So occasionally I get sucked into discussions in the comment section of internet articles. I usually don't because you often need to sign up to be able to comment. Also I try to remind myself that I am too busy to waste my time replying to comments that get me fired up.
But the other day I did get sucked into a discussion on GMOs. The article was pointing out that General Mills had something like 11 GMO derived ingredients in their Fruit by the Foot product (and more egregious to me was the fact that it said "made with real fruit" on the package even though the strawberry flavor had no strawberries in it and the 'real fruit' was boiled down pear concentrate.)
Anyway, rather than let my conversation get lost in cyberspace, I copied and pasted it here because this topic is dear to my heart and this comment thread really is just the tip of the issue...
and an odd twist was that the comments from the person I was having a back and forth with were deleted. I had already copy and pasted them into a word doc so they are here...
Making money does not make one a fraud, everyone has to make a living, but I am not here to defend her or her business.
The point about permaculture is that it is a wholistic approach that will improve the soil health, health of the ecosystem, and of the people. Diversity makes both natural ecosystems strong as well as agricultural systems. The GMO crops you are talking about are a single monoculture – one weakness of this is a disease that wipes out that particular crop the local people are screwed. Also diverse plants, bacteria, fungi, and animals in the soil and on the farm provide more nutrition and health for everyone. Also healthy soil stores tons of carbon. It is estimated that if we restore just 11% of our farmland to healthy soil ecologies that we would capture as much CO2 as we emit with all our cars and factories. But the bottom line is the permaculture model is VASTLY superior to anything GMOs can do, plus we honestly do not know the effects of GMOs, it is a big exeriment and we are the lab rats. And as I said, the VAST majority of GMOs are actually very harmful because they allow tons of poison to be used, they have suicide genes, and their use is truly intended not to help humanity but to give control of the food system to giant corporations like Monsanto and DOW chemical. If you think they have bettering humanity in mind then you should do more research.
but at this point it seems like we will mostly likely have to agree to disagree, take care.
But the other day I did get sucked into a discussion on GMOs. The article was pointing out that General Mills had something like 11 GMO derived ingredients in their Fruit by the Foot product (and more egregious to me was the fact that it said "made with real fruit" on the package even though the strawberry flavor had no strawberries in it and the 'real fruit' was boiled down pear concentrate.)
Anyway, rather than let my conversation get lost in cyberspace, I copied and pasted it here because this topic is dear to my heart and this comment thread really is just the tip of the issue...
and an odd twist was that the comments from the person I was having a back and forth with were deleted. I had already copy and pasted them into a word doc so they are here...
BobE
I would like to see a reference study
that would detail why GMO foods are harmful. I have not seen any data. Hybrid
seed corn has been around for many, many decades. I realize genetic
modification is apparently one step farther but there has been no data
generated that I have seen that says this in any way is harmful to the human
body.
danny (to BobE)
Even if GMOs
are not bad for the human body, there is VERY good reason to be completely
against them. The majority of GMOs are produced to make the crop resistant to
chemical herbicides like round up. This allows farmers to dump increasingly
large amounts of this poison on their crops, destroying the soil ecology (more
essential than we realize) and if GMOs are not bad for people, these herbicides
certainly are. As the weeds evolve to become resistant to the herbicide, great
amounts have to be used until the herbicide is obsolete (about 30 years). This
has happened to round up which is why they developed the GMO/herbicide combo
using one of the two chemicals from Agent Orange. DOW and Monsanto already know
this will create more super resistant weeds so they are already working on the
next poison/GMO combo. This is a toxic arms race that has one purpose: profits
for the corporations who are killing our farmland, ecology, and people. And
this is only one reason to oppose GMOs, but it should be enough!
