GMO soy and corn in chicken feed? Discussion

[Brooks_]

No don't let the name fool you, actually the warning letters could and often do end up with the company being shut down. 438s result in a lot of work and expense and you still may end up with the company being shut down. These are potentially millions of dollars in fines and expenses. It's very bad.

So the billions in fines to Big Pharma was nothing. The FDA is a "protection" agency.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yes, and the warning letter they sent to Sabra over their hummus, if you read thru, is due to salmonella in their tahini supply - tahini which is supposed to be ready to eat, and ostensibly already met FDA standards. So rather than sending a warning letter to the supplier of contaminated tahini, they sent it to the end user...

Sure, reading between the lines, it looks as though Sabra's processes for detecting contaminated raw ingredients were pretty $#!+. as was their record keeping. and whatever executive lawyer Sabra tasked with responding to the FDA had their head in a biological black hole.

But the fact remains the FDA didn't go after the source, they went after the optics.

I spent most of two decades of my life working for a major automotive Mfg. This is typical of my experiences with Gov't. Not that major businesses are necessarily better - that's why I quit. Incompetence is everywhere.

 

[3KillerBs]

Farmers do not represent consumers, the FDA does.

The FDA doesn't represent anyone but the bureaucrats in power and the politicians who engage in power-brokering.

Farmers and consumers are not enemies engaged in a zero-sum game.

 

[Iluveggers]

You are completely off the point here. We are talking about food safety.

I agree that food safety is an issue. But as consumers we should be able to decide what we feel is safe and what we want to put in our bodies. Instead of farms having a choice to label as non-gmo or organic. Why not require food to be labeled if it IS gmo or if pesticides are used on any of the ingredients in it? Then it becomes a personal choice. Same with raw milk. It is banned in many states from being sold at stores, or at all. I believe in NY you can only buy raw milk directly at the farm who produces it. Eggs must be washed & refrigerated. Why can’t I as a consumer choose to buy room temperature eggs that still have bloom in tact? Just like it took forever for cigarettes to be labeled with a warning…it’s because of the lobbyists for big tobacco, not the small tobacco farmer, who made the government agencies reluctant to require these labels. Whether you want to eat gmos or sprayed food or not, I think transparency and choice are the main points of my argument.

ETA: I’m not the best writer. I hope that makes sense.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I agree that food safety is an issue. But as consumers we should be able to decide what we feel is safe and what we want to put in our bodies. Instead of farms having a choice to label as non-gmo or organic. Why not require food to be labeled if it IS gmo or if pesticides are used on any of the ingredients in it? Then it becomes a personal choice. Same with raw milk. It is banned in many states from being sold at stores, or at all. I believe in NY you can only buy raw milk directly at the farm who produces it. Eggs must be washed & refrigerated. Why can’t I as a consumer choose to buy room temperature eggs that still have bloom in tact? Just like it took forever for cigarettes to be labeled with a warning…it’s because of the lobbyists for big tobacco, not the small tobacco farmer, who made the government agencies reluctant to require these labels. Whether you want to eat gmos or sprayed food or not, I think transparency and choice are the main points of my argument.

ETA: I’m not the best writer. I hope that makes sense.

It makes sense. You and I would draw the line (on some issues) in differing places, but I understand and mostly respect where you've chosen acceptable levels of risk.

and for those believing Gov't is the answer, lest we forget. That Gov't bureaucrats made a decision doesn't make it right, any more than mid level executives making a decision at a Fortune 500 company. Both can completely F things up, but only Gov't can remove choice. TRUST, but VERIFY. and if you lack the skills, education, time, or interest to evaluate? Then rolls your dice and takes your chances... There's only one game in town, and no one leaves the table alive.

 

[ChickenLeg]

It is a matter of degrees and I agree that the speed by which you can force modifications via selection is different from that done via cloning of traits in most cases--but actually not all. Some selection is very fast. However, the direct exchange of genetic material happens all the time in nature and the selection for traits does as well. Where do you think the molecular biologists who do these exchanges get the tools to do so? They find them in existing organisms. From the first enzymes that clipped out bits of genes and were used to create the clones that Genetech and Eli Lily used to produce the first human insulin in yeast in to the starkly unethical changes in human embryos made by the Chinese using CRISPR. All these molecular tools exist in nature. All of it is natural and all of it uses the same processes. My point is that you cannot just yell GMO and say it is all bad, it is not. It is a mixed bag and the vast majority of modifications are either neutral or good. And we all have to accept that humans have been doing this since we became able to do so.

Now if you do not want to feed your chickens soy or corn because those things are not good for chickens that has nothing to do with GMOs or organic. It's the output of those processes not the processes themselves.

