GM Foods

In my part of the world a moratorium on GM crops is about to end and there is a big push for the Govt to allow farmers the right to plant GM Canola. Personally I dont want to consume Genetically Modified anything be it Animal or Vegetable because I don't trust what could happen to our health some way down the track. I have now read an article in the NATION newspaper that there is a big push for Thailand to grow GM Rice which will impact on all our families. What do you Forumites think??

Given the choice (or the knowledge on the product) I would personally not want to eat GM modified foods. Sadly, no one knows what they are eating.
A friend of mine told me that her mother has just been on a government course held for Farmers in Udon. From what she told me about the course I can now see it was to encourage farmers to switch to GM varieties of rice to increase their yield.
Maybe call me old fashioned but I am unhappy with the concept of putting rat DNA (or any other DNA) into somewhere where it would not normally exist. I know some will say that modifying a crop by GM technology is just the ultimate extension of selective breeding. However it isn't.
I would like to remind everybody where mad cow disease (& so CJD) came from...this was from the "completely scientifically safe" policy of serving minced sheep to cows.
Do I trust scientists ?? about as much as I trust politicians.....

I think that GM food will play an important part in feeding many people on (what will likley be) a very crowded planet.

But I feel that the "GM Genie" has been let out of thje bottle too soon, and without enough time to measure the possible negative impacts it could have.

I feel more "testing" was required before they started planting GM in the wild.

I wonder how long it will take for GM Canola to cross pollinate with standard Canola across Western Australia - and then WA cannot claim to be "GM Free".

I am not against GM food - I just think it was "released" too soon (without sufficient testing over many generations of a particular crop)

Of course the other issue is the economic consequences.

When the Monsantos of the world own the patents on all the GM seed used in Thailand, it is open to them to manipulate the prices. You can be sure they will be appreciably higher than what is charged for seed currently.

As Steve says, 'the "GM Genie" has been let out of the bottle.' But I don't think we get 3 wishes.

The money involved is such that there will be no stopping the companies benefiting from GM products, be they food, medicine, or others. Hopefully, there will be no catastrophes.

There are thousands of chemicals in our environment that have never been tested for safety, and so far none of them have killed us off, although some of them are quite toxic.

And what about nanotechnology?

Our abilities outstretch our knowledge. It hasn't killed us off yet, but who knows what the future will bring.

Interesting reading about chemicals and GM:

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/H ... food.shtml
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=90

Too many health scares are bad for your health.

Little do w realise that for many years we have been eating our way through many GM modified foods, from the humble potato to other more exotoc foods.
Foods made so that they can grow in poor soil , dry soil and even deserts, not counting the changes made throiugh selection of animals to increase yeilds not only in milk production but also in the meat available as well from the carcass.

So to say i will not eat GM foods means you are going to starve, it si the ayteempts to raise production that cause us to worry, we should worry more about the fertilisers they are using both on vegtables matter and animals that really make me worry.
Puring antibiotics is starting to cuase problems in eco systems worldwide, creating superbugs that will kill us long before GM foods will.
jus a thought

Our abilities are exceeded only by our ignorance.

We put poisons on/in our foods; herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, and fungicides. Then, maybe we wash them, eat them, and hope for the best. Some governments tell us this is safe if there is only a little poison: Others have nothing to say. Most have not been tested so it's a crap shoot. Still we live longer than before this started, so perhaps it is to our benefit.

And don't even get me started on what we are breathing. Stand around in the parking garage under the complex if you want an example.

The big chemical and agricultural companies control most of this business and they are quite likely to be successful in pushing their products as farmers can make more money using them, even though they become hostage consumers.

The organics movement is the opposite side of this coin. By going organic farmers have to use different growing methods but they can get a significant premium for their products. If I have a choice, I buy the organic product as I am willing to pay a premium to have a better product and I want to lend my small financial support to this approach to food production.

There are also seed banks devoted to preserving seeds of natural food stocks. Part of their idea being if the GM experiment is a bust, there will be natural seed stock to start over.

Were it not for modern agricultural methods it is unlikely that the earth could provide enough food for us. Improving yields, survival, appearance, flavor, disease resistance, and pest resistance all goes towards feeding more people. GM claims it will make big strides in this effort. It seems we will find out as the pressures to globalise are overwhelming the opposition.

In the meantime, live long and eat well. Enjoy

Were it not for modern agricultural methods it is unlikely that the earth could provide enough food for us. Improving yields, survival, appearance, flavor, disease resistance, and pest resistance all goes towards feeding more people. GM claims it will make big strides in this effort. It seems we will find out as the pressures to globalise are overwhelming the opposition.

OH WELL SAID,

Sounds good UE, but many poeple will tell you that the old varieties of Vegetables are far tastier than the new enginered ones, also twenty years or so down the track when Women start giving birth to Babies with two heads or with organs that never developed properly or the rate of Cancer is ten fold what it is now, who will poeple blame ?? I'll bet its not the GM industry who by then will have well and truly convinced poeple that everything else is to blame, probably global warming or something like that ! IMHO a lot more research needs to be done by independent organisations before these companies can unload this stuff on a bunch of farmers who can only see the $$$$$$ signs that are promised !!

Aa, I agree were treading into the unknown. Unfortunately, those who share the 'test before use' point of view lost out long ago in this debate. In fact, before it was even realized there was a debate.

Distillation was one of the first unnatural processes. Sugar processing was a later one. Both are poisons that have become accepted as food. The industrial revolution started introducing chemicals that have never been tested and, initially, I don't think there was even any concern that these chemicals could create harm. Now we know that some of them have created problems, but the long term effects of thousands of them are unknown. Food additives are largely untested.

And what about the electromagnetic spectrum? Microwaves, radio waves, radar, etc. They are passing through our bodies all the time. Are they harmless? Are they dangerous? Is the radio wave from 102.9FM going to give me prostate cancer after passing through my body for 50 years? No body knows.

The rush to do is greater than the rush to understand. We have a God complex. We believe we can do anything. But then if we had to test everything we'd probably still be trying to figure if distillation should be allowed outside the monastery. After all, if you drank a lot of it you'd see God, but if you drank a little more you died. Who's to decide?

Many of the foods we eat are hybrids or gm. I remember tomatoes that actually tasted good and we ate them right off the vine: Sweet and juicy. Or wild blueberries. We'd eat them until we were stuffed and our hands and lips were all blue. Many modern fruits and vegetables only look good, because consumer research has revealed that people will chose the good looking ones over the tasty ones. It's done under the guise of consumer satisfaction. I'm in the minority again, I'd rather have food that tastes good. Oh, well, the success of McDonald's, Applebee's, etc. proves the consumer is right.

Be sure to only drink enough to see God, not meet her.