One of the reasons I posted all that, is to illustrate just difficult it will be to add accurate labeling to the foods we purchase--especially in meats of all kinds. And yes, even tho I raise beef cattle and my own garden, I still buy a lot of food from the grocery stores, so it affects me as well. (most who claim to raise all their own food really do not--they still have to augment their home raised food with canned goods and meat from time to time) For meats, if it has eaten any GM or genetically enhanced feeds in it's lifetime, or nursed from a mother animal that has, under current guidelines and rules, it cannot claim to be USDA 100% organic (other limitations also apply as I stated in the other reply). The same will most likely apply for Non-GMO labels if they get approved the way most activist want. I do think the consumer has a right to know what is in their food, and has a right to know where it came from. COOL-Country Of Origin Labeling, is a hot topic on every ag website, and even most of the producers want "some" kind of labeling approved.
For those who don't know, most cattle and hogs today don't go directly from farm/ranch to slaughter and processing. I don't know how hogs are done, but most of the cattle in our food chain are farm bred, raised to weaning weight/age, partially fattened on grass and a little feed and mineral supplement, then sold at anywhere from 400-800 lbs weight to a commercial buyer at the local livestock sale barn. The buyer present at that weekly sale may buy hundreds or thousands of animals. Of those, bulls and mature females go directly to slaughter, and for the most part are ground up as hamburger--that's all they are good for. Everything else, yearling calves, steers, heifers (young females) go to big commercial feed yards where they are kept in large pens, fed out for 40-90 days on commercial feed to put the muscling on and some added exterior fat and marbling. This is called finishing--and even home raised meat is done this way--fed a diet of grain the last couple of months. In the commercial feedlots, long feed bunks line the pens, and a truck goes down the bunk each day X2 and keeps the feed bunks full of commercial feed--mostly corn, and mostly GM corn. This, is where over 90% of our supermarket beef comes from. That 5 lb chub of burger you buy? It comes from a huge vat containing grind from maybe hundreds of different animals--from all over that region, and from several dozen different farms.
You can see how difficult it will be for USDA to guarantee that chub of burger contains absolutely NO meat or fat from animals that ingested GMO feeds. Still I think some effort should be made if that's what the majority of the consumers want. Personally, I don't think most consumers give a rat's butt, as long as the price is within their budget.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 11-08-2013).]
That 5 lb chub of burger you buy? It comes from a huge vat containing grind from maybe hundreds of different animals--from all over that region, and from several dozen different farms.
To save some money, a family bought a calf to fatten over the summer and butcher in the fall. The kids became attached to the animal and named it Charley. Dad had the animal butchered and stocked the freezer. The family had a cookout to celebrate the arrival of fall, and cooked hamburgers. When Mom began serving burgers, one of the kids asked, " Is that Charley? " Mom said, " Yes." The child said, " I don't think I want any. " All of her children said the same thing. When one of the neighborhood kids got to the front of the line, she said, " I'll have a burger. I didn't know him that well."
Thanks Maryjane for more information. I really appreciate your viewpoint. Although it won't be easy to label our food, the effort and money put into defeating the labeling by those who are profiting by GMO foods just makes me more suspicious. We have a right to know as much as possible what we are eating. Thanks again.
As long as you understand you will probably take a hit at the supermarket--Isolating gmo foods from non-gmo in the processing plants, whether it be animal or plant is going to increase costs which will be passed down to us, the consumer and should the nation insist on non-gmo on most foodstuffs, that's assuming the producers of the world can even produce enough to feed the consumer, and Genie is out of the bottle, -- "those who profit" go way beyond the Monsantos of the world.
