GMO soy and corn in chicken feed? Discussion

[U_Stormcrow]

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.)

They do? Neat! I was unaware. Thank you for that.

 

[Iluveggers]

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.)


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.)


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.

If you have a child with a peanut allergy, those generic labels are anything but nearly useless.

I do assume everything had GMO & pesticide unless otherwise specified.

I prefer buying at farmers markets (we are fortunate to have an indoor market once a week in the winter within driving distance).

And I am all for safety. But watching how battery chickens are housed and fed does not seem like a fully safe product. Unfortunately the consumer cannot go to that factory farm to see how the chickens are raised. Very rarely are cameras let in. Luckily the hover hasn’t put small farms in my area completely out of business. I get my chicken & pork from a free/range organic chicken & pork farm where momma pigs are allowed to snuggle with & nurse their babies and chickens have a wired in section of grass to roam. Similar with beef we buy.

The industry is working very hard to keep factory farmers impoverished and indebted to big wigs like Tyson. I try very hard to know where my food comes from & how it was grown/raised. Unfortunately that limits my grocery shopping. There has to be an easier way than having to seek out farmers markets and spend hours reading labels.

I don’t claim to have a solution, and it has been easier with the growth of the “eat local” movement, but I am also fortunate to live in an area laden with farms all around me. A lot of Americans don’t have the means to access choices like I do.

 

[NatJ]

If you have a child with a peanut allergy, those generic labels are anything but nearly useless.

I recognize that people with allergies need to know what foods contain allergens.

My point was that putting the same label on every food ("may contain every possible allergen") is not very useful. The rare labels that say "peanut free" or "soy free" are much more useful when you are actually trying to find a safe food!

Or to put it a different way: it's more effective to label the rare thing (peanut free in this case, or pesticide free in some other cases) instead of labeling the common thing (may contain allergens, or sprayed with pesticides.) There are only so many warnings that can fit on a label if you want to be able to read any of them, and of course a label that is too small to read does no good at all.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I recognize that people with allergies need to know what foods contain allergens.

My point was that putting the same label on every food ("may contain every possible allergen") is not very useful. The rare labels that say "peanut free" or "soy free" are much more useful when you are actually trying to find a safe food!

Or to put it a different way: it's more effective to label the rare thing (peanut free in this case, or pesticide free in some other cases) instead of labeling the common thing (may contain allergens, or sprayed with pesticides.) There are only so many warnings that can fit on a label if you want to be able to read any of them, and of course a label that is too small to read does no good at all.

as CA is discovering with their ubiquitous, and worse than useless, "Prop 65" labels. Which humans in CA should have affixed to their body at all times - since we produce a significant number of Prop 65 list chemicals as part of our normal biological procesess - but in a nod to politics, the oxygenate CA forced into gasoline blends for decades, contaminating the water supply and causing fuel injector failures blamed on the car manufacturers STILL hasn't made the list.

(MTBE, for those not in the know).

 

[DParker75089]

Then why ask if you don't want to know? Just trying to mock me? I don't entertain low lives anyway.

I didn't say I didn't want to know...but I also didn't ask. Your reading comprehension skills could use work.

 

[raingarden]

The GMO debate is largely philosopical since there is scant evidence that GMO crops are dengerous for the consumer. The consumer almost always comes out ahead when a traditional strain is replaced by a GMO strain.

Rice has been genetically modified to produce the precursers of vitamin A. GMO rice is saving the lives of millions of Vitain A deficient children.

Many gene-splicing genetic modifications are designed to make the crop less suceptable to pest damage. Such GMO crops require fewer pesticides thus reducing the possibility of pesticide toxicity in consumers.

The newly-discovered toxicity of Round-Up has somehow come to represent the danger of consuming GMO crops. Round-Up Ready crops effectively use the herbicide to eliminate weeds thereby eliminating the need for tilling. Tilling wears out the soil and requires a lot of fossil fuel to power the equipment. Using Round-Up is dengerous for the applicator but is not dangerous for the ultimate consumer.

Many gene splicing modifications are designed to reduce agricultural production costs. This is good for the farmer and good for the consumer.

We are no longer able to feed out ever-inceasing population using only traditional crops and techniques. GMO crops are our only hope to postpone nutritional armageddon and collapse of our civilization.

 

[PioneerChicks]

We don't feed Soy and we avoid all GMO foods the best we can. This goes for both chickens and my family.

 

[lesliedow]

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

You have an agenda. I choose not to engage.

 

[MysteryChicken]

GMO.
Genetically Modified Organisms.

Our pets, our livestock, are forms of Genetically Modified Organisms. Carefully selected to meet our needs. Bred for food, or companionship.

Corn, & other plants were bred in a similar manner. To meet our needs to feed us in larger quantities.
Some are tweaked in the lab to improve pest resistance, or make them more hardy in certain environments.

 

[saysfaa]

.. We are no longer able to feed out ever-inceasing population using only traditional crops and techniques. GMO crops are our only hope to postpone nutritional armageddon and collapse of our civilization.

I agree with a lot of what you said.
Not so much this part, depending on what is meant by traditional crops and techniques and by collapse of our civilization.

If traditional crops and techniques and our civilization mean massive farms of row crops and such for 2% or less of the population to feed everyone, then maybe.

If traditional crops and techniques includes gardens, backyard chickens, small truck farms, and such by more of the population, done with sustainable ag techniques like extensive composting and Rainwater harvesting (Brad Lancaster) then maybe not.