8 ms·

It really does, that’s why corporations fight tooth and nail on every attempt at labeling requirements. From cigarette warnings, to food nutritional/ingredient

It really does, that’s why corporations fight tooth and nail on every attempt at labeling requirements. From cigarette warnings, to food nutritional/ingredient labels, to modern fights by big Ag against having to label genetically modified food and food stuffs. It’s funny watching their lobbiest argue against gmo labels, it goes something like “it would be damaging to us to have to label our products with gmo labels, because consumers would largely stop buying our products, and there is no science to back gmo products dangerous. We need to continue studying.” My thought is who cares if science says gmos are harmful, if consumers would want to know so they could avoid a product, as admitted by the lobbiest, shouldn’t be entitled to know?

jjoonathan 8y ago
Sounds good, so long as we include products of traditional genetic modification techniques, like selective breeding, and slap a severity degree on there to account for the number of genes edited in the process (or perhaps deviation from a reference genotype?). If consumers want to know, shouldn't they be entitled to know?
- epicureanideal 8y ago
  I don't see any problem with that, as long as it doesn't attempt to conflate selective breeding with modern genetic engineering. If it were labeled "selective breeding" or "modified by traditional selective breeding methods" or something, then I think that's entirely clear what it is.
  - nine_k 8y ago
    Genetic engineering from 50-70 years ago was often hitting seeds with gamma rays. So yes, it's like not produced by a modern CNC, but with a traditional sledgehammer.
  - nradov 8y ago
    There's no need to distinguish between selective breeding versus modern generic engineering. What matters is the output, not the technique.
    - will_brown 8y ago
      I don’t necessarily agree. Do people care if they are eating a cow that has been bred for generations to grow faster and have more fat? Is that really the same as genetically modifiying corn so it won’t die when drowned with weed killers and pesticides that are still present on the foods consumers eat?
      - yorwba 8y ago
        Conversely, do people care if they are eating a cow that has been genetically modified to grow faster and have more fat? Is that really the same as breeding corn for generations so it won't die when drowned with weed killers and pesticides that are still present on the foods consumers eat? The difference between your examples is not the genetic modification technique applied, but the result that was achieved. Maybe it would be simpler to just label the precise breed that was used, so consumers can check for themselves which properties they want to avoid.
        will_brown 8y ago
        Well a lot of people are beginning to care if their cows are feed generically modified corn (ie grain fed) vs grass fed. And it’s not so much the gmo but the cows who are fed gmo corn are also loaded up with antibiotics because the pesticide laced grain makes them sick withthout it. And people don’t like eating antibiotic laden beef. I also think you are blurring the lines between breeding and gmo (ie turning genes on and off) which as a practical matter, what we are talking about is turning off genes in crops, so farmers can you drown their crops and pesticides.
        yorwba 8y ago
        I'm intentionally blurring the lines between breeding and GMOs because if what you really want to avoid is over-use of pesticides and antibiotics, avoiding GMOs is neither sufficient (farmers will add antibiotics to the conventionally bred grain they feed their conventionally bred cows simply because it makes them grow faster) nor necessary (the most lucrative modifications are about pesticide use, but not all of them are) and therefore it would be better to focus energy on the things you really need to care about rather than an unreliable proxy like breeding vs. GMO.
- code_duck 8y ago
  I agreed that customers should understand that cauliflower and broccoli are the same plant that was created from one cruciferous mustard herb. However, that’s not really what they are curious about when they’re shopping.
- will_brown 8y ago
  Yes if consumers want to know, they should be able to organize and require disclosures. Otherwise let’s give up take away the regulations requiring nutritional information and ingredients and see how that works out. Should be a blast for people with peanut allergies and allow corporation to start including cheaper preservatives known to cause cancer. It’s definately one thing to suggest any given consumer can make demands/regulations, but a fair reading and we are talking about an issue that the industry themselves admits large segments want to know so they can make informed buy choices.
nine_k 8y ago
So you basically would mandate to label products with "x" / "non-x", even certain values of x are pure superstition? Of course I'm fine with companies adding labels voluntarily, as long as thy are correct: "kosher", "non-GMO", "ethically sourced", "cage-free", all the way to "does not contain nuclear waste".
- will_brown 8y ago
  >So you basically would mandate to label products with "x" / "non-x", even certain values of x are pure superstition? No, whereas everyone saying mandating labeling is an authoritarian government act and they would rather live in freedom where companies don’t need to label, I say if people organize and want to pass laws mandating labeling of x, they should be able to do that...but when that Law doesn’t get passed because a special interest spends hundreds of millions lobbying and lining pockets of politicians and uses the same arguement was every other special interest (ie gun lobby, tobacco lobby, sugar lobby, big ag lobby) its a shame. For the record I never once sided with gmo labeling or not, only agreed with OP that labeling drives consumer behavior, and if people want labeling they should get it. It’s everyone else who attacked me as an authoritarian for taking the side of consumer who want labeling...which I subsequently suggested is ironic that people who would take the sides of big corporations and allow them to operate as they wish over what people want is the opposite of freedom and is in fact authoritarian.
