Toxins and Chemicals, Oh My!

[Greenday]

I am sick to death of this BS snake-oil crap system talking crap on toxins and chemicals as if they are some evil black magic. Your body already filters out toxins. If they don't, you need a new liver or kidneys. That's it. Detoxes don't do shit. You are selling snake oil at best and poison at worst.

And don't get me started on "chemicals". GMOs these days are safe. Pesticides are strictly regulated and aren't killing us. Vaccines aren't causing childhood diseases. I'm sick of people vilifying stuff they know nothing about.

[s_stabeler]

a) part of the issue with GMOs is that the attitude pro-GM supporters took was "prove it isnt' safe" when in most countries, it's the other way around for new crops (and yes, GM crops count)
b) actually, pesticides can be dangerous to humans, though usually only during the application of them. You're still applying poison, just usually in too low a dose to kill humans,

[jackfaire]

The problem I have with the "Gah GMOs get it away get it away" people is that they seem to forget that we have been genetically modifying food since we started agriculture.

We breed for the traits we find more desirable and in doing so have lost other traits that were desirable but now are gone.

All of the "non-GMOs" that are such labelled are still free to continually genetically modify their food. They just do so with a blunt force instrument instead of a scalpel.

To me it would be like a bunch of people protesting Surgery. (Which let's be honest probably happened) When surgical procedures were introduced that could save a leg instead of amputating it there were probably still people that insisted on amputation instead of surgery.

Keep in mind this some of our fruits and vegetables produce merchants found sold better if they looked a certain way. Now with Genetic Engineering instead of breeding for color and size while losing flavor they could attempt to find a way to breed for both.

I think it's fair to know our food is safe. There are naturally things that the Liver can't remove. But mindless refusal of things without critical thinking really shouldn't be a thing.

[Daskinor]

a) part of the issue with GMOs is that the attitude pro-GM supporters took was "prove it isnt' safe" when in most countries, it's the other way around for new crops (and yes, GM crops count)
b) actually, pesticides can be dangerous to humans, though usually only during the application of them. You're still applying poison, just usually in too low a dose to kill humans,

Have to disagree with point A.

There is just much push from the anti-gmo crowds hyperbole about how unsafe gmo's could be. It's mostly ignorance on both sides on how biology and genetics work.

That said I am going to get back to tricking Guinness into sending me yeast so I can breed more to brew the perfect beer.

[TheHuckster]

I like the dihydrogen monoxide memes that make fun of this mentality. There was an ad I saw on Facebook several months ago where some company said something along the lines of:

"[Competitor] uses [some innocuous ingredient] in their drink. That ingredient is used in fireworks. We believe we shouldn't eat fireworks."

That ad was blasted with comments from people pointing out how stupid that logic was.

[s_stabeler]

Actually, if you selectively breed a new variety of potato, for example, then in most countries, you have to prove it's safe. The proponents of GM often tried to claim GM varieties didn't need testing to see if they were safe lie any other variety would. that is what I was talking about. if a GM variety passes all the usual tests for safety, I don't have a problem with it.

I agree that mindlessly opposing something's idiotic, but dont' go too far in the other direction. (and I dislike most GM crops for other reasons- often, herbicide-resistant crops, for example, are only resistant to a specific herbicide, conveniently made by the same company that sells the seed. I dislike the implied lock-in to only using a specific brand of herbicide)

[TheHuckster]

I agree that mindlessly opposing something's idiotic, but dont' go too far in the other direction. (and I dislike most GM crops for other reasons- often, herbicide-resistant crops, for example, are only resistant to a specific herbicide, conveniently made by the same company that sells the seed. I dislike the implied lock-in to only using a specific brand of herbicide)

Yeah, that just reeks of anti-trust behavior that the FTC should have ended years ago.

[Greenday]

a) part of the issue with GMOs is that the attitude pro-GM supporters took was "prove it isnt' safe" when in most countries, it's the other way around for new crops (and yes, GM crops count)

I don't have a problem with proving something is safe if it's new. But the anti-GMO crowd just tries to deem all GMOs bad and uses junk science to prove their points.

My wife made me watch a special on Netflix called What's With Wheat. It's a documentary trying to claim the changes we've made to wheat has made more people gluten intolerant and such. It just contains tons of made up accusations as to why wheat is bad now and all this other crap. My wife wasn't please when she asked me what I thought and I said it was a load of BS.

People are trying to say because more people are gluten intolerant or what have you, it has to be from the changes we've made. Except as we all know, correlation doesn't always mean causation. The rise in gluten intolerance couldn't possibly have anything to do with better detection of intolerance, could it? Are there really more kids with ADHD because of the foods we give them these days or did you guys just call kids with ADHD overactive back in the day?

People will use any BS excuse to push their agenda and make money off their cleanses or healing stuff or herbal crap.

[s_stabeler]

They still tend to call kids with ADHD attention-seekers, lazy and various other things- speaking from personal experience- but I don't disagree with you on that point.