Occasional reminder: GMOs are good for you.


NeuroTypical
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"In general, the more food we eat in its natural state and the less it is refined without additives, the healthier it will be for us. Food can affect the mind, and deficiencies in certain elements in the body can promote mental depression."  Ezra Taft Benson, 1974

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1974/10/do-not-despair?lang=eng&_r=1

In the past, I rolled my eyes at granolaheads and others whose dietary preferences were too "crunchy" for my taste. Then we had a friend stay with us for a while who preferred only organic foods.  At first I thought it was elitism, but then I saw the horrific hives on her hands immediately after I sneaked non-organic lettuce into our dinner salad. It was humbling. Without going into all of my concerns about the politicization of our food supply, let me just say: the health of our people is more important than possible loss of profits due to honest labeling. 

GMOs can obviously be useful. Golden rice is a great example of that. Some have posted charts stating various kinds of genetic modification, saying "What isn't modified?" And, it is true, much of our food supply IS modified in one way or another. But there has been an insidious blurring of the lines of definition on the topic. Natural modification, such as crossbreeding or, as suggested by one scriptorian here, grafting, has been done for millenia. Those are not GMO, by the definition of those who oppose it. But inserting Roundup genes into corn meant for human consumption? That's the kind of thing horror movies are made of. The prophet's guidance, given long before GMO was even a household word, is wisdom indeed. 

 

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44 minutes ago, keithleycreek said:

"In general, the more food we eat in its natural state and the less it is refined without additives, the healthier it will be for us. Food can affect the mind, and deficiencies in certain elements in the body can promote mental depression."  Ezra Taft Benson, 1974

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1974/10/do-not-despair?lang=eng&_r=1

In the past, I rolled my eyes at granolaheads and others whose dietary preferences were too "crunchy" for my taste. Then we had a friend stay with us for a while who preferred only organic foods.  At first I thought it was elitism, but then I saw the horrific hives on her hands immediately after I sneaked non-organic lettuce into our dinner salad. It was humbling. Without going into all of my concerns about the politicization of our food supply, let me just say: the health of our people is more important than possible loss of profits due to honest labeling. 

GMOs can obviously be useful. Golden rice is a great example of that. Some have posted charts stating various kinds of genetic modification, saying "What isn't modified?" And, it is true, much of our food supply IS modified in one way or another. But there has been an insidious blurring of the lines of definition on the topic. Natural modification, such as crossbreeding or, as suggested by one scriptorian here, grafting, has been done for millenia. Those are not GMO, by the definition of those who oppose it. But inserting Roundup genes into corn meant for human consumption? That's the kind of thing horror movies are made of. The prophet's guidance, given long before GMO was even a household word, is wisdom indeed. 

 

I just want to say... nice profile picture!

I got 4 silkies myself... acting as my natural pesticide and weed killer.  :)

 

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This year, we had two silkie mommies hatching and raising half a dozen or more chickies, including one turkey poult.  Those critters will hatch a light bulb if you let them!

"But inserting Roundup genes into corn meant for human consumption? That's the kind of thing horror movies are made of."

Ok, I'll bite - what exactly are "Roundup genes"?  Where does it fall here in the big simplified chart of scary sounding technology?  I'd love to see your source for this horror-story practice, keithleycreek.

trollgmotechniques.jpg

 

Also, you didn't come out and say it directly, but do I hear correctly, that you believe organic food is somehow processed less, or contain less additives?  If that truly is your belief, could I get a source on that one as well?   Check it out - Nabisco's Organic Oreos!  Ingredients include Expeller-pressed oleic safflower oil, Cocoa processed with alkali, calcium phosphate, and of course soy lecithin. We all know the glycerophospholipids in lecithin include phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylserine, and phosphatidic acid, right?  I'd love to hear how organic oreos are processed less or contain less additives than non-organic oreos.  From where I'm standing, 1974 pre-prophet Ezra Taft Benson would react to an organic oreo like Dracula to a crucifix, wouldn't you think?

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3 hours ago, keithleycreek said:

Thanks! They are the best antidote to earwigs I ever saw. Best garden I ever had was when they were my bug/weed patrol.

 

Not to derail the thread but... I've been wanting to free-range my chickens instead of rolling them around in a tractor because I can't get their tractor into my garden.  How do you protect the chickens from hawks and the like?  I was thinking of scarecrows but that probably isn't gonna keep out hawks.

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This is our third year with birdies.  It's also the first year with losses to predators - we think a weasel or two.

