Do Organic scare tactics discourage healthy eating?

[elfs]

The pamphlet I held screamed "Genetically Engineered Foods are invading your supermarket!" I had found it stuck under my windshield wiper, placed there while I was inside a Safeway. Whoever was doing the placing was nowhere to be found. The pamphlet that it talked a lot about fruits and vegetable, especially corn, that were genetically engineered, and what could happen to you if you ate some of these frakenfoods. There was a great deal of frouhaha over allergic reactions.

I wonder if pamphlets like this don't discourage healthy eating. Consider: you're in a grocery store and you know you're supposed to eat healthy, so instead of a bag of chips or a Snickers bar, you eye the oranges and apples instead. But then, you remember, it's probable that those oranges and apples are genetically engineered, injected with antiobiotics, crated with alar, and gassed with sulfur dioxide. After a few minutes of poorly-managed risk anxiety, you decide: screw it. It's impossible to eat healthy. You're having the extra-large bag of Doritos. It's what you really wanted anyway.

I think there should be a survey done: "Would you eat more fruits and vegetable if you were sure that you could get produce at the same price that was not genetically engineered?" I wonder what the answer would be.

Comments

In answer

[phred1973.livejournal.com]

Yes, I would - even if they were less "pretty"--and I do, whenever possible, despite the increased sticker price. Call me crazy.

[tehrasha.livejournal.com]

I would dare to speculate that 'allergic reactions' supposedly caused by gengineered foods are as much the fault of our overly sterile, anti-bacterial, protect the children, culture as they are the twisted protein chains in the food. People who protect their children from ever encountering the average germ, risk creating an entire generation of weak immune systems.

I dont have a problem with so-called 'frankenfood' considering that food plants have had their genetics twiddled with and modified by man for centuries. But even with that fear out of the way, I still dont eat many of the so called 'healthy foods'. So my answer to your modified survey question, would still be 'no'.

I grew up (as did my parents and grandparent) drinking whole milk, cooking with lard, fresh eggs, and loads of meat and bread at every meal. As yet, none of them has died before the age of 85... I figure that even if you eat right and exercise... youre still going to die. Well, except for Elf. :)

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

One issue those flyers don't cover is the fact that genetically modified food have been in use for many years. They have been making insect resistant strains of many "bulk" crops for at least 30 years now. I would imagine that bag of doritoes uses the genetically modified corn that has been available for many years now. Especially considering that the genetically modified version is cheaper and higher yield crop.

[srmalloy.livejournal.com]

Is food any less 'genetically engineered' because its genetic makeup was altered through thousands of years of selective breeding for specific traits? Look at the difference between teosinte and corn, for example. Consider that eggs would be much more expensive if chickens hadn't been bred for egglaying (modern chickens lay about an egg a day; during the Middle Ages, an egg a week would be a good layer). It seems to me that their objection appears to be in taking a shortcut, rather than doing it the hard way.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

Their point is that by directly tampering with specific genes directly you sidestep the evolution/selection of fittest out of the equation. We really don't fully understand the impact of making those changes directly instead of doing selective breeding to maximize a good trait.

Rarely with selective breeding do you see some of the issues that have been seen with genetic engineering. I have read journal reports of certain crops of genetically engineered rice causing serious digestive issues with native deer populations where they are grown. (I used to work at Va/Md Regional College of Veterinary Medicine) This is mainly becuase we make so radical changes that nature cannot keep up with those changes and adapt.

It's like the issue the US South has with Kudzu. Which has destroyed millions of acres of forest and is a constant headache for farmers, highway workers, etc. And to think it was originally brought here to be used as an erosion control agent. (Unfortunately it doesn't help with erosion control very well.)

[(Anonymous)]

A part of the problem is that all the different sorts of genetic engineering tweaks do different things. And some of those things are already happening in the wild.

There's a couple I know of in food plants. One makes the plant resistant to a herbicide called Glyphosate (sold by Monsanto under the name Round-Up). It's a mutation which occurs naturally, though it's fairly uncommon. Glyphosate is one of the safest herbicides around, and is joyfully eaten by soil bacteria.

Another, which is still going through trials, the last I heard, prompts the plant to produce corn with a much higher starch content. This makes it into a useful industrial crop, to produce alternatives to oil-dependent plastics. How about a replacement for those plastic packing pellets?

Neither of these add anything to what you eat, were you to eat food derived from the plant. And if that Glyphosate-resistance gene gets into the weeds you just use a different herbicide, as you had to do before the genetic engineering.

There are things which I wouldn't want to see in food crops, such as the gene which makes the plant produce its own insecticide. I'm not sure of the safety, but it does creep me out on some more visceral level.

And neither side on the GM Crops argument is being entirely honest. The Anti-GM movement seem totally ignorant of farming, and claim we'll suddenly have unkillable weeds. The people selling GM don't mention that Glyphosate is out of patent, but if you grow Monsanto seed you have to use Monsanto herbicide.

And the farmer is stuck in the middle, with both sides poking him with the shitty end of the stick.

I am very glad I am out of that business.


And the new genes make the plants less competitive in other environments. Stop using glyphosate, and the plants with the tolerance gene are at a disadvantage. Remember, we're not making new genes. There's a reason these genes aren't naturally in every plant.

[(Anonymous)]

My problem with genetically engineered food is the lack of choice it provides for us all.
While we can make the choice to eat organic or non-organic, free-range or not free range, none of us have a choice any more over genetically engineered food.
Once we start genetically engineering one crop of - say - corn, every other crop in the area also becomes genetically engineered, it's a process called pollenation - whether it be by wind or insect. Genetically engineered pollen gets into non-genetically engineered crops - meaning everything is genetically engineered.