GM food products

djcla

ARe there GM food products on the shelves in the UK ?  If there is are they clearly labeled just starting to wonder about this stuff .  I guess animals could be fed gm food which is also a concern to me .

Stuart Wright

From Wikipedia:
Every banana, apple and strawberry you have eaten has been modified from its original genetic state.
Every egg on the shelves is from chickens which have been selectively bred.
Or does selective breeding not count?
Big fuss over nothing stirred up by the newspapers with nothing better to print in my opinion.

dc8900

Within the UK and EU, it should be labelled, so would be very rare if it wasn't: Food Standards Agency - GM labelling

Food Standards Agency - GM foods

Chox1988

Why is it a concern out of curiosity, it ensures a decent crop and a lot of it all year round, theres nothing unhealthy or dangerous about it. With the growing food demands of the world gm is going to be the way it goes imo.

In the uk only gm maize, tomatoes and soya have been approved thus far for sale.

Read this -

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/gmbooklet.pdf

nonumb

Definitely doesnt ensure a good crop and their effectiveness in most situations is dubious. The majority of the worlds gm crops are resistant to pests or herbicides not for better yield or nutrition. GM is good in theory but generally it is done on purely financial grounds.

The FlavrSavr tomato kinda flopped in the uk after a radio broadcast with some bad information on and caused a huge public backlash in the UK. Look up golden rice for another potentially good application. Generally GM foods are not sold in the UK and any should be clearly labelled as such. Non GM foods in the EU should have no more than 1% contamination with GM material.

I wouldnt worry about GM foods though.

Iccz

Another interesting one to possibly add to that is Corn:
Maize - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What is more interesting about it is the lack of understanding on the origins of it.

djcla

It's a concern as I don't like the idea of interfering with nature.   Do we know there are not going to be long term effects in say 20 years time from eating the stuff ?    The idea of cloned cattle etc is pretty grim also IMO.

nonumb

Or the dogs and many other pets we own.

GM is different though in that genes from completely different species or even kingdoms can be incorporated. Safety concerns are to be valued but not by the consumer that's what experts are for.

There was a trial where a potential allergen was introduced to a food (cant remember off hand what it is but think it was some sort of nut gene) and it wasnt picked up untill after human tests were done. No one had a reaction though and it was a long time ago and rules are a lot stricter now.

I dont really mind GM foods but I'd be much happier if more was done for good causes like golden rice I mentioned before. Potentially 'farmaceuticals' could be good too.

Uninformed critics do annoy me slightly.

nonumb

You could argue that fighting disease is interfering with nature...

Stuart Wright

I think education is the key here.
Exactly. Using antibiotics is interfering with nature.
If you make a dam to irrigate land so people can grow crops and not starve to death, you are interfering with nature.
I think you need to be a bit more specific with your statement.
Like I said, current egg laying chickens are specifically bred to lay eggs.
Natural bananas are unattractive green little things.  Nice, big, yellow bananas have been selectively bred.  That's definitely interfering with nature.

The fact I think is pertinent is that there are already too many humans on the planet to feed.  So we *need* to use science to grow crops more efficiently.  
I don't think we have a choice about it.
Irrational, sensational arguments from the press should be beaten down with cold, hard scientific facts.
People need to be aware of the facts and ignore the scaremongering.