My previous comments stated GMOs werent bad and gene splicing is different than selective breesding. GMOs are genetically engineered in labs

 

[U_Stormcrow]

My previous comments stated GMOs werent bad and gene splicing is different than selective breesding. GMOs are genetically engineered in labs

Point of order - that it was done in a lab doesn't make it inherently unsafe or dangerous. Taking a bit of gene from a bit of brussels sprouts and popping it into a cabbage is something we could eventually, with enough attempts, do via selective breeding and random chance. Both plants have the same "grandparents". Even Tigers and Lions, or Horses and Mules can be put together in safe (if terminal) manner. Gene splicing to fix inherited genetic diseases isn't necessarily a bad thing, either.

Grabbing the bit for (human) insulin production and throwing it in e. coli has proved useful.

But yes, the further apart two creatures exist in their genetic tree, the greater the potential for unintended consequences. That is, greater risk - and labs with CRISPR technology make those alterations easier. But that genie isn't going back in the box. Learn to live with it, and evaluate risk - sticking one's head in the proverbial sand won't save you. Nobody gets out of life alive. Its simply a hand you chose not to play, without even looking at the cards you were dealt.

 

[NatJ]

Why not require food to be labeled if it IS gmo or if pesticides are used on any of the ingredients in it?

When every product containing a certain thing must be labeled, companies just stick the warning label on every product they produce. That makes sure they do not miss anything, but it also makes the label nearly useless.

Examples of nearly-useless labels: almost every food in the store has a warning that it "may contain trace amounts" of every allergen they are required to consider. A large number of non-food products have labels saying "this product contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause birth defects and other reproductive harm."

For pesticides in food, I think you can safely assume that every product was exposed to pesticides (unless there is a label saying this one is different), just like you should assume that every product contains peanuts, soy, and all the other allergens (unless it is labeled or tested and found to be free of them.)

Then it becomes a personal choice. Same with raw milk. It is banned in many states from being sold at stores, or at all. I believe in NY you can only buy raw milk directly at the farm who produces it. Eggs must be washed & refrigerated. Why can’t I as a consumer choose to buy room temperature eggs that still have bloom in tact?

For things that might be considered unsafe, I think a person should be allowed to consume it if they raised/produced it themself. I think I also approve of people being able to buy such products directly from the producer-- that way you can see for yourself where it's coming from, and what conditions it is produced in.

But when the food is in the store, you cannot tell how it was produced, so you just have to trust that it is safe, or that the label tells the truth. Making rules about how the food must be produced, or treated, or stored is usually a good thing, to make sure the food in the store IS safe.

Pasteurization of milk became legally required because people were DYING from raw milk-- it was spreading tuberculosis. Also, pasteurizing milk gave it a longer shelf life, so it could get from the farmer to the city to the customer without going sour on the way. Even now, with good refrigeration, the pasteurized milk lasts longer without going sour, and most of us find that very convenient (if we think about it at all.)

Whether you want to eat gmos or sprayed food or not, I think transparency and choice are the main points of my argument.

In general, I approve of transparency and choice.

But I also want things to be safe for people who just grab it off the shelf without thinking.

And I'm not sure what is the best way to achieve the transparency and choice-- voluntary labels (that cause people to pay more for certain products) might work better in some cases, while legally required labels might work better in other cases, and I don't know how to tell which is the better choice in which case.

 

[NatJ]

Even Tigers and Lions, or Horses and Mules can be put together in safe (if terminal) manner.

Tigers & Lions aren't the best example for this point, because Ligers and other big cat hybrids have fertile females a surprising amount of the time. (Much more often than mules, which are horse x donkey, and usually are a terminal cross.)

 

[ChickenLeg]

Point of order - that it was done in a lab doesn't make it inherently unsafe or dangerous. Taking a bit of gene from a bit of brussels sprouts and popping it into a cabbage is something we could eventually, with enough attempts, do via selective breeding and random chance. Both plants have the same "grandparents". Even Tigers and Lions, or Horses and Mules can be put together in safe (if terminal) manner. Gene splicing to fix inherited genetic diseases isn't necessarily a bad thing, either.

Grabbing the bit for (human) insulin production and throwing it in e. coli has proved useful.

But yes, the further apart two creatures exist in their genetic tree, the greater the potential for unintended consequences. That is, greater risk - and labs with CRISPR technology make those alterations easier. But that genie isn't going back in the box. Learn to live with it, and evaluate risk - sticking one's head in the proverbial sand won't save you. Nobody gets out of life alive. Its simply a hand you chose not to play, without even looking at the cards you were dealt.

Yep thats exactly what Ive been saying on every post GMOs seem safe and not dangerous