The Food Obama & Romney Won't Eat

[AiA in Atlanta]

There is a push in California to have all GMO food labeled. A common corporate tactic, well-honed by the tobacco industry, is to hire "third-party experts" to bring your message to the public, especially through the media. The idea is that academic types carry much more credibility than the likes of Monsanto when it comes to defending genetically engineered food. These shills are all over the airways in the States.

[Neferti]

There is a push in California to have all GMO food labeled. A common corporate tactic, well-honed by the tobacco industry, is to hire "third-party experts" to bring your message to the public, especially through the media. The idea is that academic types carry much more credibility than the likes of Monsanto when it comes to defending genetically engineered food. These shills are all over the airways in the States.

It must be a very long time since you lived in Australia, AiA. Everything (in the supermarket) is labelled here. The only thing unlabelled are packets of cigs ..... they now come in packs that do NOT show the brand but just show pictures of rotten teeth, gangrene toes and the like. This, according to Gummit, will stop kids from smoking. All it has done, apparently, is confuse the counter staff at Woollies when some bloke comes in and asks for a "packet of B&H" and they haven't a clue which picture on what blank packet belongs to what. So I have read. I haven't seen them as I gave up the habit years ago.

[Swami Dring]

Jon faine is reknowned for his fucking idiocy

Quoted for truthiness and ironikalness.

[AiA in Atlanta]

There was a push to label tobacco the way Australia does but in the end Big Tobacco prevailed.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Well if people want to eat GM foods, they should be allowed. Of course it should be labeled as such so boycotters can opt out. If people want to pay more for a percieved superiority of conventional food items in order to avoid GMOs, good for them, I couldn't care less.

So far corn is the only GM crop made more productive that conventional corn and GM potatoes were pulled from sale due to toxicity.
Dolly the sheep took 67 goes to get right and had so many congentital defects, she only lived 2 years.
The GM Pig took 137 goes to get right. Don't know what health problems it had or how short its life was, but GM animal breeding or cloning is a long way from sastisfactory.

While in town, one of the few items I buy without a 2nd thought are Scotch-finger biscuits, because shortbread is one of the very few recipes that hasn't been mucked with yet. When I go home, I'll continue stewing wild animals (fit animals tend to be a bit tough) and browsing on feral fruits.

Plain packaging for tobacco will make unlicenced/tax free baccy much easier to sell as the legit item.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Not arguing against access to GM crops and food. I believe it is necessary to feed a growing population but we here in the developed world should know what we are eating by having it clearly labeled.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Not arguing against access to GM crops and food. I believe it is necessary to feed a growing population but we here in the developed world should know what we are eating by having it clearly labeled.

The petro-chemical [cheap fertiliser] Green Revolution was supposed to solve the world's food problems back in the 1970s.
Simplistic solutions rarely work as envisaged, if at all.

Of course food items should be labelled properly. I often put things back on shelves due to undesired ingredients or inadequate information.
I'm the sort of character that won't even consider buying something if the seller doesn't have a visible price on it.

[boxy]

The world's food problems are more a political/economic, than agricultural/technological problems.

And the problem with GMO's is more psychological than factual :p

[Rorschach]

So far I agree with boxy...

We have always bred animals and plants... (yes it is called plant breeding)

I think the problems will arise if and when we try to get to fancy.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Well so far GM crops, with the exception of corn, have failed to be more productive than the natural equavalent. In fact growers claim GM crops are only one third to two thirds as productive, and the require more, not less chemical enhancements and protections.

Personally I couldn't care less about GM cropping because I assume it will fail.
The Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth scaremongering arguments about GMOs contaminating wild varieties doesn't hold water. Gm plants are inherently weak, and without chemical support just don't perform. So even if GM varieties did go feral, they'd die out withing a couple of growing seasons.

This idea of feeding 9 billion people on GMOs is phuking fantasy. It won't happen.
Population reduction is the only viable solution. Generally that means war.