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Are GMOs good or bad [W:104]

Are GMO foods good or bad?


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Since this is an issue in my state right now. I would like to see what the good people of the forums think about this. Do you think GMO foods are good or bad for the human population?

Genetically modified organism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Assuming they meet safety regulations, yeah they are good. There is nothing inherently dangerous about GMO's. Not to mention, genetically modified e coli, rats, fruit flies, etc. make up a huge bulk of research into modern genetic theory that allows us to develop new treatments.
 
Assuming they meet safety regulations, yeah they are good. There is nothing inherently dangerous about GMO's

I believe GMO are good and are necessary in today's world of a growing population and limited resources, but I know many people that think they are made by mad scientist and if you eat them you will mutant yourself.
 
I believe GMO are good and are necessary in today's world of a growing population and limited resources, but I know many people that think they are made by mad scientist and if you eat them you will mutant yourself.

That's called being crazy people.
 
I don't believe "bad" is the correct word to use. I think that genetically modified foods are a good SUPPLEMENTAL source of produce, but I don't believe that it is where we need to look solely for the future. In areas where food is scarce, GMO's are a solution to meet basic needs. But in a "developed" country I believe that all able citizens should strive to eat non-genetically altered foods.
 
I can't add much to the wise words of the posts above, except to underscore how important it is that people who oppose GMOs be publicly shamed and ridiculed. GMOs are perfectly safe and very important. People who oppose them are dangerous, just like vaccine deniers. Anybody who opposes GMOs is a public health menace.
 
Everything we eat is a GMO. Cross breading, cross pollination, natural hybrids, and just plain old evolution.

As for man-made GMO's, it all depends. For many, they haven't been on the market long enough to see what the long term effects would be. For the greatest majority, there isn't anything wrong with GMO's.

In fact, GMO's are helping to fight hunger around the world; drought resistant crops, stronger and shorter stalks to keep wheat, oats and barley from falling over in the wind, mold and disease resistant rice, and many others.
 
I don't believe "bad" is the correct word to use. I think that genetically modified foods are a good SUPPLEMENTAL source of produce, but I don't believe that it is where we need to look solely for the future. In areas where food is scarce, GMO's are a solution to meet basic needs. But in a "developed" country I believe that all able citizens should strive to eat non-genetically altered foods.

The Problem with that is that most people I know that think like are all for organic and call for the U.S. to be pure Organic which would mean going back to the Farming Techniques of the Founding Fathers.
 
The Problem with that is that most people I know that think like are all for organic and call for the U.S. to be pure Organic which would mean going back to the Farming Techniques of the Founding Fathers.

I'm not advocating only organic foods. While I see what you are saying, I don't see how GMO's are a solution of that problem.
 
I don't have much of an opinion on them, but I haven't done my research. On one hand, if they are demonstrated safe and supply a source of food for those the hungry that otherwise wouldn't be there, I support it. On the other hand, I think all such food should be labeled (a proposal that was shot down here in California) to give consumers as much information as possible, and let them decide.
 
I think on a planet with 7 billion and counting, where famine affects more than a billion people already and millions die of hunger every year, that any scientific tool at our disposal to increase crop production and global food supplies is a good thing.
 
Like everything else, it depends on how you use them.

They're good when improving yield and disease and pest resistance. They're bad when exploited for a monopoly or when cheaper and less healthy ingredients are substituted for ones that are better for us.

Most of the fears about "frankenfood" are nonsense. There is no fundamental difference between modifying a gene in a lab or doing it with selective breeding, a technique that humans have been employing for more than ten thousand years. Doing it in a lab is just faster. I think we should label GMO foods, but I think we should accurately describe all foods to the customers. I think that our ignorance about what we eat is a big problem. We all bought into the food pyramid and a lot of us overate carbs because of it. We need more accurate information about our food so we can maintain our health. It's one of the many preventative steps that Americans don't do to improve our health.
 
I don't believe "bad" is the correct word to use. I think that genetically modified foods are a good SUPPLEMENTAL source of produce, but I don't believe that it is where we need to look solely for the future. In areas where food is scarce, GMO's are a solution to meet basic needs. But in a "developed" country I believe that all able citizens should strive to eat non-genetically altered foods.

Whats inheritly superior about non-GMO food that is something we should strive for?
 
Whats inheritly superior about non-GMO food that is something we should strive for?

For example, phytate is a compound common in seeds and grains that binds with minerals and makes them unavailable to humans. An inserted gene could cause a plant to produce higher levels of phytate decreasing the mineral nutritional value of the plant (GEO-PIE). Another example comes from a study showing that a strain of genetically modified soybean produced lower levels of phytoestrogen compounds, believed to protect against heart disease and cancer, than traditional soybeans (Bakshi, 2003).