According to what I've seen on the ag forums, probably 1/4 or more of those who do the 100% Certified Organic or 100% Certified grass fed/finished beef cheat at least sometime during the animal's life cycle. It would be difficult to produce, on a large scale, beef, pork, or poultry without using any antibiotics, and they are prohibited in AGF. (AGF involves only ruminants--not poultry or pork, but the poultry and pork industry has their own version with similar regulations)
http://www.americangrassfed...ut-us/our-standards/ Notice that it says: "Diet — Animals are fed only grass and forage from weaning until harvest. Confinement — Animals are raised on pasture without confinement to feedlots. Antibiotics and hormones — Animals are never treated with antibiotics or growth hormones. Origin — All animals are born and raised on American family farms."
Weaning from the nursing mother usually takes place at 1/4-1/3 of the mature weight of the animal--about 205 days on average. That means for the first 6-8 months of the animal's life, they are at least partly excluded from the rules. It is during this time period, that most illnesses and injuries occur, and this is when antibiotics are most often used. Most of the concerns I read on the organic-anti-GMO websites involve antibiotic use more than anything else.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 11-08-2013).]
I just watched Stephen Colberts post election coverage of this event. Wish it had been pre election. Probably would have been a game changer. Plus as usual it's humorous.
I'm no fan of Monsanto, but that lunatic of a woman is the epitome of a fear monger. Farmers are always free and able to use heritage or heirloom (non-gmo) varieties of corn, cotton, and soybean seeds and they can set back as much of those non-gmo seeds as they want to plant the next year. Of course, they aren't blight, root rot, disease and drought resistant, but that doesn't seem to matter to her. On one hand, she rails against GMO seeds altogether, then complains of the high price and the inability of the farmer to save seeds from it. Cake eater that wants to havee it as well. And for those who don't know, Bt is a naturally occuring organism--Bacillus thuringiensis and it has been used for decades even prior to GMO as a natural and organic aid in farming. Bt is approved for use in US certified organic farming, under any number of different named products. I use it myself to control corn silk worms, and buy it under the trade name DiPel Dust. It is a biological insecticide. http://www.valent.com/professional/products/dipel/
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But no relationship between glyphosate and the diseases that Shiva mentioned has been discovered. Her claims were based on a single research paper, released last year, in a journal called Entropy, which charges scientists to publish their findings. The paper contains no new research. Shiva had committed a common, but dangerous, fallacy: confusing a correlation with causation. (It turns out, for example, that the growth in sales of organic produce in the past decade matches the rise of autism, almost exactly. For that matter, so does the rise in sales of high-definition televisions, as well as the number of Americans who commute to work every day by bicycle.)
morons abound
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 08-25-2014).]
I'm less concerned about the actual GMO than the reason they don't want to label it. I'd just like to be able to make an informed choice rather than be told "you don't need to know." Our pasteurized milk is labeled as such. What is that labeling ok, but not for GMO?
[This message has been edited by Formula88 (edited 08-25-2014).]
I'm not against all GMOs. My main concern is Monsanto and Dows main techniques of creating plants that can withstand massive applications of herbicides and pesticides. I'm still not sure if I want to eat a plant that has been engineered to create its own pesticide. I need to know more on that subject. Just because it might be a natural pesticide doesn't reassure me. There are lots of natural poisons that I want no part of.
One of the reasons I posted all that, is to illustrate just difficult it will be to add accurate labeling to the foods we purchase--especially in meats of all kinds. And yes, even tho I raise beef cattle and my own garden, I still buy a lot of food from the grocery stores, so it affects me as well. (most who claim to raise all their own food really do not--they still have to augment their home raised food with canned goods and meat from time to time) For meats, if it has eaten any GM or genetically enhanced feeds in it's lifetime, or nursed from a mother animal that has, under current guidelines and rules, it cannot claim to be USDA 100% organic (other limitations also apply as I stated in the other reply). The same will most likely apply for Non-GMO labels if they get approved the way most activist want. I do think the consumer has a right to know what is in their food, and has a right to know where it came from. COOL-Country Of Origin Labeling, is a hot topic on every ag website, and even most of the producers want "some" kind of labeling approved.
