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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
There are no documented health benefits to eating organic or non-GMO. Doing so is therefore a socio-political statement.
The anti-GMO, anti-vaccination crowd tends to be liberal and affluent, but is otherwise indistinguishable from the know-nothings on the poor conservative side of the spectrum.
edited 18th Aug '15 11:04:53 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah, I'd need to see a scholarly source on the size issue. So far, I've seen no scientific data to support that claim. Basically what Fighteer said.
With that in mind, I do believe we need to further scrutinize the business practices of agro-business. The science behind GMO tech is sound, but like any product, that technology can be manipulated for illicit financial gains. Giant watermelons shouldn't be scary, but we should stay alert with regard to what extent and if farmers and other laborers are getting their fair share of the profits.
edited 18th Aug '15 11:14:01 AM by Aprilla
I've spent 3 months in the US eating nothing but US Junk food, cookies, a lot of milk with cereals, lots of hamburger and pizza.
I lost weight, like a lot of weight, 10 something pounds during the time, but then I never ate more than my fill and worked in two jobs 8-24/7.
I did groceries and I've found for what I was making buying bananas and oranges wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be, but that was 3 years ago.
Homemade foods and properly prepared foods were cheaper than drive through and fast food stuff but you'd need time to prepare them and buy in bulk. Which I grant it is pretty hard if you're poor and overworked.
I've read and wrote a good share about GM Os.
The main issue isn't the tech itself, it is how is being used.
The Terminator seeds and special fertilizers used by Mossanto crops were originally intended to prevent cross pollination and contamination of the natural flora, but coincidentally it is being used by Mossanto to force farmers to purchase seeds from them instead of letting them grow their own seed stocks.
Also there are issues with the producer's end with Round-Up pesticide, which thanks to reckless overuse by the farmers is creating a new batch of pesticide resistant bugs and weeds.
edited 18th Aug '15 11:18:53 AM by AngelusNox
Inter arma enim silent legesI felt the exact same way, buddy. OUR SUFFERING IS THE SAME.
Regarding food, I have nothing new to add, it is really just the time it takes to actually make the homemade food which makes it hard for people to use it. Here in my country there is an influx of cheap manual labor (Nicaraguan immigrants) and most of it is in housekeeping including cooking, so many people don't cook themselves but still have homemade food.
That however, for some reaosn, is not very popular in the U.S
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes![]()
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Those quick marts during the week for minor stuff like milk and bread and a bigger one every two weeks for bulk stuff.
That was in Baltimore though. I recall the bananas were something like 2 something dollars and the oranges were 3 something dollars a pound. I can't remember how much minced meat was but I found to have a reasonable price.
Finding rice on the other hand was harder enough for me to give up.
Milk in the US is way more cheaper by the liter than it is in Brazil.
I usually cooked my meals overnight after I returned from work, usually in two or three days worth of cooked grains, mostly beans and meat I did on the night to eat the next day.
edited 18th Aug '15 11:25:27 AM by AngelusNox
Inter arma enim silent legesJust google purple carrots, vegetables have become less nutritious.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss
Scholarly peer-reviewed sources, please. That article has a lot of problems with the way it's presenting (or not presenting) the information it claims to be covering. It's not giving the full story on how soil depletion works, and it's playing around with the wording to make it seem like the intergenerational cross-breeding is responsible for the decline in nutritional value. This is half-true, but you'll notice that it's not mentioning anything clear about modern genetic engineering's direct contribution that depletion. Contrary studies have shown the degradation in quality of soil and subsequently the food supplies does not correlate with how that food was bred.
I'm also very leery about what sample size and array they were using to gather this data. It's not so much a problem with the basic information presented in the article, but the conclusions being drawn from it.
edited 18th Aug '15 11:42:03 AM by Aprilla
It is, but a lot of generally available publications tend to oversimplify how modern crop rotation contributes to nutritional value.
Sounds like I'm cherrypicking, but I'm honestly not. Not trying to be rude about it.
EDIT: We're getting off-topic again, but note that you have to be careful not to just pick the first result that comes up in your Google search. That article was the first to come up, which isn't necessarily bad, but you should always make sure you're getting a rich collection of scientifically credible information. Google Scholar is...so-so. Take it with a grain of salt.
edited 18th Aug '15 11:49:25 AM by Aprilla
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uh, that veggies and fruits before were more nutritious in the past is pretty much common knowledge in the health food "fandom". Doesn't have to be gmo, the damage is done with even just cross-breeding.
If you don't want to believe it, that's fine with me. I did state that it's not the technique which concerns me in particular but for what purpose.
If they breed veggies for quantity over quality, I'd say uh uh. If for quality, then yes.
edited 18th Aug '15 11:48:05 AM by probablyinsane
Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.The "health food fandom" is notoriously fad-driven and impervious to real science.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
Yes, but the discussion was originally in the context of GMO food production, and I've seen that piece linked before in anti-GMO debates. Again, it's people taking scientifically significant (but not necessarily conclusive) data and running to wild conclusions with it. You may not be saying that, but a large voting demographic says otherwise.
edited 18th Aug '15 11:53:30 AM by Aprilla
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Especially when it's backed by the Medical Lobby and Government, such as the various 5 a Day
campaigns?
edited 18th Aug '15 11:52:08 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnThe way i think about it, GM Os are just the next step in a process we've been doing for centuries. Google what a wild banana looks like, nothing like the stuff you buy at a store, but the planters who have been cultivating this stuff for centuries didn't have gene-splicing technology.
Corn subsidies are terrible for the food markets.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I was reading an article a while back about grocery stores in the Twin Cities. One of the points made was that the two types of stores that are doing really well right now are the upper-end organic stores (Whole Foods, Lund's/Byerly's, etc.) and lower-priced, budget stores (Aldi, Wal-Mart). It's the stores in the middle that aren't doing as well. Kinda scary how that reflects the erosion of the middle class...
edited 18th Aug '15 11:04:38 AM by speedyboris