GMO: Harmful Effects

I'm not saying that in every instance GMO's are less nutritious, because I'm sure you can find studies and examples that show positive health effects. I just personally feel better eating something from the ground compared to something that began in a lab somewhere. By no means does this mean I will never eat GMO's, just that if I had the choice I'd go organic or natural.
 
GMO: Harmful Effects

I'm not saying that in every instance GMO's are less nutritious, because I'm sure you can find studies and examples that show positive health effects. I just personally feel better eating something from the ground compared to something that began in a lab somewhere. By no means does this mean I will never eat GMO's, just that if I had the choice I'd go organic or natural.

Every single one of those on the list is a hypothetical. Do you know the difference between hypothetical risks and realized risks?
 
I don't believe "bad" is the correct word to use. I think that genetically modified foods are a good SUPPLEMENTAL source of produce, but I don't believe that it is where we need to look solely for the future. In areas where food is scarce, GMO's are a solution to meet basic needs. But in a "developed" country I believe that all able citizens should strive to eat non-genetically altered foods.
Why would we do that? If you are concerned about GMO foods, then you shouldn't eat a single variety of produce you can find in the grocery store. Our current produce has been derived from everything from selective breeding, to cross-breeding different species (pomelo + manderin = orange), to purposefully exposing produce to radioactive materials to encourage mutation. GMO technology is way less problematic than any of that.

If you were honestly to go only for "something from the ground," you'd be eating bananas with rock hard seeds and sour green apples that gave you the runs.
 
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GMO: Harmful Effects

I'm not saying that in every instance GMO's are less nutritious, because I'm sure you can find studies and examples that show positive health effects. I just personally feel better eating something from the ground compared to something that began in a lab somewhere. By no means does this mean I will never eat GMO's, just that if I had the choice I'd go organic or natural.

That is not a scientific study just so you know. It's a link to a 2003 class summary sheet from a University of Minnesota class.
 
98 % of the negative noise about GMOs can be chalked up to raging superstition (and the post-Communist Far Left lurching around in search of credible targets).

About those remaining 2%, though.

On this early stage, the GMOs are designed to be broad commercial blockbusters, naturally. The problem is not that they are somehow "bad" - the problem is that they may be a little too good: For example, a crop engineered to be resistant to some widespread disease, or to be able to thrive on soils with elevated salt levels has every chance of monopolizing the fields, far and wide. And in the short term, it would mean increased farm production and improved nutrition. But in the long term, it could expose the same farms to the most trivial hazard in biology: All adaptation is relative. The superhero plant of today may become a sickly weakling tomorrow, when some new fungus or virus arrives to make our lives less boring.

The "organic movement", while rooted in ignorance and quasi-ideological righteousness, may end up doing us all a service - by preserving, inadvertently, the diversity of unmodified, untested, unstudied - and probably often quite "harmful", in one way or another - "natural" strains and breeds.

(Of course, this problem is indeed a problem of the early stage in development: what now can be done only by Monsanto or Syngenta will be within the reach of any "biohacker" with a backyard greenhouse and basic scientific literacy in ten or thirty years. The diversity will explode, exponentially).
 
I don't see anything wrong with GMO foods at all. The only people I ever see complaining about them are pothead hippies trying to push overpriced "organic" foods, and the same conspiracy theorists who think reptiloid Jews from space toppled the World Trade Center with lasers. It's a stupid controversy over nothing, and the more our populations grow, the more we'll come to rely on things like GMOs for sustainence.
 
GMO's aren't inherently "good" or "bad". Genetic modification of crops is a technique. It can be used wisely and in a good way and it can be used stupidly and in a bad way.
 
I honestly don't know. I do feel that food companies should be required to put that their food is GMO on their labels so that consumers can choose whether or not they want to eat GMO foods.

No, that's ludicrous. There is no reason to require labeling because there is no rational reason to prefer non-GMO food over GMO food. The only reason anybody would want to know is out of sheer ignorance.

The government should not step in an require labeling of GMOs simply to coddle ignorant paranoiacs who are suspicious of GMOs for no rational reason.
 
No, that's ludicrous. There is no reason to require labeling because there is no rational reason to prefer non-GMO food over GMO food. The only reason anybody would want to know is out of sheer ignorance.

The government should not step in an require labeling of GMOs simply to coddle ignorant paranoiacs who are suspicious of GMOs for no rational reason.

If GMO foods are so safe then you should have no problem with those foods being labeled GMO.People should have the right to know if the food they buy is GMO or not.
 
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