Cookie Blues. Goes without saying...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o2LszjrHnA&NR=1
Friday, March 4, 2011
Should Genetically Engineered Food Be Labeled?
It is safe to say that most Americans want to believe that what they are consuming is truly what they are consuming. To that end, the concerns and necessity surrounding food labeling began in 1977 when products containing the artificial sweetener, saccharin, were required to have a label informing the consumer of the potential adverse health effects of saccharin consumption (USFDA, 2009, a.). This legislation did not restrict the use of saccharin, but it did alert the consumer to the “potential” for deleterious health effects, not unlike alcohol and cigarette packages of today.
In 1990 the USFDA enacted the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act further requiring all packaged foods to follow standardized terms for content and health claims. Additionally, supplementary changes to labeling and standardization of terminology have been added to products with known or suspect allergenic reactions such as, latex, certain plastics, peanuts, shellfish, and monosodium glutamate (MSG) (USFDA, 2011). Tweaks to the labeling system are current and ongoing in an attempt to best inform Americans about the products that they consume.
Therefore, given America’s legislative tradition of full disclosure regarding product content, it is not unreasonable to expect that a product or commodity containing genetically engineered (GE) material would be labeled as such. This allows the consumer to consume or not consume based on personal choice. Like alcohol or cigarette packages, this does not impose a governmental opinion, but serves only to provide a “heads-up”. This “heads-up” approach has the bio-tech industry screaming foul and the truth in advertising population screaming fair. Not surprisingly, money is at the root of this controversy.
Bio-tech advocates rely on support from “substantial equivalence” (USFDA, 1992), essentially that GE food and feed products are almost exactly the same as naturally occurring products (USFDA, 2009, b.). Further, citing an unnecessary—but unsupported—claim that the resulting substantial increases in product costs will impact not only non–consumers of GE products, but all consumers (Byrne, 2010). In a research study at Colorado State University’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, a series of surveys specifically targeted at potatoes were undertaken to understand Colorado-consumer attitudes toward GE foods. The survey of 437 supermarket shoppers in four Front Range communities in the Fall of 2000 found that 78 percent supported mandatory labeling of GE foods (Byrne, 2010). Further surveys, studies, analyses, and prognostications all dependent on the tenuous hold of substantial equivalency lead us to believe that consumers are not willing to pay for labeling (Byrne, 2010), but more than a decade after CSU’s potato survey, informed consumers worldwide are still fighting for GE labeling (FSANZ, 2011).
Clearly, after more than ten years of embittered battling between industry and consumers, Americans join the ranks of citizens worldwide that want to know a product contains, or is, GE and are willing to pay to fight for that right.
References
Byrne, P. (9/2010). Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods. Colorado State University; Extension. No. 9.371. Retrieved 27 February 2011 from
FSANZ. (2011). Genetically Modified Foods (GM). Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Retrieved 26 February 2011 from
USFDA. (2011). Labeling & Nutrition.
USFDA. (2009, a.). Milestones in Food and Drug Law.
USFDA. (2009, b.). Plant Biotechnology for Food and Feed
USFDA. (1992). Statement of Policy – Foods Derived From New Plant Varieties
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Caveat Lector
Today is about loss.
If that is a bummer for you, stop now and go do something productive. Preferably with chocolate.
...I can't write this yet.
Some hours later...
I opted to read about gain and ignore the losses I have tallied up on my score-card of life.
Not to forget the lesson that loss teaches, I just don't want to drag them behind me anymore.
So I don't, almost don't.
Currently, I hear my youngest call from the bathtub. No doubt summoning me to fetch the towel that she chooses to forget. Of all my children she is the most imp-like. My friend calls her a buzz saw. An accurate description, but chipper/shredder might be more accurate.
Her attitude says, "I have needs and you will meet them." And so of course, I do.
This attitude is for me alone. Our unique mother-daughter bond.
She has her reasons that are not a mystery to my family. To the world she is a puzzle of painfully shy, emotionally cripplingly, downright rudeness. It is a sensory overload that hopefully time will cure, or maybe not.
When people realize this they try and draw her out, which only serves to push her more tightly in.
She can't bear to be touched. Now that she is older she knows that this is rude and will stand stock still to almost tolerate a hug from an acquaintance, but it requires monumental effort.
I will pay for this because sometimes I am not her buffer.
I am the mother, I should fend and interpret for her---her eyes tell me, and frequently I do. But she has to make her own way eventually and baby steps are good.
