the insidious GMO threat (and it affects HFCS two ways ... )

With peanuts, you are discussing an actual health risk with verified evidence of its existence. Earlier you said maybe the Big Ag companies had Seralini's paper retracted. Even if they were responsible for the retraction, it doesn't change the sloppy results that he came up with. First off, the test was initially planned as a toxicology test. This didn't return the results he needed, so it was turned into a test for cancer. Why cancer all of a sudden? It had to do with the rats he chose for his study. The rats are Sprague-Dawley rats and a paper in 1978 showed that females of these rats actually get tumors anywhere from 22-93% of the time (males I believe we 53%). If that wasn't enough of a risk of false positives in a cancer study, each test group had only twenty rats, ten male and ten female. Then, he tested over ten different combinations, and didn't control for his control rat chow, which most likely contained GMOs. He refused to publish all of his data, stating he was only publishing the relevant portions. And when he republished in a pay to play journal, he included the data...which showed one curious result only. The only dose response in the paper is that if you are male rat, and you drink Round-Up, you will live longer. That is the only actual dose related response he got in the entire study.But, again, Seralini's study is not the issue it's that the GM foods have been shown to be nutritionally substantially equivalent to the conventional produce. If there is a nutritional difference it should be a mandatory label, not a process. Otherwise label all non-Kosher foods.As for the cost, let's have a farmer explain it as she could do better than I can:
The Foodie FarmerThere is scientifically no more difference between GM crops and their conventional counterparts than there is between the same wheat crop grown in different soils. This isn't the industry saying its safe like it was with the tobacco industry. Yes, they are agreeing, but they are agreeing with the majority scientific consensus across the world. Even countries that do not like transgenic crops, the scientific institutions in those countries stand behind the safety of the technology. Even in Seralini's home country of France and the French Academy of Science:

There has been an increase in the amount of herbicide used, but along with this there is a reduction of the insecticides used in the growing process. Overall, pesticide use is down, but this still leaves for improvement by managing crops better and rotating. The addition of DuPont's Enlist Duo would allow farmers to rotate herbicides, which could slow the evolution of resistant weeds.

Okay, I've seen that pesticide use goes down, and I know that herbicides are pesticides, but I didn't realize that herbicide usage goes up while insecticide use goes down leaving a net reduction in total pesticide.Its hard to find good clear information on this subject...

Well, looking at the site for the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications there is a list of the benefits seen in Biotech in their Executive Summary. They State: Here is their Executive Summary:
ISAAAAnd here is research showing an overall reduction of pesticide between 1996-2011 showing a reduction of 474 million kgs.
SourceThe reduction of the need to increase land for crop production because of increasing yields is the best thing this technology does for biodiversity.

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I haven't heard this. In fact, what I have seen Monsanto do is sue farmers who save seed without paying Monsanto royalties on the basis that doing so infringes their patents.

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That's another example. People hear the fervor against the corporate practices of Monsanto and that can bias their opinion on how safe GMO foods are, even though the two issues are completely unrelated.

Hey, thanks! Must just be another Big Ag Shill, eh?

Sorry, I forgot I was looking for a picture, then got distracted.Genomicus claims But then we have many pictures like this:

Yup.But that's not the case for all GMO crops.Nor is it an idiosyncrasy of GMOs.And I would expect something like this given the vast number of gallons of chemicals being used to tend to these crops. Extrapolating that to the dinner table is grossly inappropriate.

Employees also have to wear both safety glasses and gloves when using Dawn dish soap.And they use it right on our plates and utensils.ZOMG! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!

Created by the Organic movement to try and convince people that they are healthier....what they don't mention is that there are herbicides and insecticides used in organic agriculture and these are sometimes more toxic than those used by transgenic crops. Round-up has an LD50 that is higher than both table salt and caffeine. It would take more Round-up to kill 50% of the test group than it would take table salt. That is remarkably non-toxic to humans for an herbicide.One chemical that is still approved for use on organic crops by the USDA (only approved if the country of origin does not have a ban, the USA does not allow farmers to use it) is rotenone. An interesting secondary purpose of this chemical is use as a fish control agent to kill invasive species. It has this nasty ability to kill anything with gills. It does this by diminishing the fishes ability to get oxygen from water, so it basically suffocates them. And if you eat organic produce from other countries, you may just be ingesting some of this poison. Even worse, are the biodiversity effects that this pesticide has through its ability to decimate fish populations. Improper use could be detrimental to the environment, and this is an organic pesticide.BTW, one of the main chemicals used in transgenics, Bt Endotoxin, is also an approved pesticide in organic farming. They spray Bt onto crops and also occasionally inject it directly into the crop. Mythbusting 101: Organic FarmingRemoving Fish from ponds with RotenoneRotenone in Organic ProductionEdited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.

