Thanks, Sherry...wcgypsy...must mean West Coast gypsy? And sounds like you are gypsy-ing further north. I understand it is wet in states north of Calif during the winters so guess you'll see plenty of rain if you're going that far.

Shoe

Well, I always do enjoy whatever you have to say...just somehow never got around to mentioning it.

Yes, West Coast.....

We're going about as far North as one can get in California.....to Crescent City, 20 miles South of the Oregon border...around 66" of rain annually.

And now I'll be quiet since I've 'jacked Deb's thread....lol..

No worries, Sherry. You are moving to my husband's birthplace, although his family moved further north to Washington in his early grade school days.

Back to the GMO labeling - I heard back from my local grocer and they are participating in non-GMO month (whatever that might be) to education their customers on what products are available on their shelves. I'll be curious to find out what this entails. If they will simply add a bin label to the produce, I'd certainly be happy.

Kathleen, perhaps it IS best to first try to resolve locally rather than expecting Big Brother government to jump in and micromanage our lives with yet more laws and regulations (and the resultant new agencies created which must then be paid for).

See how easy it is to get your head spinning on these issues...

Deb, if for some reason we don't care to stay in Crescent City, we'll be moving on up to Washington. We lived there years ago and loved it.

I hope I didn't step on any farmers' toes either! I never bite the hand that feeds me.

>> other controversial areas of GMO crops, growing them, their effect/affect on the surroundings

I agree this thread is for discussing labeling, but I personally am more concerned about the effect of GMO crops on crop diversity and blown pollen and introducing massive amounts of transgenic DNA into the wild, neatly packaged with "jumping gene" plasmid zippers. Who proved that those will never revert to infectious plasmids?

I like the idea of veggie bin labels. especially if they said "all XYZ variety corn is a GMO". Then we wouldn't think that we could buy non-GMO ears of GMO corn from the grocer that does NOT label bins.

And (I'm dreaming now), a sign that said "sprayed with XYZ, ABC and QRS on Oct 1).

FYI to all those outside of Washington. Our mandatory labeling of GMO referendum failed. I was amazed at how much money was poured into defeating it, primarily by big chemical corporations, which is quite offsetting for me. But, perhaps this will open up discussions and awareness of GMOs in general.

As promised by my local grocer, they are beginning to do in-store labeling of non-GMO products, although so far I've only noticed the labels on packaged foods. I already know that packaged foods are generally chock full of things I likely don't want to ingest, I'm more interested in having whole foods labeled. But, as some have noted, buying local and/or organic produce is a best-practice option.

I've read a news article about GE salmon, but not what genes they added, from what species or Kingdom, or what the intended improvement is.

My guess is something that lets them farm the fish under ever-less-healthy conditions.

I wonder what they use instead of the Agrobacterium plasmids they use to inject genes into plant chromosomes. Also, how mobile the genes continue to be after they're incorporated into the salmon DNA.

Bonehead, yep, I saw that loss but think just the publicity of it all will awaken or open the eyes of the general public across the Nation now. I suppose if 22 million dollars wasn't poured into the campaign to defeat the bill it would've passed but that was the same tactic/technique used in the California voting, too. But, at least in a few other states there is some headway being made.

I read earlier that McDonald's and Gerber have stated they won't use GMO apples in their products and their reason was due to public opinion on GMO foods and/or lack of labeling laws. I'd saw that is a big plus, eh?

Congrats and kudos to your local grocer for their in-store labeling. That sure shows concern to their customers and a willingness to do what they can to help.

Shoe

Yes, but you may be surprised at which companies actually supported the NOT labeling, kashi, for one! I will no longer buy kashi. If there's nothing to worry about, the companies shouldn't be pushing so hard against it, IMHO.

Arlene, I wish I could expand your new avatar! Very horn-of-plenty!

I agree that the total panic of many packaging companies proves that they KNOW that many people will panic if they find out that they've been eating food with ingredients from GM crops for years.

My threshold of concern is whole plants or animals. Oil from GE corn or sugar from GE sugar beets or cane (whichever it is) don't worry me. Feeding bt or RU-Ready grain to cattle and pigs doesn't worry me assuming farmers keep a close eye on their herds.

But I'm wary of eating sweet corn or salmon with genes spliced from bacteria, myself. No evidence, just wariness.

Concern about the environment is different, but I think that risk has already been taken and it's too late to close the gate.

--- Concern about the environment is different, but I think that risk has already been taken and it's too late to close the gate. ---

Totally agree there.

I know we are eating GMO products BUT if things were labeled I think I would make some different choices.

So, I have been choosing cane sugar over beet, but are you saying cane is also subject to GM?

Beautiful Avatar today Arlene!

I would like my GMO food labeled also. Can't see why it should not be labeled.

>> are you saying cane is also subject to GM?

Sorry, NO. I just couldn't remember which it was that IS commercially used, when I typed the prior post. Sugar beets only.

I see that field trials have been conducted (70 in the the USA alone).

"Commercial utilisation of GM sugar cane is possible in the near future in the USA and Brazil."

BTW, the USA doesn't seem to produce much of the global crop. This Europe-focused site thinks that more than half of the world sugarcane crop is lost due to weeds and "pests".

"By far the largest sugar cane cultivating country is Brazil, followed by India, China and Thailand. Losses due to pests and weeds are estimated at more than half of the actual yield."

P.S. In my opinion, granulated sugar is so chemically pure that it's hard to imagine anything new from the GE plant making it into the sugar. The health risk from sugar is the sugar itself!

But again, planting out hundreds of square miles of a cloned mono-crop with artificially inserted genes from bacteria may have long term environmental impacts beyond those of conventionally bred monocrops. Pure speculation at this point, unless you count wind-blown pollen (and monopolistic economic harm). I figure it is a tradeoff between RoundUp overspray or overuse, and over-spray or overuse of much worse herbicides.

Bonehead said:FYI to all those outside of Washington. Our mandatory labeling of GMO referendum failed. I was amazed at how much money was poured into defeating it, primarily by big chemical corporations, which is quite offsetting for me. But, perhaps this will open up discussions and awareness of GMOs in general.

As promised by my local grocer, they are beginning to do in-store labeling of non-GMO products, although so far I've only noticed the labels on packaged foods. I already know that packaged foods are generally chock full of things I likely don't want to ingest, I'm more interested in having whole foods labeled. But, as some have noted, buying local and/or organic produce is a best-practice option.

Unfortunately, I am not surprised as it failed here in CA, due to the many large corporations that supported Monsanto in a huge TV advertising campaign. All of the Pharma, Food corp, and of course the companies that make the insecticides and pesticides as well (Bayer, Syngenta...etc) Somehow they managed to fool the innocent TV watchers. Too bad!

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