the insidious GMO threat (and it affects HFCS two ways ... )

The day we started selectively breeding cultivars they became GMO's. I don't see why we should draw an arbitrary line between selective breeding of new naturally occurring variants and directly manipulated genomes.

Those same objections were raise not that long ago about the labeling of organic food versus non-organic food.That infrastructure is available and in place now for organic foods.Curiously people are willing to pay more for foods labeled organic.The same will apply to certified non-GMO.You can also get an ap for your phone (fooducate) that identifies food that is GMO free and "likely to contain GMO"Enjoy

Herbicides have been used for a long time, and with non-GMO foods. If vaccines really were safe, why would there be an anti-vaccine craze?

No, that's not what I'm talking about.I'm talking about trucks, tractors, conveyors, silos, bins, etc.Have you seen how corn is stored and transported?*If you want to separate the non-GMO corn from the GMO corn, you're going to need your own non-GMO corn storage and transportation.I don't think you should expect to get that from the current infrastructure that profits off of GMO corn.They're not going to want to deal with the hassle of adding a whole 'nother layer of infrastructure for what is going to start out as a relatively very low ROI. And they will certainly be able to simply say: "No, thank you."Applying a label to everything that contains a GMO ingredients is a terrible idea.You're going to need a bunch of start-up companies to take on creating the infrastructure. That means the people who want the non-GMO market to exist are going to be the ones that pay for it.Do you think they'll be able to compete and succeed? Do you think they'll try?That's why I'm asking: Who's gonna pay for it? Fuck yeah. I'm willing to shuck out almost double for organic meat and eggs.They're so much better! Pfft... I'm not willing to pay more for non-GMO food. If it was my civilization, I'd be having the government subsidize the GMO research so we could grow all kinds of high-tech food.I wish you hippies would get out of the way with this labeling nonsense already *I respect that you've been around a bit, RAZD, and mean no snark in that honest question. I live in southern Illinois... I can fucking hear all the corn growing

Yea. Examples:"Infestation of Transgenic Powdery Mildew-Resistant Wheat by Naturally Occurring Insect Herbivores under Different Environmental Conditions," 2011. Research supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation."Sero-biochemical Studies in Sheep Fed with Bt Cotton Plants," 2010. Authored by researchers from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Veterinary Science, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India."Microarray analyses reveal that plant mutagenesis may induce more transcriptomic changes than transgene insertion," 2008. Authored by researchers from the Instituto Nacional de Sade Dr. Ricardo Jorge."Transgenesis has less impact on the transcriptome of wheat grain than conventional breeding," 2006. Authored by researchers from the UK's Rothamsted Research."Prima facie evidence that a phytocystatin for transgenic plant resistance to nematodes is not a toxic risk in the human diet," 2004. Authored by researchers from the Centre for Plant Sciences, University of Leeds."Evaluation of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) corn on mouse testicular development by dual parameter flow cytometry," 2004. Authored by researchers from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at South Dakota State University."Genetically modified feeds in animal nutrition. 1st communication: Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn in poultry, pig and ruminant nutrition," 2001. Authored by researchers from the Institute of Animal Nutrition, Federal Agricultural Research Centre Braunschweig....and all of these support the safety of GMOs in one way or another, and all by 3rd party research facilities. In other words, it's being done by normal, everyday scientists. Nope. Retracted because it's bad science. I'd like to see evidence that the publishers retracted those mangled papers because of pressure from "GMO companies." See here in response to your question: Is glyphosate toxic to humans? - Biology Fortified Inc. Uh, the paper has bad science. Unless you'd like to respond to the criticisms of the paper, you can't really hand-wave them away. Plenty of reasons why mandatory labeling of GMOs is not such a great idea. See here: Page not found – AgBioForum "Modern Biotechnology as an Integral Supplement to Conventional Plant Breeding: The Prospects and Challenges," 2006:"The successful deployment of transgenic approaches to combat insect pests and diseases of important crops like rice (Oryza sativa L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), maize (Zea mays L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), and cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is a remarkable accomplishment. Biofortification of crops constitutes another exciting development in tackling global hunger and malnutrition. Golden Rice, genetically enriched with vitamin A and iron, has, for example, the real potential of saving millions of lives. Yet another exciting application of transgenic technology is in the production of edible vaccines against deadly diseases. How these novel approaches to gene transfer can effectively supplement the conventional breeding programs is described. The current resistance to acceptance of this novel technology should be assessed and overcome so that its full potential in crop improvement can be realized." "GMOs: building the future on the basis of past experience," 2006:"It must be emphasized that Roundup Ready soybean is just one example of how biotechnology can bring in significant advances for society, not only through increased productivity, but also with beneficial environmental impact, thereby allowing more rational use of agricultural pesticides for improvement of the soil conditions. The adoption of agricultural practices with higher yield will also allow better distribution of income among small farmers. New species of genetically modified plants will soon be available and society should be capable of making decisions in an objective and well-informed manner, through collegiate bodies that are qualified in all aspects of biosafety and environmental impact." So you're criticizing the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers -- not GMOs? Let's look at the whole picture. Much of agriculture is built on the use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers -- whether or not GMOs are being planted. So you're bringing in a bit of a tangent here. Because RealFarmacy.com is this great news source, right? Here: LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You Peer-reviewed papers, please. Where's the peer-reviewed source for this? Let's see the peer-reviewed evidence for this claim. Farmers don't need to use hazmat suits to grow GMO crops.

