Demonstrators rally against Monsanto in global anti-GMO protest

[Moonbox]

Actually you're the only one here who is acting emotional. Others just want the information. Your defense of attempts to keep information from the public is irrational.

Keep what information from the public? That their food is bigger and stays fresh longer?

[Bryan]

There would be no mention of GMOs at all. A simple list of strains - GMO and non-GMO - on the package.

That would be unacceptable. It would be deliberate obfuscation by burying the basic part of the information inside a barrage of information that most people couldn't parse. Not unlike our labelling of basic macro-nutrients. We dumb-down that all carbs are 4 calories (even though they range), we don't list every sort of fatty-acid profile, every single vitamin, mineral and phytochemical, we list the main things that consumers are actually looking for. If a consumer is looking for "GMO", then that is what it should say. The details should be left to the website or a monograph that people could ask for.

[Bryan]

Keep what information from the public? That their food is bigger and stays fresh longer?

No, that it contains patented organisms that are not found in nature.

Edited May 28, 2013 by Bryan

[TimG]

It would be deliberate obfuscation by burying the basic part of the information inside a barrage of information that most people couldn't parse.

So the truth comes out! You have no interest in 'information'. You simply see labeling as a tool in an anti-GMO campaign which has no scientific foundation. So please spare me your false rhetoric about 'wanting information'.

It is clearly a sham.

Edited May 28, 2013 by TimG

[Bryan]

So the truth comes out! You have no interest in 'information'. You simply see labeling as a tool in an anti-GMO campaign which has no scientific foundation. So please spare me your false rhetoric about 'wanting information'.

It is clearly a sham.

You're a very dishonest debater. I clearly said the information is what I want to see. I never claimed to be part of any anti-GMO campaign. You're the one who is trying to force artificial conditions on what people are or are not allowed to care about.

[TimG]

I clearly said the information is what I want to see.

And I explained why think putting 'contains GMOs' on a label is a dishonest tactic used to psychologically manipulate consumers. You responded by saying you have a right to to know what is your food.

I proposed a compromise where you would get all of the information that you claim to want - it just would not be presented in a way that would make it easy for anti-GMO campaigners to target. You rejected that compromise and the reason you gave is it would be too hard for people with an vendetta against GMO foods to determine which ones to avoid - a response that basically proved that your real motivation is not a desire for information but because you are opposed to GMOs.

I don't know why you keep insisting that you are motivated by a desire for information. If that was your real motivation you would have thought my compromise was a great idea.

Edited May 28, 2013 by TimG

[Bryan]

You did not propose a compromise. You proposed a smoke-screen deliberately intended so that most people would have no idea what it meant. That's the same thing as not labelling it at all.

[TimG]

You proposed a smoke-screen deliberately intended so that most people would have no idea what it meant.

And you are proposing a meaningless label designed to psychologically manipulate consumers into believing there is a problem with GMOs when there is no scientific evidence supporting that view. Why is that any better? Edited May 28, 2013 by TimG

[Bryan]

And you are proposing a meaningless label designed to psychologically manipulate consumers into believing there is a problem with GMOs when there is no scientific evidence supporting that view. Why is that any better?

Meaningless TO YOU. It clearly means something to a lot of other people.

[TimG]

Meaningless TO YOU. It clearly means something to a lot of other people.

It is meaningful to people who want to psychologically manipulate consumers. Why is that an argument for labeling?

I gave you a compromise that would provide people who care with the information but not the psychological manipulation. You rejected it.

Edited May 28, 2013 by TimG

[Guest]

An asterisk, next to any ingredient that is GM. Then, at the bottom of the ingredients list, another asterisk, with "GMO" next to it.

I promise not to be psychologically manipulated.

[TimG]

An asterisk, next to any ingredient that is GM.

Why? That implies that consumers should be concerned about GMOs when there is no scientific evidence supporting such a concern. The word GMO does not belong on the labels at all. I am sure anti-GMO organizations will keep websites up to date with all of the GMO strains so people that care can easily check. In fact, I bet someone could come up with an iPhone app that allows you to scan the product in the store and see whether any of the strains are GMOs. The more I think about the more I think it is fair compromise (at least for people that want information - it does not work for people that are simply anti-GMOs and want to use the labels to trick consumers). Edited May 28, 2013 by TimG

[MiddleClassCentrist]

And I explained why think putting 'contains GMOs' on a label is a dishonest tactic used to psychologically manipulate consumers. You responded by saying you have a right to to know what is your food.

