomato has a mouse gene in it, you are no more likely grow a mouse tail than your nose will turn into a tomato.

On the plus side, genetically modified crops are sometimes engineered to need fewer pesticides, which is more of a health issue than whether the food is genetically modified.

Bink

It's also been historically done by cross breeding of plants. That said, it does worry me the extent to which they do it , or will take it in the future (GM).

To be honest though, I'm more worried about everything else they do to it than the GM content... Hormones anyone...

Anian

I've never seen as many food recalls as I have in the US. Meat has always had a slight risk with it, but out here it is the fruits and vegetables that will give you food poisoning.

Giantaxe

Whole Foods has committed to labelling GM foods by 2018. There was a ballot initiative in CA last fall to do this, but it was defeated due to $$$ from the processed food industry and a sloppily-defined initiative.

markwm

Fuss about nothing. GM food is no more or less good or bad for you than any other food. If you are a veggie then I can understand that you want to know if what you eat contains things you won't eat but, other than that, if you were starving you'd eat your shoes if you had to.

Pulaski

Exactly!

Sally Redux

It's not quite as simple as that. Big pesticide companies use GM crops to control the market and sell their own products.

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/c...ed-monopolies/

mandianna

Before GM came along plants have been improved by breeding them with other better plants a natural process that usually takes years. Yes your right it has not always been good this way or with mother nature's but they have been relatively safe. But with GM foods it's done quickly and artificially there has not been enough testing on them and the few studies that have been done have shown that they can cause organ damage or tumors. That is my concern Monsanto (the leading producer in GM seeds and also the creator of rBST the synthetic hormone that increases milk production in cows) are not really concerned with the safety of what they are doing all they care about is the money and patents in my opinion. I don't buy the whole GM makes everything new and improved. I just don't see why it has to be such a secret and they should be labelled. If people don't care that is fine but I do care about what is going into my body. So im glad at least one company is stepping up to start labelling GM foods. Go Whole Foods

markwm

Really? Have you got the evidence to back up such a statement?

Sally Redux

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_420365.html

markwm

Interesting - thanks. I've eaten pretty much nothing but crap my whole life and I'm fi..

Weeze

They might as well label all food as GM. Soybeans were genetically modified in the late 1990s, mixed with normal soybeans and are in many human foods as well as animal feeds.

That French study was written by lobbyists from an anti-GM group and has at best, questionable statistical results, at worst, intentionally misleading results.

SultanOfSwing

GM is just applied biology, really. Plants have been genetically modified for ages. It just sounds like something bad but it really isn't.

I'm sure there are far more dangers with various additives or preservatives being used, in real terms.

Nomenclature is a big deal in things like this. It's like the whole 'organic' BS - as if somehow there are shelves full of biological products completely bereft of hydrocarbons, except for the overpriced shelves