The problem with genetically modified foods is that they are not safe to eat. It someone put a sign and said, "This food isn't safe to eat but we are lying to you and selling it to you because you are stupid anyway" then it would be fair to secretly give people that might make them sick or kill them and does kill people every day around the world because it isn't safe. But, instead of telling you are eating genetically modified foods you aren't told here in the U.S. or Central or South America that this is genetically modified food. For example, 85% to 90% of all Soy grown in the U.S. IS GENETICALLY MODIFIED. So, even if you are trying to be healthy by eating soy products the likelihood is you are eating GMO soy.
Also, China absolutely will not accept any GMO Rice at all. They know better than this. However, GMO rice is grown in the U.S. ALL OVER THE PLACE.
Then there are tomatoes that have animal or chicken genes added to them or corn that is considered to be an insecticide. The corn itself is an insecticide that kills bugs. What do you think that does to people who eat it?
So, if you wind up eathing anything GMO likely you would do better to grind up the kids cardboard cereal boxes and feed them that instead of giving them GMO foods. That is less likely to kill your kids (realistically) than feeding them GMO foods.
So, the problem isn't that there are GMO foods. The problem is people aren't told they are buying GMO foods in any normal Supermarket because the owners would know that no one would buy it if it was properly labeled as being what it actually is. And this is what causes kids and adults who don't know what they are eating to have allergic reactions and die.
The most common fatal illness is:
Search Results
Eosinophil granulocyte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eosinophil_granulocyteEosinophil granulocytes, usually called eosinophils or eosinophiles (or, less commonly, acidophils), are white blood cells and one of the immune system ...WikipediaEosinophil count - absolute - National Library of Medicine
www.nlm.nih.gov/.../003649....An absolute eosinophil count is a blood test that measures the number of white blood cells called eosinophils. Eosinophils become active when you have certainUnited States National Library of Medicine... So, suddenly someone (child or adult) has a severe allergic reaction and no one knows what it is because no one knew they were eating GMO foods. The common reaction of doctors is to take out the intestines and install a colostomy bag. However, when this happened to a neighbor's daughter they found she could keep down with out throwing up all the time Non-GMO rice. So, she ate nothing but rice for 2 or 3 years before she slowly could eat regular food again because her mother was an oncology nurse and figured out how to save her daugther's life. My son has a friend where they just installed a colostomy bag and he won't be able to ever work at a regular job again even though they recently reinstalled his intestines to be normal after about 3 or more years of living with a colostomy bag. However, 75% of the people that have this reaction are dead within a week to a month. Since no one knows they were eating GMO foods the GMO makers cannot be sued because it can't be proven they were eating GMO foods. This is the insanity of living in the United States and it is like this in North, South, And Central America for some time now. But not so much in the rest of the world because most of the world refuses to eat GMO foods. So, thousands to millions of people are being murdered by the GMO makers every year and it doesn't make the news because how would anyone prove this because the sneaky way things are done now?
Genetically modified foods confuse consumers
WASHINGTON
(AP) — Genetically modified foods have been around for years, but most
Americans have no idea if they are eating them.
Associated Press
Fri, May 9, 2014, 6:27pm EDT - US Markets are closed
Genetically modified foods confuse consumers
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
5 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Genetically modified foods have been around
for years, but most Americans have no idea if they are eating them.
The Food and Drug Administration says they don't
need to be labeled, so the state of Vermont has moved forward on its
own. On Thursday, Gov. Peter Shumlin signed legislation making his state
the first to require labeling of genetically modified organisms, or
GMOs.
What about the rest of the country? And does labeling matter?
There's a lot of confusion about genetically modified foods and their safety.
Some people feel very strongly about GMOs. Opponents, who at times have protested in the streets, say consumers have the right to know whether their food contains GMOs. The Vermont law is their first major victory.
The food industry and companies that genetically engineer seeds have pushed back against the labeling laws, saying GMOs are safe and labels would be misleading.
"It's really polarizing," says New York University's Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies. "There's no middle ground."