I proposed a compromise where you would get all of the information that you claim to want - it just would not be presented in a way that would make it easy for anti-GMO campaigners to target. You rejected that compromise and the reason you gave is it would be too hard for people with an vendetta against GMO foods to determine which ones to avoid - a response that basically proved that your real motivation is not a desire for information but because you are opposed to GMOs.

I don't know why you keep insisting that you are motivated by a desire for information. If that was your real motivation you would have thought my compromise was a great idea.

Why is educating people a dishonest tactic? Why are you arguing against this? This costs absolutely nothing and puts more power in the hands of the consumer.

"Contains GMO's" is all that's needed. The customer can then choose to buy it, or not. Or do more research and contact the company if they care to find out.

It's simply ridiculous for anyone to argue that consumers should be kept in the dark because of "choice". In truth, they are given a more educated choice with proper labelling. This is something that any rationale person should agree to. Consumers should have the ultimate power, not the corporations selling the product.

I don't know if I'd change my purchasing habbits too much. I think it might have the opposite effect that the Anti-GMO crowd wants, when people realize how prevalent it actually is... the shock value will probably drop and people will become complacent.

Edited May 28, 2013 by MiddleClassCentrist

[Moonbox]

Meaningless TO YOU. It clearly means something to a lot of other people.

Yeah it means something to small and organic farmers trying to sell their crops for far more than their worth, and then the usual trashy granola protest-about-everything crowd. It also means something to the people they've succeeded in scaring, although those people have no clue what they're scared about other than the fact that apparently GMO's are 'bad'.

[waldo]

Even organic suppliers are finding it increasingly difficult to guaranty their sources haven't been contaminated by GMO stocks. In 50 years there will probably not be a large enough source of non GMO seed stock to go back anyway so we will be stuck with whatever Monsanto has created.

Time to ’fess up: organics have GMOs

Speaking at the Guelph Organic Conference in early February, Dag Falck, organic program manager with Nature’s Path, one of the largest manufacturers of organic breakfast cereals and snack bars in North America, said the organic movement has to have an honest conversation with the public about GMOs.

Despite public perceptions that organic products are GM free, Falck said organic food made from corn, soybeans, canola and sugar definitely contain GMOs.

He said organic cereals and other foods contain GMOs because of cross-pollination between conventional and organic fields. As well, most organic farmers don’t test their seed for GMO before planting, despite the reality that certified organic seed probably contains traces of GMOs.

Maureen Fitzpatrick, a member of Big Carrot, an organic food market in Toronto, said the basic problem in Canada and the United States is that organic farmers grow crops on a landscape saturated with GM plants.

[Moonbox]

Why is educating people a dishonest tactic. Why are you arguing against this? This costs absolutely nothing and puts more power in the hands of the consumer.

What are you educating them about, precisely? The label itself implies that there's something to be concerned about. Woudl the GMO label be accompanied by a disclosure that there is zero scientific evidence that GMO crops are anything to be worried about, and that customers would be purchasing better value for their nutritional dollar? The fact that there's a label at all implies concern.

The arguments protesters make against GMO's are the same you could make about thousands of different ingredients. Do you know if acesulfame-K is good for you? Probably not! If you were buying juice at the supermarket and you had two different brands of equal price, flavour and quality, however, and one of them had a label saying "contains acesulfame-K" and the other didn't, it's VERY likely that totally harmless label would steer people away. The fact that it requires a label at all implies concern.

[TimG]

Why is educating people a dishonest tactic? Why are you arguing against this? This costs absolutely nothing and puts more power in the hands of the consumer.

I am not arguing against information. I suggested that all strains of plants (GMO and non-GMO) be placed on labels. People can use the web to look up the strain to see if there are any concerns. What I am against are psychologically manipulative 'contains GMO' labels because the presence of such labels implies a concern when there is no scientific basis for such concerns.

My proposal for putting all strains on the labels is a compromise because I am conceding that food costs would go up in order to collect the required information. What is interesting is my compromise has exposed the 'consumers want information' argument as a fraud designed to hide an anti-GMO agenda.

Edited May 28, 2013 by TimG

[MiddleClassCentrist]

Yeah it means something to small and organic farmers trying to sell their crops for far more than their worth, and then the usual trashy granola protest-about-everything crowd. It also means something to the people they've succeeded in scaring, although those people have no clue what they're scared about other than the fact that apparently GMO's are 'bad'.

Why do you love corporations known to bribe politicians to spread poison into our food system so much? Over small scale organic farmers? You've been trained well by the corporate propaganda.

Labelling is no big deal. It should be a consumers right to be conveniently informed in the way they want to be informed. Especially when the nature of the product makes it easy to confuse the origin of the product.