Foodie (to danny)
With
that logic you should be going against the use of Roundup then– not GMOs. Organic
food uses pesticides as well and it is not as environmentally friendly as you
think. By going against GMOs, you are hurting humanity. I wish the anti-GMO
movement wasn’t so selfish.
danny (to danny)
In
response to Foodie,
I gave one example why GMOs are bad, I do not understand how the GMO movement is selfish or how we are hurting humanity. GMOs do not help humanity. There are many other problems with them, Lilhippieface in her comment mentioned the suicide gene that is placed in many GMOs, preventing farmers from saving seeds. This prevents local varieties from being developed, forces farmers to buy new seeds every year, and destroys diversity which is what makes life on this planet resilient to things like changes in climate. Genetic drift has been found to occur from GMO crops to wild plants. This means things like the suicide gene can actually end up in wild populations of plants. So many of the consequences of GMOs are completely unkown and yet to be discovered. Why experiment with something that does harm but does not provide benefits we cannot get from permaculture and other sustainable farming techniques?
And as far as your comment that I should be against Round up. In general I am against the use of herbicides and pesticides, I choose to use none on my garden and I buy food grown without their use. But I heard a farmer interviewed who uses round up and is against GMOs and his logic was very sound. He uses very little round up when he really needs it and it had been effective, however the round up ready GMO crops allow farmers to drench their crops with the poison, and this over use not only increases the harmful effects but allows the weeds to become resistant to the round up. Just as the over use of anti-biotics can lead to anti-biotic resistant strains of diseases. So you can be against the over use of antibiotics (say in factory farming or by our medical industry) but not be against antibiotics.
Ironically the companies that push GMOs are the ones who are selfishly motivated by greed and profits and people fighting against GMOs are fighting for the benefit of humanity (and the rest of the living world).
I gave one example why GMOs are bad, I do not understand how the GMO movement is selfish or how we are hurting humanity. GMOs do not help humanity. There are many other problems with them, Lilhippieface in her comment mentioned the suicide gene that is placed in many GMOs, preventing farmers from saving seeds. This prevents local varieties from being developed, forces farmers to buy new seeds every year, and destroys diversity which is what makes life on this planet resilient to things like changes in climate. Genetic drift has been found to occur from GMO crops to wild plants. This means things like the suicide gene can actually end up in wild populations of plants. So many of the consequences of GMOs are completely unkown and yet to be discovered. Why experiment with something that does harm but does not provide benefits we cannot get from permaculture and other sustainable farming techniques?
And as far as your comment that I should be against Round up. In general I am against the use of herbicides and pesticides, I choose to use none on my garden and I buy food grown without their use. But I heard a farmer interviewed who uses round up and is against GMOs and his logic was very sound. He uses very little round up when he really needs it and it had been effective, however the round up ready GMO crops allow farmers to drench their crops with the poison, and this over use not only increases the harmful effects but allows the weeds to become resistant to the round up. Just as the over use of anti-biotics can lead to anti-biotic resistant strains of diseases. So you can be against the over use of antibiotics (say in factory farming or by our medical industry) but not be against antibiotics.
Ironically the companies that push GMOs are the ones who are selfishly motivated by greed and profits and people fighting against GMOs are fighting for the benefit of humanity (and the rest of the living world).
Foodie (to danny)
Anti-GMO
activism is hurting humanity. There are starving people outside of the US who
cannot grow crops because of weather, soil, etc. conditions. There have been crops
genitically engineered to withstand these conditions, and the public is saying
“GMOs are bad” and the politicians are giving in– without scientific evidence.
Sorry, but that’s hurting humanity. These starving people cannot eat and grow
crops with help from science.
Take
a step back and look at the big picture. Did you also know that GMO tobacco is
an ingredient in the Ebola cure? The cure that has helped the American doctors.
Just please, please science. You can do it!