A look at the debate and some of the facts about genetically modified foods:
___
WHAT THEY ARE
GMOs are not really a "thing," Nestle says, and that's hard for the average consumer to grasp. You can't touch or feel a GMO.
Genetically modified foods are plants or animals that have had genes copied from other plants or animals inserted into their DNA. It's not a new idea — humans have been tinkering with genes for centuries through selective breeding. Think dogs bred to be more docile pets, cattle bred to be beefier or tomatoes bred to be sweeter. Turkeys were bred to have bigger breasts — better for Thanksgiving dinner.
What's different about genetically modified or engineered foods is that the manipulation is done in a lab. Engineers don't need to wait for nature to produce a desired gene; they speed up the process by transferring a gene from one plant or animal to another.
Even in some of those products, the manufacturing process itself may eventually remove some of the modified genes.
A few fruits and vegetables are engineered — the Hawaiian papaya and some squash and zucchini, for example. Only a small amount of sweet corn, the corn we eat, is genetically modified.
But there's no genetically modified meat or fish, like the fast-growing salmon, currently in the market for human consumption; the Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve any.
___
THE BENEFITS
There are clear benefits for the agricultural industry — the crops that are engineered to ward off pests or to tolerate herbicides, for example. And companies like Monsanto that produce modified seeds say their technologies will be needed to feed a rising world population as they engineer crops to adapt to certain climates and terrains.
THE POLITICS
There is an escalating political fight between the labeling advocates and the food industry, which has dug in against labeling. In the absence of a federal labeling standard, GMO opponents have gone to the states to try to get a patchwork of labeling laws approved — a move that could eventually force a national standard.
In Congress, the food industry is pushing a House bill that would head off efforts to enact mandatory labeling of genetically modified ingredients by proposing new voluntary labels nationwide — an attempted end run around the state-by-state laws.
Currently, the FDA says labeling of genetically modified foods isn't needed because the nutritional content is the same as non-GMO varieties.
_____
THE FUTURE
Safe or not, consumers are increasingly interested in what is in their food, including GMOs.
"There's so much confusing speech on food packaging and food advertising that consumers are often buying things they think are GMO free when they are not," says Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group, which is pushing for the labels.
Faber and other labeling proponents say it's about transparency, not technology. They say there is precedent, like orange juice labels that say whether the juice is from concentrate.
David Ropeik, the author of the book "How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts," says he thinks the food industry should endorse labeling so it can move past the debate.
"By supporting labeling, companies would say, 'There's no risk, we have nothing to hide,'" he says.
He says people rightly or wrongly fear GMOs because they are more concerned about man-made risks than natural ones and the food industry's control over what we eat.
"It's a surrogate for a values war they have against big companies," he says.
___
AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein and AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.
___
Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
What about the rest of the country? And does labeling matter?
There's a lot of confusion about genetically modified foods and their safety.
Some people feel very strongly about GMOs. Opponents, who at times have protested in the streets, say consumers have the right to know whether their food contains GMOs. The Vermont law is their first major victory.
The food industry and companies that genetically engineer seeds have pushed back against the labeling laws, saying GMOs are safe and labels would be misleading.
"It's really polarizing," says New York University's Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies. "There's no middle ground."
A look at the debate and some of the facts about genetically modified foods:
___
WHAT THEY ARE
GMOs are not really a "thing," Nestle says, and that's hard for the average consumer to grasp. You can't touch or feel a GMO.
Genetically modified foods are plants or animals that have had genes copied from other plants or animals inserted into their DNA. It's not a new idea — humans have been tinkering with genes for centuries through selective breeding. Think dogs bred to be more docile pets, cattle bred to be beefier or tomatoes bred to be sweeter. Turkeys were bred to have bigger breasts — better for Thanksgiving dinner.
What's different about genetically modified or engineered foods is that the manipulation is done in a lab. Engineers don't need to wait for nature to produce a desired gene; they speed up the process by transferring a gene from one plant or animal to another.
