Elinda wrote:
idiggory wrote:
I honestly have no problems with genetically modified foods. I think it's fair that you could criticize the GM companies for their practices, but I'm not willing to blame them for the labeling issues. Because, to be completely honest, they have a good point. No one has linked GM food stuffs to negative health benefits, and they shouldn't be required to put labels on their products if there's no evidence it's harmful. As for them lobbying to stop non-GMO labels, is that in any way shocking? It's a marketing campaign established purely to discredit GMO foods.
GMO has not been the standard practice throughout our agricultural history - it's relatively new technology. It's totally reasonable for the consumer to ask for it to be labeled.
In fact, a savy consumer is going to simply come to a point (specially if the EU has any influence) where they'll simply not buy a product until or unless that know if it's been genetically altered or not.
I don't demand that every product has a list of the technology used in it's creation, and I'm positive that I use products made with technologies that contain
far more destructive potential than GMO does, proven and unproven.
We don't even require companies to disclose what pesticides were used in their creation, and you want to require a label on GMO? We don't even require companies to disclose the pesticides and herbicides they use on their products; why the hell would we require a food to be labeled GMO? I'm far more interested in boycotting products that are actively causing widescale damage to the ecosystem than I am GMO, and there are no firm FDA regulations there. You can put pesticide free on pretty much any product that is not a pesticide and you're clear.
And those labels mostly only refer to synthetic pesticides in the first place.
But even if our labeling was up to par to represent the technologies with proven dangerous effects for the environment or the consumer, I'm still not on board with GMO labeling. Because there's no proof that GMO is dangerous.
This is exactly like treating e-cigarettes like regular cigarettes. It's fear-based and unfounded legislation.
Jophiel wrote:
idiggory wrote:
I didn't say I was in favor of legislating so they couldn't, I'm just not interested in trying to cast it as a negative aspect of GMO corporations that they would want it done.
I consider it a negative in general. If I want to advertise that my food contains no HFCS, I should be able to do so without being sued by the corn lobby. If I want to advertise that it contains no gravel, I shouldn't get sued by the local quarry. If some regulatory body wants to insist that my packaging be relevant to the product that's one thing but Company B's threat of lawsuits shouldn't be that body.
Yeah, but it's going both ways. I'm not going to pick one and call them the bully. If they both want to continue wasting a ton of money on legal fees for something that's never going to happen, I'm just going to call both sides idiotic and move on.