Post Your Ingredients

You're all entitled to your opinion but the reality of GMO food is that 97% of it is simply engineered to withstand higher concentrations of pesticides or to produce a pesticide itself (BT corn). None of this actually grows more food and in the case of the glyphosate/dicamba resistant strains all it does is ensure that there are more pesticides used in our environment and on our foods. To suggest that natural breeding could cause more harm to the public than applying several times more pesticides to their food is so out of touch with reality that I don't even know how to imagine what you mean by that statement.
And none of this touches the entirely unstudied question of the effects of these transgenic traits are on our environmental or physical health in the long term. I don't know the answer to that question. But I do know that GMO food in it's current incarnation doesn't do anything except ensure more pesticide use. Proper agronomic practice in line with natural systems the farm is embedded in feed people, not proprietary seeds and their companion poisons.

 

I trust that you have citations on this.

Again, a citation would be useful here.

Although I agree that organic/biodynamic practices are better for not only the people consuming the product, but for the environment as a whole and the use of more pesticides and herbicides is decidedly not good, saying that genetically modifying crops is bad in and of itself is incorrect because it, at the very least, leads to more predictable phenotypic expression than does cross-breeding.

 

That was my thought as well, so I was interested to see if you had the same line of thinking. The first thing that came to mind for me was hop extracts, some forms of which are chemically processed. They're used in Germany by breweries big and small. I always laugh a little bit when I see it listed on the bottle or can of a German beer as an ingredient. But, in the OP's defense, at least it is listed.

 

Tetrodotoxin and Botulism also 100% Natural!

 

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-produ...crops-in-the-us/recent-trends-in-ge-adoption/

Note that on their graph, HT means 'herbacide resistant' meaning either glyphosate or dicamba resistant which means nothing more than that more of those pesticides are used on these crops. BT means that the plant (corn and cotton are the only two plants to so far get this treatment) produces the same toxin as the soil microbe bacillus thuringienses, a commonly cultivated soil microbe that disrupts insect pest life cycles.

I'd really like to hear a couple things from you now, first off how on earth is hybridization possibly a threat to people's health (one of your claims in your first post) and secondly how is it that you think that genetic modification leads to more predictable phenotypic expression? I get that genetic modification is not inherently bad. The issue I see is that it is an untested technology who's primary real world application is to induce more pesticide use and limit control of the seed supply and the only real defense for it that is ever mounted is similar to yours i.e. invoking imaginary future benefits of the technology and shouting down anyone who questions the value of the technology as it is currently implemented. I say let the scientists science away, but lets keep the experiments out of the food supply until the results are actually in.

If you're interested in the real modern break through in breeding you should look into 'marker assisted breeding'. basically you can now look at plant genomes and identify the 'markers' in the code that indicate the traits you are after and then trust some huge number of plants and only grow out those plants that contain that marker. This is really the classic breeding model that all of our domesticated plants are based on but with an exponential increase in the knowledge that goes into selection, instead of inserting experimental gene manipulation into our food (and drink chain).

And we are officially way off the rails for this forum, we can continue a GMO screaming match somewhere like reddit, but please everyone do yourself the favor of a little research before you form an opinion on the controversial topic du jour. And Jesus, I really do want to hear your concerns for public health related to conventional breeding.

 

Oh and too the OPs point, I don't see why all ingredients shouldn't be listed. People have allergies and preferences and ultimately if you have to hide your ingredients then I have to question your motives.

 

I farmed for a living until 1989, and I can tell you without a doubt, less pesticides are being used now than they were back then, correction to above, ht resistant means more herbicide usage not pesticide usage. There are tradeoffs, these gmo's reduce trips thru the field, almost eliminate all cultivation after planting, thus saving fuel and moisture which the later helps with increased yields. The downside is the high utilization of Roundup, but then again it just took the place of the shit I used back in the day. The bt strains prevent the widespread use of some stuff that would pretty much kill anything it touched if mixed with oil, which some did. So like with most things now choose your poison.

 

Pretty decent synopsis, complete with some other excellent links at the bottom:

https://grist.org/food/genetic-engineering-vs-natural-breeding-whats-the-difference/

 

For a different (an in my opinion more balanced) look at GMO crops, I'd recommend the film Food Evolution. It does a pretty good job of pointing out the conflation that has occurred and the danger of conclusions made based on misunderstanding. It is certainly an incendiary and controversial topic no matter your point of view, and the arguments for and against are not always objective or based solely on the technology.

As far as labels go, not everything has to be labelled. Isinglas (and that reference is pretty old and was demystified a while ago if I recall correctly) would not have to be labeled any more than diatomaceous earth used for filtration - these are not ingredients. Gelatin used as a clarifying agent would not need to be on the label. They are processing aids which would not be in the finished product in any quantity. Hmm...I am not sure about yeast in an unfiltered/unclarified beer and I would not know where to find the regulations. But things that are used to process a product are not always considered ingredients since they are not found in the finished product in appreciable amounts.

Opposite example. Rennet, used in cheesemaking, does have to be labelled because it carries through to the finished product. It is usually listed as "enzymes". Fermentation Produced Chymosin from genetically modified strains of microorganisms is used in about 80% of cheese in the US. I believe this started trending in the late 1990's, if I remember correctly. So we can harvest calf stomachs or use microbes to produce the same compound...

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...nnet-Market-Growth-Trends-Forecasts-2017-2022

 

We've had these discussions before...

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...akes-courtesy-of-the-careless-brewery.539637/
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/gmo-free-beer.264295/

Here's a good NPR podcast about the actual science, risk, and applications GMOs: https://www.gimletmedia.com/science-vs/gmo-omg

This was a recent interesting news story about how Russia is actively spreading anti-GMO misinformation on the web to sway public opinion and to support Russian agricultural/economic interests. Be careful very where you get your information. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...a-opinion-gmos-iowa-state-research/308338002/


Also, regarding isinglass, specifically, it falls out of the beer during the production process with the hazy bits it is intended to remove. So, there shouldn't be any isinglass in the final beer therefore, no reason to include it on an ingredient label.