Genetically modified foods at the Food Coop

Full disclosure: I'm not a Co-op member.
Full disclosure #2: I'm generally, cautiously in favor of GM products

That said, I'm really surprised that the Co-op ever carried GM products at all. Seems like something that would get Co-op members in a frothy-mouthed state.

greg wrote:
Yet, despite labelling, even such food ninnies as Coop members continue to buy these foods. It appears that the brainwashing of the American consumer by corporations and the media blackout on the topic is so pandemic that no one cares anymore.

To get the real scoop of GM foods, consider checking out this site:

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/AboutGeneticallyModifiedFoods/index.cfm

good answer

I remember when it came out that Boca burgers (a delicious fake meat product beloved by some) was made of GMO soy beans. I am sooo for labeling, and since the feds aren't doing it, I'm glad the Co-op committee is stepping up.

All this talk is makin' me want to see X3...

kensingtonmom wrote: I am not a member of the food coop anymore but isn't the point of the coop MORE than just cheap food?

I am a member of the co-op and I think the purpose of the co-op should be whatever the current membership deems the purpose to be.

I have no problem with GMO foods. I think right now the co-op strikes just about the right balance of providing mainly "alternative" (organic, non-GMO, whatever) foods, along with a limited selection of products for evil members like me who also love their Heinz ketchup and Cheerios.

Can I buy Heinz and Cheerios elsewhere? Sure. Just as I can goo elsewhere to buy batteries or calendars or sundry other non-food items that the *food* co-op has chosen to sell for members' convenience.

EmilyM wrote: Sigh. Why is this on a bunch of separate neighborhood boards, and not in "General Brooklyn" or "Beyond New York"??? (This is a rhetorical question; I know the mods tried to fix it already.) :roll: It certainly would lead one to think that Greg has an agenda. :roll:

An agenda? Ya think? But he hides it so subtly!

greg wrote: To get the real scoop of GM foods, consider checking out this site:

http://www.seedsofdeception.co...../index.cfm

O.K. that was pretty scary. I am not sure why we think we can keep f'ing around with the environment and it won't came back to bite us in a big way. It seems most people feel uncomfortable with the idea of GM because their intuition is telling them, this kind of interference always causes a problem down the road. It is like with Global warming, most people intuitively know things are different than 20 years ago. We just have to wait for the powers to be to figure out how to make a profit on it before anythign will be done.

greg wrote: http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/AboutGeneticallyModifiedFoods/index.cfm

Thanks for your consideraton.

It's interesting that all of the footnotes citing studies on that website actually refer to pages from the book "seeds of deception." That is intellectually dishonest. If the studies exist, the footnotes should reference the studies themselves, so that anyone interested can read them (if they in fact exist) and evaluate their validity. That is science. A book with an agenda is not scientific evidence. Empiric studies are evidence. If they exist, cite them.

greg wrote: The assumption of Coop shoppers appears to be that the food on the shelves is safe to eat, having been vetted by the staff to remove harmful or anti-social products.

In the case of GM foods, I'm suggesting that this hasn't happened.

I know those key lime pies are not health food no matter who put them on the shelf.

I favor giving people the choice whether to purchase, as a rule, rather than enforcing a choice on them. As with beer and meat -- about which many other co-op members would also disagree with me and like to see banned, for the good of the environment, health, what have you.

But you're right that GMO foods could be removed, as other products have, in which case I'd either deal with it or take my business to Fairway. But you asked which choice I'd favor, and I told you.

greg wrote:
The assumption of Coop shoppers appears to be that the food on the shelves is safe to eat, having been vetted by the staff to remove harmful or anti-social products.

If so, the assumption of Coop shoppers is severely misguided. Compared with equivalent products, much of the food carried by the Coop is likely to be more dangerous due to a higher risk of biological contamination by a manual workforce that changes every few hours rather than factory production, in combination with lower levels of preservatives to ward off dangerous contamination. Secondly, produce grown and raised locally is likely to have higher levels of heavy metals than that processed and shipped in from further afield. As for anti-social products, I can't think of a product more harmful and anti-social than alcohol; it would be more ethical for them to sell smoked whale flesh* than beer. Alcohol is among other things a proven carcinogen in normal doses, toxic to several vital organs, one of the most dangerous drugs of addiction, a common adjunct to violence, injury and mental illness, and generally a source of untold misery to a substantial fraction of the population. Find me someone who got raped because of the consumption of GM Cheerios.

I'm a Coop shopper and I assume the staff are amateurs not professionals, which is the whole point of a Coop. And that the shoppers are adults with a whole range of ideas and opinions, who have a responsibility to decide for themselves what's safe and what's ethical.

* which by the way is absolutely delicious with lettuce on rye if you ever get the chance. And it's free range and organic and can be harvested humanely and sustainably. Yum.

greg wrote:
In the case of GM foods, I'm suggesting that this hasn't happened.

So long as there's a lack of scientific evidence that GM foods are harmful or anti-social, I guess it's possible that they'll stay on the shelves as long as sufficient members want to buy them. But this is the Park Slope Food Coop, and I expect zealots like yourself to wage a campaign of fear and obstreperousness until they prevail and the products are removed.

greg wrote:
Inserting genetic material from say a flounder into a strawberry is totally new and untested. The implications are largely unknown and untested.

You should check your cells some time; they're full of genetic material acquired in the past from other species. And did you know that bacterial species more different than a flounder is from a strawberry routinely exchange genes via plasmids, just like in GM technology?

Find me someone who got raped because of the consumption of GM Cheerios.

That happened to me. It was very traumatizing, and unlikely to have occurred had they been bio-friendly Cheerios. :? :x

I have to say, that Seeds of Deception website could qualify as a seed of deception in its own right. In addition to quasi-misleading things like footnoting references to your own book, the site highlights studies that they admit are incomplete or insufficiently documented and makes highly questionable assumptions about other matters. For example, the site says that soy allergies increased by 50% in the UK after the introduction of GM soy from the US. What it doesn't say is whether a causal link, such as an increased level of an allergen, was established or that the effect could have been caused by something as simple as an overall increase in soy-product consumption in the UK.

I've been a lifelong environmentalist and animal rights proponent. That said, environmental and animal rights groups frequently twist and distort the truth to make a point. It's too bad because there are clearly problems and risks associated with GM products and a reasoned, rational discourse could really help.