GM Crops Authorized for Food Use in Canada

[tiramisu]

I had to find this list in Hong Kong....

http://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/programme/programme_gmf/programme_gmf_gfd.html (http://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/programme/programme_gmf/programme_gmf_gfd.html)

Oddly enough when rats and mice are fed gm soy "round up ready" food don't do so well.

Corn MON810,863, NK603 have been found to cause cancer and organ damage in mammals

http://twilightearth.com/environment/report-monsanto-corn-causes-organ-damage-in-mammals/comment-page-1/#comment-14452

Used in Corn oil, corn flour, sugar or syrup, and as ingredients in snacks, bakery, confectionery and soft drink, etc

.... It's just depressing looking at where the food I eat comes from.

[MontrealMarek]

Not all the food you buy is genetically modified. :-)

Often it is a question of economics. It is a choice of whether or not we can all eat.

Feeding animals the same kind of food all the time is probably not a good idea. A friend of mine ate 5 lbs of gummy bears at once and he was hospitalized. True story.

[tiramisu]

... I can't really understand what you are talking about.

In canada the genetically modified crops are primarily corn, soy, and canola. Europe will not accept these crops. The canadian wheat board successfully blocked gm wheat in canada.

There is no significant economic advantage to canadian farmers or consumers in the use of this technology. With europe banning GM crops it is actually a huge economic disincentive and the monsanto canola has pretty much infected all of our export crop. Only monsanto wins in this one.

"Feeding animals the same kind of food all the time is probably not a good idea?", corn byproducts dominate the grocery retail and restaurant fast food chains and is found in just about every processed food. Carcinogenic food is probably not a good idea.

I really have no idea what your point is???

[tiramisu]

Monsanto pulled MON810 from european assessment as of nov 9, 2009
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=4091

[MontrealMarek]

I have two points

1. The technology used to grow food, wether it is breeding, genetic modification, or a industrial technique, politics etc... is important to focus on. GM food = bad is too narrow. Most of the time it is this technology that makes food cheap and available to everyone.

Example:
It takes about 33 days to grow a chicken as an example. The chicken doesn't cost very much either. The farmer get close to a $1.20 kg for each of his chickens. Not much room for profit. But we can all buy chicken. The other day I bought two off size chickens for $5 at the supermarket. How many people would rather pay $30 for a chicken vs. $5 for 2?

2. Stories about how GM modified wheat or corn can give you a cancer are pretty dumb.( No offense intended to you I am just not happy with journalism sometimes ) You would probably find cancer in rats it you fed them the same thing all the time. Acohol is listed as a carcinogen too. http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/cancer/a/aa000520.htm
Does anyone advocate banning beer?

I think that people should educate themselve better on their food choices. Most people will make common sense decissions when they are at a point in their life when they feel it is important to them. Otherwise they will eat pizza pockets, michalina's (Don't even know how that is spelled) etc... They are probably more dangerous then any GM modified foods. :-)

Hope there isn't a lot of hate towards me from this response from the pizza pcoket mafia. They are pretty powerfull you know ;-)

[tiramisu]

That's a little more clear and I think I can appreciate elements of your points. I don't think that North America suffers from any form of food shortage and chicken factories are profitable although a bit disgusting and tasteless (I'll leave the morals of animal abuse out and focus on food safety and quality).

on to the points:

1. The specific technology is important to focus on - Agreed. Let's not confuse breeding, industrial technique and genetic modifcation. Each has seperate strengths, weaknesses, risks.

GM is being shipped and sold as equivalent to existing crops and is NOT being tested for unusual side effects nor is it labelled. Several strains have been shown to be toxic yet this continues to be the case. In this area I wouldn't say technology is the issue, I would argue that appropriate testing, combined with rampant fraud/corruption in the american food system is the problem.

Industrial Technique on the other hand - pig barns, chicken factories have different issues. Again many are political, waste treatment plants and hygiene requirements could solve most of these from a food safety perspective (animal cruelty discussion avoided). There is a false subsidy happening in much of this industry in that the regulation of these industrial techniques is allowing irresponsible factories (i won't call them farms, no husbandry).

For me the key elements in the use of GM food is the lack of labelling and testing. I have no issue with improving the qualities of foods or agriculture. I prefer fresh local produce as it tastes better but if that were safe, labelled gm that would be fine. Today the products are neither.

2. In this case the stories are not dumb. Monsanto, has a history of misrepresenting and even lying about its products safety, specifically; pcb's, dioxin, aspartame, bovine growth hormone. It definitely offered to bribe canadian scientists to the tune of 2 million dollars to authorize bgh's use in canada despite faulty testing methodology (you can watch the court testimony on video if you like).

With regard to feeding rats corn. I would suggest to you that rats can generally eat unlimited amount of non-gm corn and they will not show the reactions found to the 3 specific strains of monsanto corn in question. This is not dumb, Monsanto was aware of and sat on these results.

Alcohol is poison and tobacco is just stupid of course. The difference being I know that they are and can make intelligent decisions about them. I can look at a label and read HFCS and decide that I don't want to consume a boatload of fructose, I can choose not to consume aspartame. The only way I can choose not to consume GM crops is to avoid corn, soy, canola and sugar beets OR buy organic.

The larger problem though is not that I wish to avoid GM crops but rather that they are not being adequately tested before they are being flooded into our food supply and that individuals in several of the companies bringing them to market need to be publically executed.

... There are all sorts of moral and ethical problems with patents on life, and the removal of biodiversity but I've tried to keep to the food quality issues that concern me.

In order to make food decisions the relevant information needs to be available. In the case of GM crops it is often falsely represented, untested and never labelled.