At our house good is subjective. Many things that are mundane, odd, or downright unusual are good, real good.
Last year we had pneumonia together, she and I. We went to the emergency room.
The intake Doc came into--intake. He looked at my chart and looked at her chart and then at us.
"You are the..."(looks at charts again--and again) "you are the mother?"
"That's correct."
Looks at charts, knits brow.
"You are 57 and your daughter is...6?"
"Correct, again."
I have, as the whim strikes me, spun the yarn of fertility drugs, late in life pregnancy, and breast feeding without having to lift my child up off of my lap, but I was too sick for my old bag-of-tricks and he chose not to pursue his.
Sadly, another laugh lost.
I love her for all of her twisting of my tail because she mostly makes me laugh at that giant attitude.
Her bad attitude is my great guffaw.
If that is a bummer for you, stop now and go do something productive. Preferably with chocolate.
...I can't write this yet.
Some hours later...
I opted to read about gain and ignore the losses I have tallied up on my score-card of life.
Not to forget the lesson that loss teaches, I just don't want to drag them behind me anymore.
So I don't, almost don't.
Currently, I hear my youngest call from the bathtub. No doubt summoning me to fetch the towel that she chooses to forget. Of all my children she is the most imp-like. My friend calls her a buzz saw. An accurate description, but chipper/shredder might be more accurate.
Her attitude says, "I have needs and you will meet them." And so of course, I do.
This attitude is for me alone. Our unique mother-daughter bond.
She has her reasons that are not a mystery to my family. To the world she is a puzzle of painfully shy, emotionally cripplingly, downright rudeness. It is a sensory overload that hopefully time will cure, or maybe not.
When people realize this they try and draw her out, which only serves to push her more tightly in.
She can't bear to be touched. Now that she is older she knows that this is rude and will stand stock still to almost tolerate a hug from an acquaintance, but it requires monumental effort.
I will pay for this because sometimes I am not her buffer.
I am the mother, I should fend and interpret for her---her eyes tell me, and frequently I do. But she has to make her own way eventually and baby steps are good.
At our house good is subjective. Many things that are mundane, odd, or downright unusual are good, real good.
Last year we had pneumonia together, she and I. We went to the emergency room.
The intake Doc came into--intake. He looked at my chart and looked at her chart and then at us.
"You are the..."(looks at charts again--and again) "you are the mother?"
"That's correct."
Looks at charts, knits brow.
"You are 57 and your daughter is...6?"
"Correct, again."
I have, as the whim strikes me, spun the yarn of fertility drugs, late in life pregnancy, and breast feeding without having to lift my child up off of my lap, but I was too sick for my old bag-of-tricks and he chose not to pursue his.
Sadly, another laugh lost.
I love her for all of her twisting of my tail because she mostly makes me laugh at that giant attitude.
Her bad attitude is my great guffaw.
Cape Lookout
Gorgeous day here on the Emerald Coast. Kids and I went for a hike halfway up Cape Lookout. We would have gone to the top, but there were no bathrooms.
The--"Make yourself large and wave your arms screaming if confronted by a bear"--signs posted everywhere were prohibitive of a woodsy release of excess body fluids for us girls, so we opted to go back to the comfort of the bearless sanitary station near the beach.
As if I need a sign to wave my arms and scream when I see a bear.
I know where Ents live, and it is here on the Oregon Coast. The Sitka Spruce have wonderful absurdly shaped limbs with many different species of moss hanging long from them. When the wind blows they sway and you can hear them talking.
OK...I can hear them talking, you might just hear the wind in the trees.
The trail winds up the forest covered volcanic cliffs about 2 miles and you can always sit and just take in the ocean view.
We are going back tomorrow with PBJ's and hot coffee...and pepper spray.
The--"Make yourself large and wave your arms screaming if confronted by a bear"--signs posted everywhere were prohibitive of a woodsy release of excess body fluids for us girls, so we opted to go back to the comfort of the bearless sanitary station near the beach.
As if I need a sign to wave my arms and scream when I see a bear.
I know where Ents live, and it is here on the Oregon Coast. The Sitka Spruce have wonderful absurdly shaped limbs with many different species of moss hanging long from them. When the wind blows they sway and you can hear them talking.
OK...I can hear them talking, you might just hear the wind in the trees.
The trail winds up the forest covered volcanic cliffs about 2 miles and you can always sit and just take in the ocean view.
We are going back tomorrow with PBJ's and hot coffee...and pepper spray.
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