zorga 8y ago
And they're correct to object, the notion that we need apply authoritarian control over labels is absurd and wrong. You don't need to force GMO products to be labelled when non-GMO products are perfectly free to advertise that on their label. It's one thing to say you can't lie on a label, that's fraud, but it's wrong to mandate what should be on a label and what words they must use. The GMO moniker is a smear intended to take advantage of consumer ignorance to scare them away from perfectly good food. There's no real evidence against GMO, it's just fear mongering. Most of our food is not natural and hasn't been for a very very long time. > if consumers would want to know so they could avoid a product, as admitted by the lobbiest, shouldn’t be entitled to know? They can already know now, by looking for companies voluntarily labeling their products non-GMO. There's more than one way to reach that goal, one requires forced compliance and the other allows freedom; the freedom approach is better. Forcing your competitors to label their products as GMO to take advantage of the irrational fear and superstition of the public is just plain evil. It's funny watching people like you pretend you're being the good guy when you're really the bad guy trying to make everyone else behave the way you want them to rather than simply choosing to do business with the people who are the way you want them to be. Here's an idea for you and everyone who thinks like you; worry about your own behavior and stop trying to tell everyone else how they should behave. You're not forced to buy their products, if you don't like their labels, take your business elsewhere. That's how things work in a free country.
- will_brown 8y ago
  So do you object to mandated nutritional labels and ingredient lists? To say if you want to enter food and food stuffs into the stream of commerce you need to include nutritional information and ingredients, is that really authoritarian? I personally like consumer rights and don’t pretend there is a level playing field between consumers and corporations. I think it’s a common sense approach to the reality companies put nasty shit in food from preservatives to various types of sugars that consumers base buying decisions on and it’s not authoritarian to require those disclosures...at least you know where we have a quasi democratic process in the form of a constitutional republic. It’s like saying it’s authoritarian to require doctors to inform patients about their options. How dare these authoritarians dictate how doctors practice medicine. >It's funny watching people like you pretend you're being the good guy when you're really the bad guy trying to make everyone else behave the way you want them to rather than simply choosing to do business with the people who are the way you want them to be. Did I say I was good and anyone else was bad. Did I say I wanted to know about gmo’s personally? I just asked a question shouldn’t consumers be able to organize and pass laws requiring disclosures? Pretty sure that’s what a free country is...not the right to sell unlabeled snake oil if they want.
daveFNbuck 8y ago
The argument isn't that they want to hide this information from customers. It's that a government-mandated label gives the false impression that GMOs are harmful. Why would a label be required if they weren't? This would mislead people who don't currently care whether their food contains GMOs. It would also add cost to track the supply chain sufficiently to make the labels accurate and it would reduce the space available for other more useful labels.
- will_brown 8y ago
  Labels != harmful product Again like the food industry fight against nutritional labels and ingredient lists/disclosures. Labels inform consumer choices and food industry does not want that. It’s that simple. Sure it costs money to add labels...so what? If you don’t want to dish out the added costs don’t use gmos. Seems to me most companies love spending money on labels and do so voluntarily all the time (organic, heart healthy, nut free, fat free/low fat, source of vitamin...) they just don’t like disclosing things that people don’t want and that’s when the cost arguement comes into play. As admitted by the lobbiest people don’t want gmos so the industry doesn’t want to have to label them. I’d recommend watching the televised congressional hearings.
  - jgtrosh 8y ago
    European labelling must have E numbers[1] for many chemical products, and no one tries to paint these as anything other than an effort to standardize labeling, so as to help consumer decisions. However, consumers started seeing attacks to products containing this or that harmful E-something, and immediately learned “E means it's bad”. I have had debates with colleagues wherein E300 was used to show a product was potentially harmful, where that is just ascorbic acid (vitamin C). It is true the immediate widespread understanding of “GM product” would be “evil product”. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%20Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%20Number
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    The only reason that people want GMO-containing products labeled is that people believe these products to be harmful. Mandatory labeling looks like an official endorsement of that view. This will misinform consumers. > Sure it costs money to add labels...so what? If you don’t want to dish out the added costs don’t use gmos. There is also an added expense to not using GMOs, so this would make food more expensive for everyone. More expensive food would hurt consumers whether or not they care about GMOs. This is a bad thing. > As admitted by the lobbiest people don’t want gmos so the industry doesn’t want to have to label them. I’d recommend watching the televised congressional hearings. Consider for a moment that I'm right and that GMO labeling would be bad for both consumers and producers. How would industry lobbyists act differently than they do now? Would it be any different from how they act now?

