NEWS: You Eat Living Pollution

CULTURE: You Eat Living Pollution

Just thought you might want to know that if in the past year you enjoyed a helping of Uncle Ben's rice, Rice Krispies, or--gasp--a Budweiser, you most likely ingested a little bit of Liberty Link.

Originally made by a biotechnology company called Aventis Crop Science (and acquired by Bayer in 2001), Liberty Link is a genetically modified variety of rice with genes that have been altered to resist a weed killer called Liberty, which also happens to have been made by Aventis.

The thing is, the Liberty Link rice that you may have consumed in your breakfast cereal, side dish, or beer backer wasn't approved for human consumption, and its presence in your chow was due to a contamination.

So, what did the USDA decide to do in response to the pissed off consumers and anti-GMO activists who'd been feasting on this living pollution? You gotta hand it to them--this is a brilliant demonstration of indifference and denial: They retroactively approved the LIberty Link rice, saying that the manipulated genes are "similar to those inserted for years into canola and corn, with no apparent ill effects"

Nothing to worry about. Nice. I feel a whole heck of a lot better, don't you? Seriously--Europe, Japan, and even Iraq refuse American rice because they understand that despite the repeated assurances of our "experts," genetically modified crops can't be managed or controlled.

Guess what? If the old adage that "you are what you eat" applies in this day and age, well...

You're a mutant.

Wow I've eaten...... None of that stuff in the past year or two. Maybe a couple rice crispy squares.
Why would anybody drink budwieser?

It was tasty too.

Why would anyone drink Budweiser?

Or eat converted or prepared rice?

I can happily say I haven't eaten any of those things either.

Typical for the FDA, but I don't particularly think its a big deal. People have been eating tomatos with a flounder gene interted in them to prevent freezing for years if you bought your tomatos at the local Safeway. People have the screwwed up idea that genetically modifying foods is misguided and scary. Piffle. How is it any different than the animal husbandry/selective breeding we have been performing since we domesticated animals/raised crops? There we simply breed in or out traits we desire in an animal/plant. This is just a lot quicker.

One time I made some uncle ben's rice, crumbled rice crispy treats over it, and then poured Budweiser over the whole thing, and ate it for breakfast. And by one time, I mean every day for the past year.

That's why I eat Basmati rice! Whew!!! tragedy narrowly avoided!

It really is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

so could this addage to budwieser affect someone mentally if its not something thats fit for consumption? i ask cos someone i know has always been a bud man and in the last year or so hes become a totally vile nutjob. he doesnt drink a beer or two a day. he usually has like 12 or more a night, and has done so for about 20 years. so could this be a side effect considering that hes drank the same ammount for as long as i can remember and up until about a year ago he was a pretty happy go lucky drunk?

Sweet. My healing factor will protect me from the side effects of eating that rice.

i ate 5 rice crispy treats today...yum

Ahhhh, the missing LINK.....

Ahhh, but think of all the energy you're saving!

Because they hate themselves and are actively trying to find ways to make their deaths as slow and painful as possible.

ah yes, that must be it.

Genetics is a bit different than selective breeding.
Selective breeding is a form of guided evolution.
We eliminate all the competition for the traits we want to be passed on to the next generation of live stock.

The only problem with GMO foods is that they haven't tested the effects of what they've done to the vegitables. It takes time to detect long term effects.
I mean, look how long it took for people to act on what trans fats were doing? Maybe eating these vegitables with a resistance to X makes us vulnerable to Y.

They're not naturally conditioning the plants to resist things. They're building them to.
Natures had billions of years to work the kinks out of stuff like this. We haven't.

People are stupid. They listen to the loudmouth ill educated fools who are afraid of science. Norman Borlaug is the father of the Green Revolution. He's been credited with saving over a BILLION lives. That's BILLION with a B. He's been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. His efforts have continued since the '40s with no ill effects. Over 60 years to see if there are any long term ill effects is more than enough. If I ever met any asshole that told anyone not to eat genetically altered food and as a result they starved to death, I'd do some pretty ungodly things to them. These activist asshole are scaring people in starving themselves to death just because they don't understand that real scientists are using real science to try and save lives.

Just in case you don't know who Norman Borlaug, here is a link to his wiki page.

He is truly one of the greatest men to have ever lived, greater than any of us or any of those assholes trying to scare people in to starving.

Meh. It must be dangerous since absolutely NOTHING HAPPENED.

What strikes me most is, someone thought appropriate to give a weed killer the brand name Liberty. Could be a fable written by some modern Aesop for illustrating the common misuses of this word.

Could someone please provide a link to any information or proof that genetic altering of foods could in anyway make them any less healthy than they already are? I mean the way it seems to me most of the people who are going against this type of thing are sort of using the nonsense arguement of the radioactive spider bite=genitic mutation into spdierman theory here. Now if the altering of these foods caused them to produce some sort of carcinogenic chemical that would cause damage then I could understand the worry. In my mind if they can produce a plant that is resistant to disease and doesn't need to be constantly sprayed by chemical pesticides or requires less fertilization then bonus...that's the stuff you really need to be worried about eating in my opinion.

So let we get this straight, people are worried that eating a food product that is accidently designed to be resistant to weed killer is some how going to hurt them? Let's just pretend that for some reason you believe you can have genetic traits passed onto you through your food (which I hope your not that bad...err...I mean GO BUSH!) I don't see how becoming resistant to a weed killer is a bad thing.

I agree, too many people are afraid of genetic engineering. Selective breeding, genetic engineering, it's the same process except we have more control over which gene gets used. Selective breeding does have the problem where sure animal A has the gene or trait and it is expressed but it's off spring may not have the trait expressed.

I mean do you really think that if we wanted all our children to have blue eyes we would just breed all the males with blue eyed women and expect that to work? No.

I support genetic engineering for the main purpose stated above, IT SAVES LIVES. Which is better? People dying for sure of starvation today or the remote possibility of a negative side effect down the road?

quoted for the mother fucking truth