It can be done yes. But segregating chemically identical batches of sucrose is at least arguably a pointless expense. So there are in some cases a reason to resist labeling.To be clear though, I am no fan of the tactics of some of the GMO food industry guys. Labeling is, from my perspective, a good thing.But: Not necessarily. GMO labeling does indeed result in extra expense and not all of the outcry against GMO is reasonable. The issue with sucrose is the best example I can come up with. There is no reason to segregate identical batches of sucrose. It just costs money for no benefit whatsoever. On the other hand, there are scientific reasons to keep allergens away from some people.

To be fair, though, even this process brought previously-unheard-of health consequences to the people involved:

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"Dawn of Agriculture Took a Toll on Health"from Science Daily:

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When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined.

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Jared Diamond in "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" (1987):

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Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Indian skeletons from burial mounds in the Illinois and Ohio river valleys. At Dickson Mounds, located near the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers, archaeologists have excavated some 800 skeletons that paint a picture of the health changes that occurred when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming around A. D. 1150. Studies by George Armelagos and his colleagues then at the University of Massachusetts show these early farmers paid a price for their new-found livelihood. Compared to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had a nearly 50 per cent increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a theefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor. "Life expectancy at birth in the pre-agricultural community was bout twenty-six years," says Armelagos, "but in the post-agricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive."

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We don't see our current stock of crops as disastrous because we are only looking at their affect on present populations. But the present populations are the ones that survived; the ones that evolved to accommodate and be less affected by the new, genetically-altered, foods. It's an unfair comparison.To make the analogy between GMOs and the domestication of plants a proper one we have to look at the effect of early agriculture on the health of the people who lived (if lucky) through it.When we make that comparison we see that early GMOs had unpredictable and horrible consequences on human health. So the analogy isn't very comforting for people concerned about GMOs and their role in health problems.There is one thing going for GMO in this analogy, though: the early GMOs seem to have provided an overall benefit.What ultimately pushed early agriculture forward despite its side-effects was the fact that the benefits (whether real or perceived) outweighed the problems: people, probably as societies and not individually, were better off overall than they were before.So GMOs, even though they may cause unforeseen health problems just like early domestication, might still be better in the long run if they possess some other benefit that outweighs potential risks. But those risks equal people's lives, so it's not a simple question.And the knee-jerk analogy doesn't offer any answers.Jon

Genomicus quotes: ^^^^These sorts of GMOs I have no objection to. But, Making a GMO resistant to your own company's patented herbicide, thereby allowing you to increase the use of it to kill off weeds around your GMO, does significantly add to the environmental impact.Genomicus continues: Anything we can do to minimize the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers is a good goal, right? With some of these GMOs the use will be increased. If using 23 units kills off 68% of the weeds, but using 32 units kills off 100% plus 36% of your crop in collateral damage, the idea is to make your crop resistant to your pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers so that you can spread 32 units and only 2% of your crop is killed as collateral damage. How cute.

