Re: Are we protected from Junk Food Corporations?

From: Lictor (ghostmlNOSPAM-REMOVE_at_online.fr)
Date: 09/06/04 

Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 18:35:44 +0200

"DonQuijote1954" <nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4e4a3f58.0409060639.d35c23c@posting.google.com...
> By the way, IMHO, all these ARTIFICIAL PRESERVATIVES, COLORANTS,
> PESTICIDES ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN GMO'S.

Well, people should be able to make their own choice. So, they should be
properly labelled. The problem is that proper labelling cannot be guaranteed
for GMO. GMO are used in so many food products, that non GMO foods can be
"contaminated" by GMO grains. In Europe, there is no way to guarantee that a
food item is 100% GMO free. The only guarantee is that a given ingredient is
at least 99% GMO free.
The opposition to GMO is beyond the health risk, whether risk or not. Though
past experiences with "safe" drugs means we should be cautious of "safe" GMO
too. Remember that last time someone told European that some food processing
was safe, the processing in question was feeding cows with bone meal... That
tends to teach caution... Many people, myself among them, oppose them for
cultural and ecological reasons.
There is still a risk of GMO species getting out of control and unabalancing
ecosystems. For instance, when American lobsters were introduced in France a
few decades ago, everyone thought it was safe and cool - they grow much
fasters than ours, and they were to be confined to lobster "farms".
Nowadays, if you go through French rivers, the only lobsters you will find
are the American specy - the native species have been obliterated by the new
specie, which eventually managed to get out in the wild. Similar cases have
happened in the past. There are pacific islands which have been utterly
destroyed by goats. In the gallapagos, there has been considerable harm done
to the local flora and fauna by stray dogs and cats.
Another issue is cultural. GMO only go with the trend to replace all the
traditionnal species with fac-simile industrial version. We now have
tomatoes round the year, designed for best transportation and shell life.
All great, except they taste like water. And the traditionnal tasty tomatoes
are disappearing. The same is happening with beef, chickens, pigs... We're
losing all that made traditional food. We still make tomatoes with
mozarella, but the tomatoes taste like water, the mozarella tastes like
nothing at all, the olive oil is so purified it doesn't taste like olive
anymore.... GMO are only the next step in that trend...

But I agree that GMO should not be the only target. Actually, I read an
article that month that said we should target the cereal and meat industry
with the same strength we have targetted GMO. Most animals are now fed with
corn and soy cattle-cakes. This means they have a very high amount of
omega-6 in their fat. Omega-3 deficiency is going to be the only real
deficiency left in this millenium. If you look at traditionnally fed cattle
(herb, worms, acorns...), it actually has a balanced omega-3 ratio.
Likewise, cattle fed with flax seeds has a very balanced fat content (around
one third from each SFA, MUFA, PUFA) and a high omega-3 content. And France
is the second worldwide producer of flax, meaning we could be one of the
world leader in "healthy" meat. In a world where we're going to compete for
price with the Third World, switching to high quality food like that should
be a priority. Yet, we keep feeding junk to the cattle and subsiding the
cereal industry...

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