Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act

[dmbwest]

eh Paul !

aloha,
pog

[PaulW]

Forget GMO, we need space on the label to warn us if there's anything organic in our food:

http://io9.com/on-correlation-causation-...1494972271

Also, there's no requirement to label everything that contains gluten but food producers
are free to state their goods are gluten free. (It's always profitable to have the
gullible as customers. I've even seen gluten-free dog food!) So it should be with
other frivolous labeling.

[terracore]

If the food isn't labeled "GMO FREE" then it has GMO products in it. I don't understand all the fuss about labeling because the food is already labeled if you are smart enough to deduce labeling by omission.

My problem is that the current system is setup to punish those who want the labeling. Organic certification is time consuming, expensive, and the regulations are essentially written for the for-profit monopolies that grant the certificates. There is no expensive "Not organic" labeling certification process food factories have to pay for.

Organic labeling is a farce anyway because there are so many loopholes to circumvent the requirements. Organic labeling is a bureaucratic process, not a method of farming.

[pahoated]

Considering it is mostly just wheat and corn that have GMO variants on the market, this will be interesting to see something that looks like the pamphlet on the side of prescription bottles -- only glued on with some adhesive on every ear of corn and bag of flour. Of course, everybody reads those "right to be informed" pamphlets that come with their prescription, right? All the chemical equations and symbols, with words you never heard of, outside of being a PhD in pharmacy science? You read those thoroughly and double check the chemical equations, the type of buffer that is being used, the side effects and all the symptoms of the side effects? Of course, you do, because you have the right to know! BTW, it's a lot easier to look up the info on the web with street level language summaries, rather than finding the magnifying glasses to read the tiny lettering of the prescription pamphlet. Bureaucracy tends to make the ridiculous a requirement.

"Aloha also means goodbye. Aloha!"

[rainyjim]

GMO wheat? pahoated strikes again.

[terracore]

I'm not sure it's common knowledge that there is no GMO wheat grown commercially. (Hence, it wasn't a heavy lift for Cheerios to put "No GMO" on the label).

Wheat has been genetically modified by humans for millennia the old fashioned way. I guess it was already Frankenfood 1000 years before Monsanto (or whoever) got ahold of it.

Maybe this has already been determined but I don't know about it...How are the pro-GMO-labelers going to define what constitutes a GMO? If they are looking for a crop that hasn't been modified by humans... good luck finding ANYTHING that isn't GMO. Anybody who has ever raised broilers know its a chicken that cannot exist in nature, yet none of the genes have been modified in a lab.

[leilanidude]

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/...uture.html

From the article:

“It’s made raising a healthy crop easier,” said Davis, who farms 3,600 acres of corn and soybeans in Delaware County. “We can do it non-GMO, but we’d need more pesticide and labor. (GMOs) make it a lot easier on the farmer.

“We all want safe, economical food, and this is how we can do it for the masses.”


and:

“One of the biggest questions or uneasiness is, ‘Are they safe?’ There is a perception that they have not been well tested, and that is inaccurate,” said Margaret Smith, professor of plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University. “There has been quite a bit of testing.”

Smith points to a 2014 report that pooled the results of more than 1,700 recent studies on GMOs — about a decade’s worth of research — that concluded that there is no evidence of danger to humans.

“I feel comfortable,” she said. “I don’t think there is any credible evidence of concern at this time.”

and further:

"According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2014, the use of insecticide on corn declined 90 percent between 1995 and 2010. The USDA also said the active ingredient in RoundUp — glyphosate — is less toxic than the herbicides it replaced."

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[pahoated]

GMO wheat was there, anti-GMO forced it to be retracted. Now:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/g...6cd1d.html
Genetically-modified wheat is in the works again, but are we ready for it?

And if almost nothing is GMO, then why do we need more labels again? These for-against arguments get so ludicrous, continually going off in wille-nilly directions.

"Aloha also means goodbye. Aloha!"

[rainyjim]

So, there have been several varities of wheat modified in the manner which many refer yo as 'gmo' however none of them are commercially available, nor/therefore you will not find them in your food which contains wheat.

It's okay to admit you are wrong.

Fwiw,

Corn and soy are the two major products containing gmos.

Canola and cotton come in second, though, of course we don't eat cotton - everyone just wears it.

[terracore]

Crisco used to be made out of cottonseed oil but I think the lower price of soybean oil changed that. I think its still used in processed foods. As a by-product of growing cotton it's not really an oil crop but I think most cottonseed oil finds its way into our food supply.

I recently read that the next step in GMO crops is nitrogen fixing. So the nextgen of GMO crops will not only require 90% less pesticides, they will also require 90% less fertilizer.