For those who don't know, most cattle and hogs today don't go directly from farm/ranch to slaughter and processing. I don't know how hogs are done, but most of the cattle in our food chain are farm bred, raised to weaning weight/age, partially fattened on grass and a little feed and mineral supplement, then sold at anywhere from 400-800 lbs weight to a commercial buyer at the local livestock sale barn. The buyer present at that weekly sale may buy hundreds or thousands of animals. Of those, bulls and mature females go directly to slaughter, and for the most part are ground up as hamburger--that's all they are good for. Everything else, yearling calves, steers, heifers (young females) go to big commercial feed yards where they are kept in large pens, fed out for 40-90 days on commercial feed to put the muscling on and some added exterior fat and marbling. This is called finishing--and even home raised meat is done this way--fed a diet of grain the last couple of months. In the commercial feedlots, long feed bunks line the pens, and a truck goes down the bunk each day X2 and keeps the feed bunks full of commercial feed--mostly corn, and mostly GM corn. This, is where over 90% of our supermarket beef comes from. That 5 lb chub of burger you buy? It comes from a huge vat containing grind from maybe hundreds of different animals--from all over that region, and from several dozen different farms.
You can see how difficult it will be for USDA to guarantee that chub of burger contains absolutely NO meat or fat from animals that ingested GMO feeds. Still I think some effort should be made if that's what the majority of the consumers want. Personally, I don't think most consumers give a rat's butt, as long as the price is within their budget.
Strange. It's too difficult for us to manage, but 64 other countries that have implemented the same, or similar things are managing fine.
Center for Food Safety (CFS) has announced the release of its new, interactive Genetically Engineered (GE) Food Labeling Laws map detailing the powerful, growing presence of laws requiring information on GE content in consumer food products around the world. Global food policy research conducted by CFS confirms that 61 countries, including member nations of the European Union, Russia, China, Brazil, Australia, Turkey and South Africa require standards of mandatory GE food labeling. The United States is not included on the list of governments providing open, accurate information on the source of foods on grocery shelves. As the spread of commercialized GE food products mount, the number of people exposed to GE foods globally has grown. This makes truth in labeling of GE food ingredients increasingly fundamental to preserving consumer choice and protecting personal health. The CFS GE Food Labeling Laws map provides an instant overview on the advance of labeling mandates across the globe, and will continue documenting the growth of GE labeling as more nations establish these laws. As detailed on the map, India will join the roster of nations requiring GE labeling in 2013. “One quick glance at the map and you know the U.S. is truly lost on GE labeling,” said CFS executive director, Andrew Kimbrell. “With all we know about the human health and environmental impacts of GE products, it’s encouraging to see the number of nations that have embraced labeling. Yet, at the same time it’s frustrating and offensive that Americans are denied the information about their food that those in Kenya and Saudi Arabia receive.” Despite polls consistently showing up to 90% of Americans favor GE food labeling, efforts supporting labeling in the U.S. have been unsuccessful to-date. In November 2011, CFS filed a groundbreaking legal petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration demanding the agency requiring GE labeling. Currently, over 1 million people have joined the petition. Additionally, twenty states have considered bills requiring labeling for or prohibiting GE food over the past three years. On November 6th, California’s Prop 37 will give voters the opportunity to join the citizens of 61 nations across the globe who have the information and the lawful power to choose whether GE foods will be a part of their daily diet. “Global GE labeling laws are springing up because both governments and citizens alike instinctively understand we all have the basic human right to know what we put in our bodies and where it came from,” said Kimbrell. “If food manufacturers and elected officials don’t want to put the facts of food ingredients on product labels, you can bet something is very wrong.” The interactive, color-coded GE Food Labeling Laws map offers a quick, navigable guide of those countries that have mandated GE foods labeling laws, and the strength of each policy. It also recognizes those countries that have banned GE foods completely. Countries with Mandatory Labeling of GE Foods Australia Latvia Austria Lithuania Belarus Luxembourg Belgium Malaysia Bolivia Mali Bosnia and Herzegovina Malta Brazil Mauritius Bulgaria Netherlands Cameroon New Zealand China Norway Croatia Peru Cyprus Poland Czech Republic Portugal Denmark Romania Ecuador Russia El Salvador Saudi Arabia Estonia Senegal Ethiopia Slovakia Finland Slovenia France South Africa Germany South Korea Greece Spain Hungary Sri Lanka Iceland Sweden India Switzerland Indonesia Taiwan Ireland Thailand Italy Tunisia Japan Turkey Jordan Ukraine Kazakhstan United Kingdom Kenya Vietnam
I'm not against all GMOs. My main concern is Monsanto and Dows main techniques of creating plants that can withstand massive applications of herbicides and pesticides. I'm still not sure if I want to eat a plant that has been engineered to create its own pesticide. I need to know more on that subject. Just because it might be a natural pesticide doesn't reassure me. There are lots of natural poisons that I want no part of.