jjoonathan 8y ago

Sounds good, so long as we include products of traditional genetic modification techniques, like selective breeding, and slap a severity degree on there to account for the number of genes edited in the process (or perhaps deviation from a reference genotype?). If consumers want to know, shouldn't they be entitled to know?

epicureanideal 8y ago
I don't see any problem with that, as long as it doesn't attempt to conflate selective breeding with modern genetic engineering. If it were labeled "selective breeding" or "modified by traditional selective breeding methods" or something, then I think that's entirely clear what it is.
- nine_k 8y ago
  Genetic engineering from 50-70 years ago was often hitting seeds with gamma rays. So yes, it's like not produced by a modern CNC, but with a traditional sledgehammer.
- nradov 8y ago
  There's no need to distinguish between selective breeding versus modern generic engineering. What matters is the output, not the technique.
  - will_brown 8y ago
    I don’t necessarily agree. Do people care if they are eating a cow that has been bred for generations to grow faster and have more fat? Is that really the same as genetically modifiying corn so it won’t die when drowned with weed killers and pesticides that are still present on the foods consumers eat?
    - yorwba 8y ago
      Conversely, do people care if they are eating a cow that has been genetically modified to grow faster and have more fat? Is that really the same as breeding corn for generations so it won't die when drowned with weed killers and pesticides that are still present on the foods consumers eat? The difference between your examples is not the genetic modification technique applied, but the result that was achieved. Maybe it would be simpler to just label the precise breed that was used, so consumers can check for themselves which properties they want to avoid.
      - will_brown 8y ago
        Well a lot of people are beginning to care if their cows are feed generically modified corn (ie grain fed) vs grass fed. And it’s not so much the gmo but the cows who are fed gmo corn are also loaded up with antibiotics because the pesticide laced grain makes them sick withthout it. And people don’t like eating antibiotic laden beef. I also think you are blurring the lines between breeding and gmo (ie turning genes on and off) which as a practical matter, what we are talking about is turning off genes in crops, so farmers can you drown their crops and pesticides.
        yorwba 8y ago
        I'm intentionally blurring the lines between breeding and GMOs because if what you really want to avoid is over-use of pesticides and antibiotics, avoiding GMOs is neither sufficient (farmers will add antibiotics to the conventionally bred grain they feed their conventionally bred cows simply because it makes them grow faster) nor necessary (the most lucrative modifications are about pesticide use, but not all of them are) and therefore it would be better to focus energy on the things you really need to care about rather than an unreliable proxy like breeding vs. GMO.
code_duck 8y ago
I agreed that customers should understand that cauliflower and broccoli are the same plant that was created from one cruciferous mustard herb. However, that’s not really what they are curious about when they’re shopping.
will_brown 8y ago
Yes if consumers want to know, they should be able to organize and require disclosures. Otherwise let’s give up take away the regulations requiring nutritional information and ingredients and see how that works out. Should be a blast for people with peanut allergies and allow corporation to start including cheaper preservatives known to cause cancer. It’s definately one thing to suggest any given consumer can make demands/regulations, but a fair reading and we are talking about an issue that the industry themselves admits large segments want to know so they can make informed buy choices.

nine_k 8y ago

So you basically would mandate to label products with "x" / "non-x", even certain values of x are pure superstition? Of course I'm fine with companies adding labels voluntarily, as long as thy are correct: "kosher", "non-GMO", "ethically sourced", "cage-free", all the way to "does not contain nuclear waste".

will_brown 8y ago
>So you basically would mandate to label products with "x" / "non-x", even certain values of x are pure superstition? No, whereas everyone saying mandating labeling is an authoritarian government act and they would rather live in freedom where companies don’t need to label, I say if people organize and want to pass laws mandating labeling of x, they should be able to do that...but when that Law doesn’t get passed because a special interest spends hundreds of millions lobbying and lining pockets of politicians and uses the same arguement was every other special interest (ie gun lobby, tobacco lobby, sugar lobby, big ag lobby) its a shame. For the record I never once sided with gmo labeling or not, only agreed with OP that labeling drives consumer behavior, and if people want labeling they should get it. It’s everyone else who attacked me as an authoritarian for taking the side of consumer who want labeling...which I subsequently suggested is ironic that people who would take the sides of big corporations and allow them to operate as they wish over what people want is the opposite of freedom and is in fact authoritarian.