Something that helped us with the winged predators, was an uneasy alliance with a local massive owl.  (We were uneasy with the alliance, I think she was totally ok with it.  Nothing seems to disturb owls.)  The owl sat there and made powerful eye contact with us and our chickens, but preferred the smaller voles and gophers and whatnot that came to eat the chicken food.  We didn't take any steps to reduce the vole population, so the owl wouldn't get any ideas about our chickens.

We lock our birds up at night, and let them roam around in the day.  They keep an eye on the skies, and occasionally will all go bolting into their coops at an alarm from one of them.  Lots of redtail hawks in our area.  Safety at night is important - chickens are basically blind, comatose, and defenseless at night.  Winter will be difficult - with prey hibernating, probably every taloned and clawed critter within 10 miles will be keeping an eye on our place.  

 

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15 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Ok, I'll bite - what exactly are "Roundup genes"?  Where does it fall here in the big simplified chart of scary sounding technology?  I'd love to see your source for this horror-story practice.

I believe he meant "Roundup Ready genes".  And that is being done.  But unfortunately, most people don't know or even understand the difference.

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Yeah, I know what he's talking about.  Soybeans.  They grow best when multiple different kinds of herbicides are used to kill all the competing weeds.  So Monsanto genetically modified Soybeans to be resistant to glyphosate, a single herbicide which kills tons of plants.  

So basically, you create a GMO crop that actually reduces the amount of evil herbicides needed, and people freak out because they associate "Monsanto" and "Roundup" with "the kind of thing horror movies are made of".  Meanwhile, they proceed happily along their way, unaware that organic crops use pesticides, sometimes in greater amounts than other alternatives. 

Yeah, I think it's a good thing to start a thread like this a couple times a year.  

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10 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Yeah, I know what he's talking about.  Soybeans.  They grow best when multiple different kinds of herbicides are used to kill all the competing weeds.  So Monsanto genetically modified Soybeans to be resistant to glyphosate, a single herbicide which kills tons of plants.  

 

The question...  (that no one can answer yet) is what is the long term effect of that modification on those that eat the plant?   The short term advantages are clear (just like the short term advantages of lead where clear).  Since we don't know... we need long term scientific studies (preferably multiple ones) that are independent of those making the short term profit.

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1 hour ago, estradling75 said:

The question...  (that no one can answer yet) is what is the long term effect of that modification on those that eat the plant?   The short term advantages are clear (just like the short term advantages of lead where clear).  Since we don't know... we need long term scientific studies (preferably multiple ones) that are independent of those making the short term profit.

This strikes me as a reasonable middle ground, because it doesn't use alarmism to villify the use of genetic modification, but it also doesn't ignore the unknowns, which do exist.

Do these kids of modification change the food in such a way as to produce harmful effects?  Probably not... but the only way to be reasonably sure is through genuine, careful study.  There isn't anything wrong with that.

So ends theory.

In reality, any such studies would be trumpeted as gospel by whichever side likes the result, and condemned as biased research by the other side.  And there's some truth in that.  Any such study will be funded by an entity that stands to gain from a particular result.  Corporations, Universities, Governments... makes no difference.  Nobody is truly objective. 

I'm not disagreeing with @estradling75, just pointing out that the devil is in the details.

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8 minutes ago, unixknight said:

I'm not disagreeing with @estradling75, just pointing out that the devil is in the details.

Indeed which is why I dislike the alarmist and/or personal attacks that can come from any/all sides of this discussion... makes it hard to tell what is actually true.

 

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On 9/22/2016 at 3:15 PM, Jojo Bags said:

Take a good look at the following photos.  These are rats and the stomachs from pigs fed on GMO.  Still think they are safe?

[shock photos of tumor-filled rats and gross stomachs removed]

I just found out about this.  These rats came from a retracted study, immediately criticized from a diverse spectrum of scientists from all sides of the GMO debate.   Among other problems with the study, these folks actually used a breed of rats that are subject to spontaneous tumor development.  Bad science, pictures meant to sway opinion through shock, basically, the whole thing is meaningless to the GMO debate.  (Other than as an example of the crap people pass off as truth, and how many folks believe it.)

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On 9/21/2016 at 0:14 PM, anatess2 said:

So, I'm just curious, MG... so vegetarians don't eat eggs right?  But, if it's egg from a vegetarian chicken, it can pass for vegetarian-friendly?