If the crops are more resistant to pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, do we become more resistant by eating them?Is the resistance based on an internal change to the crop that cannot be transferred to humans or is it based on the inclusion of certain free chemicals in the crop that can flow freely in the human body as well?Or am I just completely out of the zone of reality on this one?

I figure anything you can to do maximize crop yield is the best thing.But anyways, if Roundup Ready corn and soybeans require less usage of herbicides then it is a good thing, right? Are you sure that's how it works?I thought you could get away with using less herbicide if you plant Roundup Ready crops...Too, the glyphosate herbicide has a better environmental impact than the alternative, so its even that much better.

No.Cannot be transferred.Yes.

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Glyphosate's mode of action is to inhibit an enzyme involved in the synthesis of the aromatic amino acids tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine. It is absorbed through foliage and translocated to growing points. Because of this mode of action, it is only effective on actively growing plants; it is not effective as a pre-emergence herbicide.

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Some micro-organisms have a version of 5-enolpyruvoyl-shikimate-3-phosphate synthetase (EPSPS) that is resistant to glyphosate inhibition. The version used in the initial round of genetically modified crops was isolated from Agrobacterium strain CP4 (CP4 EPSPS) that was resistant to glyphosate.[18][124] This CP4 EPSPS gene was cloned and transfected into soybeans.
sauce

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Glyphosate resistance was first seen in wild populations, and they were able to find the gene responsible for the resistance in the wild populations. They took that gene from the wild populations and put it into the genomes of crop varieties.Since you don't incorporate the genes of your food into your genome, I don't need to worry about becoming resistant to Roundup.

Compared to what? The most significant impact that farming has is when the plow gets rid of the native ecosystem. Which herbicide you use after that point is a drop in the bucket. Roundup is actually one of the better herbicides.The real lashback has been the shady behavior of Monsanto, such as linking the gene to a lethal marker (I think?) so that you can't raise your own seed stock of Roundup Ready crops. You have to keep going back to them for the seeds, and they aren't cheap.On the "good" side, this GMO system works best if you rotate in Roundup sensitive crops so that the resistance doesn't build up in weed populations.

I haven't heard this. In fact, what I have seen Monsanto do is sue farmers who save seed without paying Monsanto royalties on the basis that doing so infringes their patents. At least in the case of Round-up Ready corn, the seed seems to be just fine for planting. Sometimes it even ends up on farmers' property when they did not want the stuff.

Yes, this does help their bottom line. Do you know who else has a better bottom line thanks to these products? Their consumers, the farmers. The only goal of Round-up Ready or the newly approved Enlist Duo from DuPont is not to be resistant to their poisons, but also to increase yields for farmers. And we would not see this prevalence of farmers wanting to grow this technology if the products did not deliver. In your first statement you said that we should avoid crops that increase the toxic load on foods. However, that isn't the truth, there is a reduction in overall pesticides used (herbicides and insecticides combined) when using transgenic crops. Only one country has a complete blanket ban on GM crops, either through cultivation, test crops, or importation. In fact, the trend is going in the opposite direction from what you are stating. In 2009, 13 members of the European Union asked to revisit the moratorium of approving requests to grow crops in Europe. This decision was made official just recently and the countries can begin to make their own decisions about crops. The UK is ready to jump on board, as are several other countries in the region because the new tool in the kit benefits farmers. Less regulation would bring the cost down from the 120 million it takes to get something approved and allow competitors other than the big six and certain public institutions. Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.