TimG

Really? Most of the non-GMO plants we eat today did not exist 200 years ago. They have been bred and cross bred many times to the point where the nutritional composition of these plants is very different from what they were in the past. These new strains are simply assumed to be safe and no testing is done. GMOs, OTOH, undergo extensive testing to ensure the mutations do not significantly alter the nutritional composition of the plants. So despite your claims otherwise, GMOs are more studied than any non-GMO plant and your assertion that they are not studied is demonstrably false. BTW: do you think that the EU is incompetent? Do you believe that they would not do whatever they could to find a scientific basis for their ideologically driven desire to ban GMOs? Why do you think the US government approvals could hide significant results in a global marketplace?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gmoanswers/2015/12/21/how-are-gmos-regulated/#4e07684134b7D Show me studies of non-GMO plants even approach the level of scrutiny that GMO plants have to go though to get approval. You won't find them because non-GMOs are simply assumed to be the baseline. The EU has been trying to find excuses to ban GMOs for decades and has largely failed because the scientific justifications do not exist. The EU has been more than willing to fund ideologically driven scientists looking for excuses to ban them. At the end of the day your concerns about GMOs are no different than a Muslim's concern about non-Halal food. It is a religious position but you don't want to admit that so you look for pseudo-scientific justifications.

Repeating things that are not true does not make them true. The GMO label is too broad and covers too many plants with completely different histories and compositions. It provides no useful information to people who want to know what is in their food. It is a label that panders to scientific ignorance by grouping a bunch of unrelated plants by the technique used to create them. It encourages people to make completely irrational decisions. As for your conspiracy theories: GMO plants have been the most studied of any plant. For decades, ideologically driven activists have been desperately looking for any scientific evidence that would support their pre-determined views. They have found next to nothing. That said, if one tries hard enough eventually something will be found but the question I have: where is the evidence that these differences are significant compared to the differences between different strains of non-GMO plants?

There are obviously some differences between plants of different strains or, for that matter, different samples grown in different environments. Do you have any evidence that the differences you claim exists in this one anecdote are significant when compared to the differences between plants altered with non-GMO techniques? And even if this particular study has merit it only applies to one strain of one plant. Applying a generic GMO label makes no sense because it treats all GMO strains as equal when they clearly are not. That is why the only regulation that would give you the information that you claim to want is one that publishes all strains of plants used online. Putting a GMO label on products is just scare mongering designed to appeal to people who are ignorant of science.

"Their land" is a fiction created for political purposes. Palestinians are just Arabs that have always been part of larger Arab states.

As I suspected. There is more to the story. But I could not find it with web searches. The only basis I had to be suspicious was the general absurdity of the list.

As far as I can tell he is not wrong. Until 2010 the list of prohibited goods was pretty extensive: http://www.haaretz.com/gazans-get-halva-but-not-cookies-1.295228 The current list more plausibly addresses the stated objective but it is mystery why it was so strict in the first place. Of course, these news reports from Haaretz could be false or misleading. I would be inclined to believe there is more to the story because only an insane person would have come up with a list that banned things which are obviously food products.

So? The intent of the blockade it is to limit goods which can be used to be turned into weapons. More importantly, Egypt also enforces these restrictions at its border. Perhaps because it too realizes that Hamas is group that foments violence and weapons need to be kept out of its hands. If Egypt lifted its blockade the efforts by Israel would be irrelevant. So why do the anti-Israel chattering classes focus only on Israel? Perhaps it is because their dislike of Israel has nothing to do with the actions Israel takes to protect itself from those that would do it harm.

What is explanation failed to point out is the Israel evicted all Israeli settlers from Gaza when it pulled out so the assertion that these settlements represent a permanent land grab is false. Peace depends entirely on the ability of the Palestinians to end the attacks against Israel. The greater the confidence that Israel has in the ability of the Palestinian government to end the violence the greater the concessions will be over time in terms of land. Israel bashers help no one with their myopic obsession with one side in a conflict.

All food we use has modified DNA. Sometimes through selective breeding/cross breeding, sometimes through mutagenesis and sometimes through direct manipulation. Why is one category of manipulation so critical that it needs to be singled out? Why is the modification to the food more important than the fertilizer or pesticides used? You say you want "more information" but you are fixated one thing and you want to lump a wide range of foods into the same category even though there is no rational reason to group foods based on that criteria. That is why I prefer the model where all strains are published an the government does not require any other statement. Determining which strains are a concern to people with specific religious objections should be left to private organizations.