I have several issues with GMO foods. First off a clarification on my part.
Plants have been modified by humans for a very long time. I'm not against Modified plants, as much as I am against the pesticides inside etc. and lack of studies regarding the things put into GMO foods.
GMO Corn isn't corn anymore. It's a bland, tasteless yellowish grain that has been bred for feed and (surprise) it's ability to be turned into ethanol easily. I'm not a corn person, never liked the stuff and it's not a healthy food for us. Watch Corn King, it's a great Documentary about this.
Remember the issues with Bees disappearing? It's still going on. Something that came out lately was that GMO crops have been tied to the bees dying on a mass scale. Labeling won't stop this, but it needs to be said.
I'm not a complete idiot. If I am standing in a room, eating a sandwich (tastes good) and everyone else in the room stops and looks at whats between the bread and suddenly throws their sandwich away.... I may want to at least see what I'm eating. 60 some other countries have either heavily restricted, or banned GMO's.... We keep eating them and think nothing of it.
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Most developed nations do not consider GMOs to be safe. In more than 60 countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production and sale of GMOs. In the U.S., the government has approved GMOs based on studies conducted by the same corporations that created them and profit from their sale.
Between 1996 and 2008, US farmers sprayed an extra 383 million pounds of herbicide on GMOs. Overuse of Roundup results in "superweeds," resistant to the herbicide. This is causing farmers to use even more toxic herbicides every year. Not only does this create environmental harm, GM foods contain higher residues of toxic herbicides. Roundup, for example, is linked with sterility, hormone disruption, birth defects, and cancer.
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Scientists who discover problems with GMOs have been attacked, gagged, fired, threatened, and denied funding. The journal Nature acknowledged that a "large block of scientists . . . denigrate research by other legitimate scientists in a knee-jerk, partisan, emotional way that is not helpful in advancing knowledge." Attempts by media to expose problems are also often censored.
I watched a documentary about this the other day. "Last Call at the Oasis" Good watch, some really disturbing things in it too.
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The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report, authored by more than 400 scientists and backed by 58 governments, stated that GM crop yields were "highly variable" and in some cases, "yields declined." The report noted, "Assessment of the technology lags behind its development, information is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable." They determined that the current GMOs have nothing to offer the goals of reducing hunger and poverty, improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods, and facilitating social and environmental sustainability. On the contrary, GMOs divert money and resources that would otherwise be spent on more safe, reliable, and appropriate technologies.
Originally posted by spark1: Since 80% of all packaged food is GMO, can't we just assume that all food is unless labeled otherwise?
I don't think people realize just how much of what we eat is genetically modified. And BTW, genetically modifying crops and livestock is something humans have been doing for thousands of years.
For example, all of the corn you eat (yes, all of it) is genetically modified. The corn that we eat bears little resemblance to the original grass plant from which it was derived. But that's not a problem, because the genetically altered version that we eat isn't toxic, and is still nutritious (probably more so than the original plant).
There are plenty of other reasons to be upset with companies like Monsanto. Let's stay focused on that stuff, instead of wasting time tilting at windmills.