What
are the desired traits? Most of the nation's corn and soybeans are
genetically engineered to resist pests and herbicides. A papaya in
Hawaii is modified to resist a virus. The FDA is considering an
application from a Massachusetts company to approve a genetically
engineered salmon that would grow faster than traditional salmon.
___
IN YOUR GROCERY CART
Most
of the genetically modified corn and soybeans are used in cattle feed,
or are made into ingredients like corn oil, corn starch, high fructose
corn syrup or soybean oil.Even in some of those products, the manufacturing process itself may eventually remove some of the modified genes.
A few fruits and vegetables are engineered — the Hawaiian papaya and some squash and zucchini, for example. Only a small amount of sweet corn, the corn we eat, is genetically modified.
But there's no genetically modified meat or fish, like the fast-growing salmon, currently in the market for human consumption; the Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve any.
___
THE RISKS
The vast majority of scientific research has found genetically engineered foods to be generally safe.
An
Italian scientist's review of 10 years of research, published in 2013,
concluded that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected
"any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops."
One
French research team raised safety questions, but their much-criticized
2012 study linking genetically modified corn to rat tumors was
retracted in 2013 by the scientific publisher, who cited weak evidence
supporting the conclusions.
Even
the food police say they are safe: The Center for Science in the Public
Interest, a well-known critic of food companies and artificial and
unhealthy ingredients in foods, has not opposed genetically modified
foods, on the basis that there's no evidence they are harmful.
Though
what we are eating now appears safe, the main concerns for the future
would be new genetically engineered foods — from the United States or
abroad — that somehow become allergenic or toxic through the engineering
process. The FDA says the foods they have evaluated to this point have
not been any more likely to cause an allergic or toxic reaction than
foods from traditionally bred plants.
Unlike
animals, the FDA is not required to approve genetically engineered
crops for consumption. However, most companies will go through a
voluntary safety review process with FDA before they put them on the
market.
____THE BENEFITS
There are clear benefits for the agricultural industry — the crops that are engineered to ward off pests or to tolerate herbicides, for example. And companies like Monsanto that produce modified seeds say their technologies will be needed to feed a rising world population as they engineer crops to adapt to certain climates and terrains.
While
most modified foods have so far been grown to resist chemicals, pests
or disease, advocates envision engineering crops to make them more
nutritious as well. Food animals have been engineered to be bred to be
free of diseases, be cleaner in their environments or grow more
efficiently, though none has yet been approved in the United States.
____THE POLITICS
There is an escalating political fight between the labeling advocates and the food industry, which has dug in against labeling. In the absence of a federal labeling standard, GMO opponents have gone to the states to try to get a patchwork of labeling laws approved — a move that could eventually force a national standard.
Ballot
measures in California and Washington state failed, but the legislative
effort prevailed in Vermont. Maine and Connecticut also have passed
laws requiring labels, but they don't take effect unless other states
follow suit. The food industry is widely expected to challenge the
Vermont law in court.
The state efforts aren't slowing down.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there are 85
pending GMO labeling bills in 29 states.In Congress, the food industry is pushing a House bill that would head off efforts to enact mandatory labeling of genetically modified ingredients by proposing new voluntary labels nationwide — an attempted end run around the state-by-state laws.
Currently, the FDA says labeling of genetically modified foods isn't needed because the nutritional content is the same as non-GMO varieties.
_____
THE FUTURE
Safe or not, consumers are increasingly interested in what is in their food, including GMOs.
"There's so much confusing speech on food packaging and food advertising that consumers are often buying things they think are GMO free when they are not," says Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group, which is pushing for the labels.
Faber and other labeling proponents say it's about transparency, not technology. They say there is precedent, like orange juice labels that say whether the juice is from concentrate.
David Ropeik, the author of the book "How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts," says he thinks the food industry should endorse labeling so it can move past the debate.
"By supporting labeling, companies would say, 'There's no risk, we have nothing to hide,'" he says.
He says people rightly or wrongly fear GMOs because they are more concerned about man-made risks than natural ones and the food industry's control over what we eat.
"It's a surrogate for a values war they have against big companies," he says.
___
AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein and AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.
___
Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
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