The GMO label does not provide you with any useful information when it comes to understanding the risks associated with consuming a food. You might want to know if the farmer who grew the food had solar panels on his barn but that does not belong on the label either. Government mandated labels should only have information about the chemical properties of the food.

I offered a path to provide the information you are looking for: a list of all strains of plants used in a product. If some other organization wants to label a particular strain 'GMO' then they can. There is no reason for the government to do it. There are a lot of parallels between the anti-vaxxer arguments and the anti-GMO arguments. Both groups claim corporate conspiracies to hide health risks which are not supported by science. Do you think anti-vaxxer arguments should be taken seriously?

The are fighting a meaningless label that lumps a huge range of products together that have nothing to do with each other. They are fighting the irrational demonization of a valuable technology by a well funded groups of luddites. If they objected to making all strains of plants available with products then you could accuse them of hiding information. But simply objecting to the nonsensical GMO label does not mean a desire for secrecy.

Giving prominence to an arbitrary piece of information simply because it is available is misleading to consumers (i.e. why would it be on the label if it is not important?). The fact that some strains are GMO has no impact on the quality or safety of the food and should not be on the label. If the GMO strains are so well known it would be easy for third parties to manage websites that allow people with religious objections to GMOs to select food based on their criteria. If there is enough demand third party organizations can convince makers to add their label to their products.

DNA differences are not necessarily chemical differences. Would you not agree that Roma tomato and a Beeksteak tomato are chemically identical even though they have different DNA?

Using the GMO label as a catch all for a huge range of products is obfuscation. Making all of the strains available would allow people and third party labeling organizations to make judgements about plants on a case by case basis.

Disclosing salt content means you are disclosing the chemical properties of the food. This is necessary. Chemically there is no difference between a GMO tomato and a non-GMO tomato. There is no science based rational decision you could make about your health based on a catch-all GMO label.

Like I said, I am fine with requiring that all strains be made available so people have the information they need to make whatever decision they want. But the government should not be pandering to irrational fears by requiring that the GMO label be included.

Every season farmers buy seeds. They know the strain of seeds they buy. A list of strains that go into any given food product could be made available. If someone wants to avoid certain strains that is their choice. But governments should not be in the business of deciding what is a GMO seed and what is not. That is best left to third party organizations.

There is no evidence that GMOs have any impact on the body that is different from non-GMO foods. The other issues are best handled on a case by case basis during the approval process for specific GMO strains. Treating all GMOs foods as equal is when it comes to ancillary impacts on the environment is nonsensical. If you had access to all of the strains used in food you could make an informed decision on a case by case basis. Refusing to eat any GMO because of such objections is a religious requirement and should be treated as one.

Except you are fooling yourself. Your body does not care if a food is GMO or not because they are chemically identical. The label only tells you how the food was made (like free-range-chicken-eggs). Why should society pay the cost to help you make irrational decisions about food?

Government mandated food labels should disclose the chemical composition of the food only because that is the only thing that matters from a food safety perspective. GMO foods are chemically identical to non-GMO foods which means it makes no sense to mandate labels. Your objections are based on the process used to create the foods which is not unlike the requirements for Halal or Kosher food. This is why I say such labeling should be done by private organizations and leave it up to companies to decide if they wish to provide products that qualify for those labels. The cost is real because all government regulations impose a cost. There is no scenario where mandated labeling leads to cheaper food. But as I said: why not require disclosure of all strains of plants used in food? Unlike the GMO label, this would at least be rational because it would provide useful information.

And if exact strains used to grow the fresh produce were available then you would know exactly what you were buying. That should be more than enough to meet your requirement for 'full disclosure'. Why is this solution not acceptable? Perhaps it is because your real motivation is not 'full disclosure' but instead you want the government to force everyone to pay for labels that you want because of your religious requirements.

Full disclosure means a listing of all plant strains used in a product. That is not what you want. Instead of "full disclosure" you want a meaningless label attached because it suits your religion. If you really want full disclosure then start asking for all plant strains to listed. That would give people all the information they could possibly want.

Your obsession with GMOs is promoting ignorance. If you wanted people to have information you would be calling for all plant strains used in a product to be made available online. That would allow someone who cared about the science to review the literature on a case by case basis and make a decision. But you don't want that because you want people to be ignorant and fear things they don't understand. As a result, you would rather have a single meaningless label that would allow you attack it spread your irrational fears.