It's not that it's genetically modified. It's how it's genetically modified. I'm not a scientist, but I have a feeling that pouring on massive amounts of herbicides and pesticides not to mention petroleum based fertilizers is not going to be a sustainable agriculture system. The "green revolution" is just a blink in the history of agriculture. I guess I could say "so what" I'm old and it won't crash in my lifetime. Maybe. I have a conscience though.
Most other countries refuse to import GMO foods, & that's kind of ironic since generally the first defense for GMOs is making less expensive food for 3rd world countries. If that's the case, then why are we eating it?
I dont have a problem with GMO food. I also dont have a problem with labeling so people can make their own (informed) choices.
GMO labeling is on the ballot in November here and in Colorado. Last time Oregon voted on this was in 2002 when it was soundly defeated. This time it may be a bit closer:
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A citizen review panel is narrowly opposing an Oregon ballot measure to require labeling of genetically modified foods.
Twenty voters chosen to represent a cross section of the electorate voted 11-9 on Sunday to oppose Measure 92.
The Citizen Initiative Review panel heard arguments from both sides over several days.
It found that labeling foods that contain genetically modified ingredients would provide more information for consumers.
But the panelists say it would not require producers to disclose which ingredients are genetically engineered, nor would it require labels for meat and dairy products from animals fed genetically engineered feed.
Apparently some of those opposed to the labeling law thought it didn't go far enough?
But the panelists say it would not require producers to disclose which ingredients are genetically engineered, nor would it require labels for meat and dairy products from animals fed genetically engineered feed
Among other things, it is that /\ part that causes the proplem with the labeling, especially here in this country. Follow the custody chain of any livestock that comes from privately owned farm, from birth thru slaughter and it becomes apparent, that it is all but impossible to reliably and accurately state whether the animal has or has not ever been fed GMO grains--much less determine if it's sire and dam were while carrying or nursing the young animal. Maybe in short life meat like rabbit or poultry, but beef, sheep, swine are really going to be nothing more than an educated guess at best.
I won't address row crops-vegetables and fruits, since I don't know much about them but meat production, I do keep up with. USDA says that by far, most of the meat in our consumer human food chain comes from family owned farms (around 95%) and that the average US family owned farm and ranch is 418 acres. There are about 2 million farms/ranches in the USA. For those who don't understand what an acre is, it's about the size of one football field. If you take out the very large family owned farm/ranches like the King Ranch, Waggoner Ranches in Texas and the big Mt and Colorado ranches, the average size drops considerably--down to about an avg size of under 200 acres. Some interesting facts about US farms/ranches here: http://www.fooddialogues.co...m-size-and-ownership You can click on the embedded links to see where they got their information.
Tracing any animal's meat back to thru the chain of custody would a huge undertaking, for any one meat processor or the USDA--heck even tho the last big US BSE (mad cow disease) scares were in 2003 and 2006, the debate is still raging exactly which COUNTRY that outbreak originated from, much less which farm it originated from. It's tantamount to finding patient one or zero in a pandemic. They "think" they figured it out, but are still not sure where and how the specific animals acquired the disease or where along the breeding line it came from.
On any given week, there are over 500,000 head of cattle slaughtered. These cattle come predominantly from small auction barns, scattered all over any state, usually limited to one or 2 in any county. The number of cattle can range from several hundred/week to several thousand, and from hundreds or thousands of unique sellers. One of the local salebarn/auctions near me, last week sold 1758 head, from 347 individual sellers, to 98 individual buyers. About 2/3 of those head went to buyers representing a packinghouse/feed lot. The rest of the sold animals were "stockers or back to farm" to people like me looking to raise a calf to breeding age, buy a new bull, or as a replacement female to either replace an older cow or to expand herd size. This, is a relatively small auction, but Multiply that by the 3,144 counties in the USA, and you get an idea how many head of just cattle go thru the sale ring each week.
60 some other countries have either heavily restricted, or banned GMO's.... We keep eating them and think nothing of it. 