Big ag outspent advocates of GMA labelling 20:1 in the electionSite Not Configured | 404 Not Found

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The claim: Labeling GMOs would increase food costs.

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The counter: A new report by the Consumers Union found that labeling GMOs would cost each consumer just $2.30 annually. [Mainstream] manufacturers in the United States are spending millions of dollars not to label GMO-containing products, says Steven Hoffman. These manufacturers are labeling the very same products for foreign markets that require labeling. In these markets, prices have not been raised.

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Manufacturers alter and redesign their labels all the timethe only reason a GMO labeling bill would raise prices is if these manufacturers reformulated to non-GMO supply, Hoffman continues.

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As for creating separate storage and packaging lines, There are farmers that separate GMO and non-GMO ingredients now, says Steven. The opposing side is making a very big deal about the cost of doing business because they really have nothing else to reach for.

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The claim: There are existing GMO labeling systems (such as USDA Organic and Non-GMO Project Verified)

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The counter: Most people in America don’t realize that 80 percent of grocery products contain GMOs, says Hoffman. Consumers get to know calorie content, fat content and salt content. But a fundamental way that affects the very genetics of food production we don’t get to know about?

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Additionally, the opposing side argues that labeling would only confuse consumers. But we think the American consumer is smarter, says Hoffman. And parents across America that don’t know about Non-GMO Project Verified and USDA Organic should have the right to know [about GMOs] when they’re buying baby formula.

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Each shopper is entitled to transparencyregardless of his or her involvement in the natural products industry.

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So I fail to see any concrete valid reason to oppose labeling.http://earthweareone.com/...at-gmos-are-terrible-infographic What disturbs me is the transfer into gut bacteria causing digestive problems:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dlt2sv0VNI
andhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dlt2sv0VNI
People with significant digestive problems put on non-GMO diets clear up or improve within weeks.We are NOT a lab experiment for how much can be tolerated so that big corporations can make more profits without significant benefit to the consumer. This is like the pill industry trying new drugs with minimal (pro-industry) testing.All I need to do is google\bing gmo digestive issues to get 3,780,000 resultgmo digestive issues - SearchTop pick:Could GMOs Be Behind Your Digestive Problems? | GreenMedInfo | Blog

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Could GMOs Be Behind Your Digestive Problems?

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Meanwhile, the 20-year unofficial experiment here in America on many unsuspecting consumers has not yielded a sizeable number of provable studies as to the definitive health impact caused by GMOs in our food supply. And make no mistake, they're in our food supply. Genetically modified organisms are in an estimated 80% of the processed foods in our grocery stores, and some say they're responsible for the growing number of people suffering from a wide variety of symptoms, particularly digestive issues.

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Take the alleged possibility of a connection between GMO foods and intestinal hyperpermeability, or leaky gut syndrome, for example. Leaky gut syndrome results when tight junctions, which help to maintain a barrier in the gut, are altered or damaged, and unwanted toxins, microbes, undigested food or even waste pass into the bloodstream. These out-of-place substances trigger an immune reaction. It is a somewhat new and only partially understood phenomenon, but it appears to be presenting more frequently. A host of issues could be to blame for it (including any of the many suboptimal foods that are common in the SAD, Standard American Diet), but the fact that the condition has been on the rise since GMOs were introduced into our food supply is suspect.

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Test yourself to see if your symptoms improve

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If you're one of the growing number of people suffering from leaky gut syndrome, digestive disorders, chronic inflammation, or even general malaise, consider doing your own experiment. For three months, make it a point to eat only organic, non-GMO food and see if at the end of that time your health issues improve. Many people find their symptoms disappear after only a few weeks.

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At the North Florida Spine and Wellness Institute here in Tallahassee, Florida, Dr. David Hartz, DC, has seen an increasing number of patients with widespread symptoms ranging from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) to Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, allergies and Autism, among others.