Vegetarians eat eggs & dairy, including cheese. Vegans don't eat eggs or dairy. They make vegan cheese.

While I espouse the vegan position and financially support vegan (usually in the form of anti-animal cruelty organizations), I eat eggs because as a diabetic, they are often the only easily available, portable, thing available that isn't full of carbs. Being lactose intolerant, I don't drink milk or eat much cheese, but I choose regular cheese over the fake stuff, because it is well...fake.  Like massively fake. Humans have been making cheese for millennia. I'd rather have a little bit of real food than the fake stuff. 

 

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As we go about thinking what's cruelty free and what isn't...   Fun fact on "vegetarian chickens" - it's another way of saying the chicken has never been outdoors.  Because you find bugs outside, and a chickens eat bugs whenever they find them.  So, a chicken who eats bugs isn't a vegetarian.  

Vegatarian chickens = caged, or at least raised indoors.  If there was a window or something, maybe it has seen the sun.  Or not.  

[Playing sad chicken music, and showing sad chicken images, while everyone contemplates the sad plight of sad chickens unable to roam free, never feeling grass between their cute sad little chicken toesies.]

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8 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

As we go about thinking what's cruelty free and what isn't...   Fun fact on "vegetarian chickens" - it's another way of saying the chicken has never been outdoors.  Because you find bugs outside, and a chickens eat bugs whenever they find them.  So, a chicken who eats bugs isn't a vegetarian.  

Vegatarian chickens = caged, or at least raised indoors.  If there was a window or something, maybe it has seen the sun.  Or not.  

[Playing sad chicken music, and showing sad chicken images, while everyone contemplates the sad plight of sad chickens unable to roam free, never feeling grass between their cute sad little chicken toesies.]

I'm not sure I've ever heard of vegetarian chickens. Cage free, yeah, vegetarian no, precisely for the reasons you provide.  I have heard of people who make their dogs vegan. I don't get it. It would be like me trying to make my vegan rabbit a carnivore. Respect the animal. Let the poor dog have some meat - or don't have a dog for a pet if you can't deal with buying or handling meat (which I understand). 

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On 10/2/2016 at 8:42 AM, NeuroTypical said:

As we go about thinking what's cruelty free and what isn't...   Fun fact on "vegetarian chickens" - it's another way of saying the chicken has never been outdoors.  Because you find bugs outside, and a chickens eat bugs whenever they find them.  So, a chicken who eats bugs isn't a vegetarian.  

Vegatarian chickens = caged, or at least raised indoors.  If there was a window or something, maybe it has seen the sun.  Or not.  

[Playing sad chicken music, and showing sad chicken images, while everyone contemplates the sad plight of sad chickens unable to roam free, never feeling grass between their cute sad little chicken toesies.]

So... growing up in the Philippines, we have a farm out in the boondocks were chickens run wild and we also have an urban farm were selected egg layers were raised in a "battery on steroids".  It's more like a chicken condo.  But, still, the hens are not free to roam or scratch (the floor is wire that allows the poop to drop through).  They basically spend all day flapping their wings and clucking at each other through the wire.  The condo is in our urban backyard.  These chickens are fed chicken feed.  But then mice sometimes try to eat their food and sometimes snakes try to steal their eggs.  The mouse and snake soon gets to see what the inside of a chicken looks like.  Yep, these huge hens can kill a mouse or a snake with one strike and swallow the things whole!  So no... our battery chickens are not vegetarian either.

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In addition to Jacob 5, here's another verse that has a vague reference to plant based food production. Some scriptorian or theologian might interpret it to mean that God is not in favour of GMOs

(Pearl of Great Price | Abraham 4:12)
And the Gods organized the earth to bring forth grass from its own seed, and the herb to bring forth herb from its own seed, yielding seed after his kind; and the earth to bring forth the tree from its own seed, yielding fruit, whose seed could only bring forth the same in itself, after his kind; and the Gods saw that they were obeyed.

My own view is that probably the good GMOs are good for you and the bad ones are not (How profound is that!). And how to tell the good ones from the bad ones? By their fruits ye shall know them.  

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5 hours ago, askandanswer said:

And how to tell the good ones from the bad ones? By their fruits ye shall know them.  

Oh wow - I'm now your biggest fan.  That's a bridge-building phrase both 'sides' can appreciate, a bad pun, and relevant scriptural truth - all contained in just seven words!

If I'm Thor with the hammer of Admin, you're Vision who just picked it up and handed it to me.  

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