zorga 8y ago

And they're correct to object, the notion that we need apply authoritarian control over labels is absurd and wrong. You don't need to force GMO products to be labelled when non-GMO products are perfectly free to advertise that on their label. It's one thing to say you can't lie on a label, that's fraud, but it's wrong to mandate what should be on a label and what words they must use. The GMO moniker is a smear intended to take advantage of consumer ignorance to scare them away from perfectly good food. There's no real evidence against GMO, it's just fear mongering. Most of our food is not natural and hasn't been for a very very long time. > if consumers would want to know so they could avoid a product, as admitted by the lobbiest, shouldn’t be entitled to know? They can already know now, by looking for companies voluntarily labeling their products non-GMO. There's more than one way to reach that goal, one requires forced compliance and the other allows freedom; the freedom approach is better. Forcing your competitors to label their products as GMO to take advantage of the irrational fear and superstition of the public is just plain evil. It's funny watching people like you pretend you're being the good guy when you're really the bad guy trying to make everyone else behave the way you want them to rather than simply choosing to do business with the people who are the way you want them to be. Here's an idea for you and everyone who thinks like you; worry about your own behavior and stop trying to tell everyone else how they should behave. You're not forced to buy their products, if you don't like their labels, take your business elsewhere. That's how things work in a free country.

will_brown 8y ago
So do you object to mandated nutritional labels and ingredient lists? To say if you want to enter food and food stuffs into the stream of commerce you need to include nutritional information and ingredients, is that really authoritarian? I personally like consumer rights and don’t pretend there is a level playing field between consumers and corporations. I think it’s a common sense approach to the reality companies put nasty shit in food from preservatives to various types of sugars that consumers base buying decisions on and it’s not authoritarian to require those disclosures...at least you know where we have a quasi democratic process in the form of a constitutional republic. It’s like saying it’s authoritarian to require doctors to inform patients about their options. How dare these authoritarians dictate how doctors practice medicine. >It's funny watching people like you pretend you're being the good guy when you're really the bad guy trying to make everyone else behave the way you want them to rather than simply choosing to do business with the people who are the way you want them to be. Did I say I was good and anyone else was bad. Did I say I wanted to know about gmo’s personally? I just asked a question shouldn’t consumers be able to organize and pass laws requiring disclosures? Pretty sure that’s what a free country is...not the right to sell unlabeled snake oil if they want.

daveFNbuck 8y ago

The argument isn't that they want to hide this information from customers. It's that a government-mandated label gives the false impression that GMOs are harmful. Why would a label be required if they weren't? This would mislead people who don't currently care whether their food contains GMOs. It would also add cost to track the supply chain sufficiently to make the labels accurate and it would reduce the space available for other more useful labels.

will_brown 8y ago
Labels != harmful product Again like the food industry fight against nutritional labels and ingredient lists/disclosures. Labels inform consumer choices and food industry does not want that. It’s that simple. Sure it costs money to add labels...so what? If you don’t want to dish out the added costs don’t use gmos. Seems to me most companies love spending money on labels and do so voluntarily all the time (organic, heart healthy, nut free, fat free/low fat, source of vitamin...) they just don’t like disclosing things that people don’t want and that’s when the cost arguement comes into play. As admitted by the lobbiest people don’t want gmos so the industry doesn’t want to have to label them. I’d recommend watching the televised congressional hearings.
- jgtrosh 8y ago
  European labelling must have E numbers[1] for many chemical products, and no one tries to paint these as anything other than an effort to standardize labeling, so as to help consumer decisions. However, consumers started seeing attacks to products containing this or that harmful E-something, and immediately learned “E means it's bad”. I have had debates with colleagues wherein E300 was used to show a product was potentially harmful, where that is just ascorbic acid (vitamin C). It is true the immediate widespread understanding of “GM product” would be “evil product”. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%20Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%20Number
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  The only reason that people want GMO-containing products labeled is that people believe these products to be harmful. Mandatory labeling looks like an official endorsement of that view. This will misinform consumers. > Sure it costs money to add labels...so what? If you don’t want to dish out the added costs don’t use gmos. There is also an added expense to not using GMOs, so this would make food more expensive for everyone. More expensive food would hurt consumers whether or not they care about GMOs. This is a bad thing. > As admitted by the lobbiest people don’t want gmos so the industry doesn’t want to have to label them. I’d recommend watching the televised congressional hearings. Consider for a moment that I'm right and that GMO labeling would be bad for both consumers and producers. How would industry lobbyists act differently than they do now? Would it be any different from how they act now?