Foodie (to danny)
That
should be *genetically and ” These starving people cannot eat and grow crops withOUT
help from science”
· danny (to danny)
Foodie,
None of the GMO crops we use in this country are designed for any such humanitarian purposes. If it was true that a particular GMO crop was the only hope for starving people, I would not be against that particular crop. However this is simply not the case. The Hopi have been farming extremely drought tolerant varieties of corn for thousands of years. I have some of their seeds in fact. This corn can grow in extremely impoverished soil as well. If you are truly interested in this topic I suggest you educate yourself about the history of our agricultural degradation of such places as Africa, the Middle East, and Asia over the past 10,000 years and the power of permaculture to restore the soil, bring back biodiversity, and even increase rainfall in the regions. It is possible to return deserts to food producing ecosystems if done properly and the benefit of this strategy far outweighs the benefit from a GMO monoculture, which is what you are talking about. PLEASE WATCH this incredible documentary about restoring deserts to functional ecosystems using permaculture. Yes, I am against monocultures and GMOs and for permaculture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBLZmwlPa8A
None of the GMO crops we use in this country are designed for any such humanitarian purposes. If it was true that a particular GMO crop was the only hope for starving people, I would not be against that particular crop. However this is simply not the case. The Hopi have been farming extremely drought tolerant varieties of corn for thousands of years. I have some of their seeds in fact. This corn can grow in extremely impoverished soil as well. If you are truly interested in this topic I suggest you educate yourself about the history of our agricultural degradation of such places as Africa, the Middle East, and Asia over the past 10,000 years and the power of permaculture to restore the soil, bring back biodiversity, and even increase rainfall in the regions. It is possible to return deserts to food producing ecosystems if done properly and the benefit of this strategy far outweighs the benefit from a GMO monoculture, which is what you are talking about. PLEASE WATCH this incredible documentary about restoring deserts to functional ecosystems using permaculture. Yes, I am against monocultures and GMOs and for permaculture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBLZmwlPa8A
·
happyvegangirl
(to danny)
wow Danny, very well said. thank you
danny (to danny)
Happyvegangirl, you are welcome and thanks for the nice comment. I was spurred on a bit by someone named Foodie but her/his comments dissappeared form the thread. Odd, I hope she watches the video I recommended, it is a great one for those concerned about people feeding themselves. And of course being vegan is a huge help, although I am more of an omnivore myself. peaceFoodie (to danny)
Who cares if the seeds are drought resistant? They probably don't give a good yield. If you can take something and make it better-- why not do that? It causes no harm. I watched a bit of the documentary (i wish i could have those 10 mins back), but to be honest I don't get your point? If GMOs can help why not use them as well? And the posts were deleted by Food Babe-- she doesn't allow healthy debate on her site or Facebook. Odd coming from someone who was on the debate team... She's a fraud also out to make money. Look at all her sponsors on this site. Organic food is a big business now. Wake up people! #chowbabearmy
danny (to danny)
Foodie2,Making money does not make one a fraud, everyone has to make a living, but I am not here to defend her or her business.
The point about permaculture is that it is a wholistic approach that will improve the soil health, health of the ecosystem, and of the people. Diversity makes both natural ecosystems strong as well as agricultural systems. The GMO crops you are talking about are a single monoculture – one weakness of this is a disease that wipes out that particular crop the local people are screwed. Also diverse plants, bacteria, fungi, and animals in the soil and on the farm provide more nutrition and health for everyone. Also healthy soil stores tons of carbon. It is estimated that if we restore just 11% of our farmland to healthy soil ecologies that we would capture as much CO2 as we emit with all our cars and factories. But the bottom line is the permaculture model is VASTLY superior to anything GMOs can do, plus we honestly do not know the effects of GMOs, it is a big exeriment and we are the lab rats. And as I said, the VAST majority of GMOs are actually very harmful because they allow tons of poison to be used, they have suicide genes, and their use is truly intended not to help humanity but to give control of the food system to giant corporations like Monsanto and DOW chemical. If you think they have bettering humanity in mind then you should do more research.
but at this point it seems like we will mostly likely have to agree to disagree, take care.
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