My thoughts on GM food

Overall, i think GM food is beneficial but consumers should have the right to know whether they are buying/consuming GM food just like organic products. Hence, i think the government should make it compulsory for food companies to label GM food. In the mean time, there may be no serious complication such as serious illness due to GM food consumption but it will be to late to wait till an outbreak really did happen. Hopefully, more research will be done asap and GM food will be proven safe in terms of health issue.

As for environmental issue, i think it is not as serious as there may be solutions to solve the problem. According to a source: Another possible solution is to create buffer zones around fields of GM crops. For example, non-GM corn would be planted to surround a field of B.t. GM corn, and the non-GM corn would not be harvested. Beneficial or harmless insects would have a refuge in the non-GM corn, and insect pests could be allowed to destroy the non-GM corn and would not develop resistance to B.t. pesticides. Gene transfer to weeds and other crops would not occur because the wind-blown pollen would not travel beyond the buffer zone. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php

Real GM food scandal

GM food is safe, healthy and essential if we ever want to achieve decent living standards fo rthe world's growing population. Misplaced moralising about them in the west is costing millions of lives in poor countries.

- Seven years ago, a Swiss biologist Ingo Potykus, who was the principal creator of genetically modified rice. He was hailed as potentially one of mankind's great benefactors. He started a new green revolution to improve the lives of millions of the poorest people in the world. It would help remedy vitamin A deficiency, the cause of 1 to 2 millions deaths a year,and could save up to 500000 children a year from going blind.

- Seven years later, the realisation of Potryku's dream keeps receding. GM crops should now be growing in areas where no crops can grow, example drought-resistant crops in arid soil and salt-resistant crops in soil of high salinity. Plant-based oral vaccines should now be saving millions of death fom diarrhoea and hepatitis B.

- However, because of possible harm to human safety or the environment or because it is ill-suited to the needs of poor farmers in the develiping world. Most of GM crops is yet in the market. The Western countries reflects a persistent suspicion of GM crops. But developing countries like China and India believe biotechnology could become its fastest-growing industry in the next 15 years. There is still doubt that GM crops can be accpeted in the worldwide.

Are GM food in Singapore safe for consumption?

Answer is YES!

-Food produced from GMOs can be safe as foods from non-GMOs. since the first GM foos was commercialized more than a decade ago, there had been no known reports of hazards resulting from the consumption of GM foods.

-GM food commercially available in singapore have undergone various lines of scrutiny for safety.

-Firstly, under international food practices, before a GM food can be considered for commercialization, its producer must subject it to rigorous tests on quality, allergenicity, toxicity, compositon, and nutritional value.

-Secondly, all food products derived from GMOs must be assesed to be safe by the competent national regulatory bodies of the exporting countries.

-Thirdly, in accordance to the GMAC's guidelines on the Release of Agriculture-Related GMOs, applications for import or release of agriculture-related GMOs in singapore are first submitted to GMAC, where an expert scientific commitee examines the GMO's origin, the experimental procedures used to create them, and the methods used to prove that they are safe for consumption.

-In addition, AVA monitor the presence of GM food in our market through regular testing in their laboratories.

Are GM foods well regulated?

Answer is NO again!
- GM foods have never been properly tested and therefore should never have been approved. In the grocery shelves, thousand of products probably contain GM ingredients or GM material. We don't know how many exactly because of loophols in the labelling regulations, which suit industry very well - what we don't know about, we can't protect against.

-The bad news is that all of this means that even well-informed people think they are eating a GM free diet, when they are not. Before long - unless we fight even harder to get our labelling laws tightened and GM thwarted at every opportunity - GM will be in everything.

- The good news is that GM regulations are fairly decent and GM contamination has benn kept to a comparative minimum. Consumer rejection and strng anti-GM policies from the supermarkets have seen to this.

Does anyone want GM food?

Answer is NO!

-CONSUMERS : consumers around the world want GM food labelled and most don't want it at all; 84 percent of Australians said they worried about eating GM foods and 92 percent of canadians were concerned about the long term risks of them.

-RETAILERS: in Britain, all the major spermarket chains refuse to sell GM food; in fac, the British Retail Consortium have told Prime Minister they will refuse to stock GM foods even now GM corps are commercialised.

-TOP CHEF: In the late 1990s, more than a hundred top chefs and food writers undertook not to use GM foods, and to urge other chefs and restaurants to follow suit. Euro-Toques, an association of topnEuropean chefs, ran a similar campaign.

-Famers: Even famers are not keen on GM corps - and the more they learn about them the more they are turning against them.

BBQ beef

I have finally tried beef bak kua. Haha. I bought it from Bee Cheng Hiang. The beef taste is very strong(my sis says the beef taste is stronger than beef jerky) and the meat is harder. The colour is also darker than pork bak kua. Therefore, i still prefer BBQ pork as the taste is nicer and sweeter. Luckily, i bought the individual packed ones and thus bought only 100g(mininum amt). Hehe...

Anti-GM food protest leaves 18 injured in Belgium

Environmental activists stormed a field of genetically modified potatoes in Belgium Sunday, breaking through a security cordon in a raid that left police and protesters injured, authorities and organisers said.

Police said they briefly detained around 40 people taking part in the "Field Liberation Movement", which aimed to destroy the research crop in the northwestern town of Wetteren, according to Belga news agency.

Around 10 officers were slightly injured, according to police, while organisers said eight on their side were manhandled.

More than 200 people took part in the protest but only a few managed to sneak through fences and a police line protecting the field, said Franciska Soler, of the Volunteer Reapers of France which participated in the event.

"A certain number of potato plants were destroyed," Soler told AFP.

Jo Bury, the director of the VIB science research institute that planted the potatoes, said around 100 scientists had tried to talk the activists out of raiding the field.

While GM foods are common in places such as the United States and Brazil, they are highly divisive in Europe.

Just two GM crops are authorised on European soil -- a maize strain for animal feed and a potato for paper-making.

An internal survey conducted by the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, showed last month that 13 out of 27 EU states see no benefit from GM crops.

Source:

http://www.expatica.com/be/news/belgian-news/anti-gm-food-protest-leaves-18-injured-in-belgium_152783.html