The cost is negligible to put it on and educates consumers about the origin of the product. This is good.

I still think it would have little effect.

If you had the opportunity at the gas station to buy gas called "Unethical Gas" and "Ethical Gas", knowing that the unethical gas comes from war, unregulated environmental destruction, etc, but sold for 30 cents less than ethical gas... do you think that people would switch?

[MiddleClassCentrist]

I am not arguing against information. I suggested that all strains of plants (GMO and non-GMO) be placed on labels. People can use the web to look up the strain to see if there are any concerns. What I am against are psychologically manipulative 'contains GMO' labels because the presence of such labels implies a concern when there is no scientific basis for such concerns.

That's not the issue.

People want to know about naturally produced vs non-natural occurring product.

If you don't care, you can ignore the small notice squeezed onto some spot of the packaging you'd likely not even see unless you were looking to begin with.

[TimG]

People want to know about naturally produced vs non-natural occurring product.

None of the foods that we eat are based on naturally occurring products. Every plant we eat has been hybridized and manipulated over the ages. Your prejudice against GMO plants is a religious concern that belongs in the same category as people with religious concerns that cause them to look for Kosher and Halal.

We do not mandate Kosher and Halal labels and we should not mandate "GMO free" labels for the same reason.

Anyone with a desire to have more information about what is in their food can get that information from the lists of plant strains that I proposed. There is no need for a 'contains GMOs' label if information is all that people want.

Edited May 28, 2013 by TimG

[bush_cheney2004]

....If you had the opportunity at the gas station to buy gas called "Unethical Gas" and "Ethical Gas", knowing that the unethical gas comes from war, unregulated environmental destruction, etc, but sold for 30 cents less than ethical gas... do you think that people would switch?

No.

[bush_cheney2004]

None of the foods that eat are based on naturally occurring products. Every plant we eat has been hybridized and manipulated over the ages. Your prejudice against GMO plants is a religious concern that belongs in the same category as people with religious concerns that cause them to look for Kosher and Halal.

Good point....modern "non GMO" corn (maize) would be unrecognizable to many in its original grass-like form:

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/variation/corn/

[Bryan]

I gave you a compromise that would provide people who care with the information but not the psychological manipulation. You rejected it.

No you didn't. You offered a way to bury the info in such a way that no one could parse it.

If you write that a product contains 500mg of CH₃CH₂CH=CHCH₂CH=CHCH₂CH=CHCH₂CH=CHCH₂CH=CHCH₂CH=CH(CH₂)₂COOH, it might be accurate, but no one would know what it means. If you wrote Docosahexaenoic acid, hardly anyone would know either. DHA, maybe now a few people would get it, but it still would not be meaningful info for most people. Now just put Omega 3's, and now people understand what you mean. When it comes to food, you can't assume anyone has a science background, and you can't make any assumption as to why people want to know.

[TimG]

Now just put Omega 3's, and now people understand what you mean. When it comes to food, you can't assume anyone has a science background, and you can't make any assumption as to why people want to know.

But this is precisely my argument. People don't understand the scientific nuances and don't understand that anti-GMO activists have been spreading disinformation about GMOs so seeing a label that says 'contains GMOs' will provoke an emotional reaction. It is pure psychological manipulation.

But I am not against putting more information on the label - as you said - you do have a right to know what you eat. I just oppose the use of terms designed to manipulate people. I suggested strains of plants because they are common names: 'durham' (wheat), 'beefsteak' (tomato) or 'macintosh' (apple). These are names that people can learn and understand. I am not suggesting that complex chemical names be used. Why isn't this acceptable?

Edited May 29, 2013 by TimG

[Bryan]

But this is precisely my argument. People don't understand the scientific nuances and don't understand that anti-GMO activists have been spreading disinformation about GMOs so seeing a label that says 'contains GMOs' will provoke an emotional reaction. It is pure psychological manipulation.

It doesn't matter if you don't like their reasons. People have a right to know what they're eating.

But I am not against putting more information on the label - as you said - you do have a right to know what you eat. I just oppose the use of terms designed to manipulate people. I suggested strains of plants because they are common names: 'durham' (wheat), 'beefsteak' (tomato) or 'macintosh' (apple). These are names that people can learn and understand. I am not suggesting that complex chemical names be used. Why isn't this acceptable?

Listing those things are nice too, but you know darn well, that's not what people want to know. They want to know if this is a product created in a lab (with a patent on it). Durham wheat was developed thousands of years ago through selective picking and growing, not through gene manipulation.