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"One of the many toxins we find that are negatively impacting people's health are Genetically Modified Organisms", says Dr. Hartz. "Many people have no idea how GMOs negatively affect their health until they remove those foods from their diet and until they deal with the toxins accumulated in the body--in tissues, organs, cellular and intracellular levels--and positive changes begin to occur."

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Read More:

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American Academy of Environmental Medicine:
Position Paper on Genetically Modified Organisms

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Institute for Responsible Technology:
10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs

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North Florida Spine and Wellness Institute, Tallahassee, Florida:
Tallahassee Chiropractic and Designed Clinical Nutrition
http://www.optimumhealthnaturally.net

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As the video in Message 1 pointed out there are a host of diseases, mostly in the digestive tract, that have been on the rise during the period that GMOs have been on the rise.Now we also have increased chemical load (preservatives, food color, other additives) during the same period, but removing these from the diets of afflicted people does not produce the same dramatic improvement results that removing GMOs have produced.American Academy of Environmental Medicine:
Position Paper on Genetically Modified Organisms

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... safety assessment of GM foods has been based on the idea of "substantial equivalence" such that "if a new food is found to be substantially equivalent in composition and nutritional characteristics to an existing food, it can be regarded as safe as the conventional food."4 However, several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.

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There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation as defined by Hill's Criteria in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity, biological gradient, and biological plausibility.5 The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.2,6,7,8,9,10,11

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Specificity of the association of GM foods and specific disease processes is also supported. Multiple animal studies show significant immune dysregulation, including upregulation of cytokines associated with asthma, allergy, and inflammation. 6,11 Animal studies also show altered structure and function of the liver, including altered lipid and carbohydrate metabolism as well as cellular changes that could lead to accelerated aging and possibly lead to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). 7,8,10 Changes in the kidney, pancreas and spleen have also been documented. 6,8,10 A recent 2008 study links GM corn with infertility, showing a significant decrease in offspring over time and significantly lower litter weight in mice fed GM corn.8 This study also found that over 400 genes were found to be expressed differently in the mice fed GM corn. These are genes known to control protein synthesis and modification, cell signaling, cholesterol synthesis, and insulin regulation. Studies also show intestinal damage in animals fed GM foods, including proliferative cell growth9 and disruption of the intestinal immune system.6

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Regarding biological gradient, one study, done by Kroghsbo, et al., has shown that rats fed transgenic Bt rice trended to a dose related response for Bt specific IgA. 11

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Also, because of the mounting data, it is biologically plausible for Genetically Modified Foods to cause adverse health effects in humans.

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Now this kind of effect may not be that much of a concern to you, however I have a challenged immune system due to my lymphoma and the treatments I have had for that (currently in remission) and I initially made a diet change to remove all sugars, gluten and starches from my diet as much as possible, and I have now added GMOs to the list of foods to avoid -- because I do not need to help the cancer kill or weaken me. Since dumping GMOs I have enjoyed the longest period of remission to date, and I see no reason to change back.There is an ap for smartphones (Fooducate) that allows you to check food products for a number of factors, including GMO content.Enjoy.

This is the standard line from the GMO companies ... but it is not correct: WE did not modify those organisms, we only selected the mutations that produce better crops for our particular taste\use. The goal was improved food value.Genetic modification is defined by injecting or shooting bits of DNA to actively cause mutations with the hope that one will be "useful" (while additional effects are ignored).Most of them have centered on making the crops toxic to pests or resistant to herbicides (which the GMO companies also make, so more could be used on unintended plant growth - weeds). This affects the ecosystem of the farmland in ways that are not good.Very little is done to improve the food value, it is only "useful" to corporate profits.Enjoy.

Because the toxins are built into the crop rather than sprayed on (where they can be washed off). Because they are internal they cannot be washed off, and you are stuck with consuming them ... or not eating that product.Curiously, I choose the latter course as better for my health and welfare.Enjoy.

Yay, I can kill all the bacteria in my gut that breaks down food so it can be digested (as happens in all animals ... ) ... but I don't need to worry because it won't affect my spermies.Enjoy.

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As for creating separate storage and packaging lines, There are farmers that separate GMO and non-GMO ingredients now, says Steven.

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That doesn't tell us anything...What are we talking here, 1 out of 2? Or 1 out of 1000?If there are 2 farmers out there that separate, and thousands that don't, then creating separate storage and packaging lines is still an issue.