hummingwolf | Weekend Update

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Baumer, "Take What's Mine" on Launchcast

Weekend Update

Friday night: After several hours of trying and failing to keep my eyes open, I went to bed at 8:30. Aside from the usual bathroom breaks, I slept until seven the next morning. Oh, it's nice to get plenty of sleep for a change!

Saturday: Relaxing day for the most part, featuring conversations with housemates, landlord, and potential housemates. There was also a bit of reading involved, both screen matter and printed matter. In the evening, I went out to admire

jarandhel's nifty new diploma 'n' plaque combo, eat

lyssabard's tasty food, and enjoy good company for a while. Lyssa tried a new jerk chicken recipe which we all agreed was well worth trying again, accompanied by savory sweet potatoes, barbecue baked beans, and pineapple. Dessert was store-bought chocolate buttercream cake with raspberries, which was as decadent as it sounds.

We were having good times talking & watching vampire-related anime when I realized that dizziness and general oogieness were setting in. Apparently all the previous night's sleep wasn't quite enough for me, as I felt a distinct need to go home earlier than planned.

tlttlotd ended up driving me all the way home instead of just to the Metro station near their place, somewhat to my surprise (and his too, I think). I was very grateful for the ride, though, since I really wasn't feeling all that well by that point. Came home, performed my evening ablutions, and collapsed in bed by 1 a.m.

Sunday: Beautiful day, temperatures in the mid-50s, blue skies dotted with friendly white clouds. I never left the house. Tired & dizzy, I've spent most of the day in bed reading, with breaks for listening to music or commiserating with a housemate's culinary disasters. Is this a new virus or is it just what happens when I go for too many days in a row without a nap?

According to results of a recent survey, Americans are generally uncomfortable with the idea of genetically modified foods, but only a quarter think they've ever actually eaten any GMOs. Note to My Fellow Amurricans: If you ever eat anything from a can, box, or jar (and I know you do), you eat genetically modified foods. How do I know this? Because most of the soybeans, cotton, and corn grown in our country is genetically modified, and our processed foods generally contain products from at least one of those three GM crops (and sometimes all three). Pretty much the only way you can avoid GMO foods here is by being scrupulous about eating only unprocessed or entirely organic foods; and if you do that, you almost certainly belong one of the more food-aware segments of the population who know they've already eaten genetically modified organisms without realizing it and are ticked off about it.

What reminded me of all this now? Supper tonight, of course. The canned tuna in water, boxed mix of angel hair pasta with herbs, and box of frozen creamed spinach all had labels warning that they contained soy ingredients, while the banana-flavored applesauce I had for dessert contained the infamous high fructose corn syrup. I can't tell from the labels if any of those foods had cottonseed oil as well, but I wouldn't be surprised.

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Have you seen that documentary on GMO? I seriously haven't eaten corn in FOREVER because of all that.

And I love corn :( and it hurts my feelings that I don't feel safe eating one of my favorite foods.

I also have a harder time than ever giving credence to statements made by the FDA.

I haven't seen any documentaries on it. What was the show like?

If it helps any, the corn you can buy in the produce section at the store, or frozen kernel corn, is not likely to be GM corn. Last time I checked, the only GM food you were likely to find in the fresh produce was papaya--though I admit this might have changed since the last time I researched this stuff. The GM food crops end up in processed foods, pretty much.

Chances are good that the GM foods are much safer than alarmists believe. I don't worry about the genetic modifications in what I ate tonight so much as the fact that there's too much obviously nonnutritive junk in it. But having said that, I'm with you when it comes to the FDA, an agency that's pretty much owned by the corporations at this point.

I have almost the exact opposite opinion of the owenership of the FDA. If corporations owned it, getting a product to market in the USA would not take years or even decades, nor more money per product than the GNP of several European countries. The FDA is a power-mad tinpot little Hitler that exists as a dick-compensating money-maker (with an interesting sideline in creating legislation that would be intolerable for Congress to enact), has set food and drug science back by over a hundred years in the time it has existed, and was created (and continues to exist) counter to the law.

I don't like the fact that they use parts of the ebola virus to help splice the genetic coding :P

It's called "The Future of Food" and is very interesting. Wait until you see how many people swapped back and forth between Monsanto (huge purveyor of GM seeds and they are doing nasty things to farmers) and the FDA.

Did you know you can patent life? Crazy.

Well, which virus do you think they should be using instead? ;-) Seriously, using part of a deadly virus isn't necessarily a bad thing if it's in a different context. Pretty much anything is toxic if it disrupts a healthy balance, and even something which is otherwise dangerous is a good thing if it promotes a healthy balance.

Sounds interesting! Unfortunately, I don't have a VCR, DVD player, or cable, so my chances of watching it any time soon are pretty slim. I have heard enough about Monsanto not to trust them; and while I haven't really read much on the connections between the FDA and Monsanto, I know enough about the connections between big drug companies & the FDA to generate a healthy mistrust of the agency.

Yeah, a lot of the patenting stuff is insane nowadays. I wonder sometimes if any of the bits removed from my body back in the '90s ever got into the hands of some weird corporation. I rather doubt it, but y'never know.

Yeah, and honestly it's not so much the splicing that I mind. I freaking love genetics in all its forms. I just don't like the fact that they are fighting so hard against the labeling. It seems pretty hard to track the effects, either positive or negative, if you don't know it's there to track in the first place.

I guess what it basically boils down to is I want to be able to make an informed decision.

That and it's still pretty shitty what Monsanto has been up to, suing farmers for patent infringement when some of their seed gets accidentally blown into those farmers fields.

I guess what it basically boils down to is I want to be able to make an informed decision.

Yep, that's pretty much my feeling on the subject.

Well, that and I've heard enough about what Monsanto does to farmers to believe that the company needs a good smackdown.

And precisely 0% of Americans - or any other population - can show any medical problems from GMO crops.

I do have to harp on that point a bit. Not once has anyone proven that anyone came to harm from such genetic manipulation. In spite of the fact that nearly everyone HAS consumed GMOs. Whereas there have been several incidents of illness from organic crops, even though these are a much smaller market...

Even the much-noted StarLink corn incident, which is brought up every-so-often to show how horrible this whole issue is being handled, never resulted in a single illness: there's nothign wrong with the corn, it's simply that the company didn't consider it profitable to get that corn approved for human consumption. After all, that's a very expensive process, in some part due to the uncertain regulatory administration where multiple separate bureaus must be satisfied.

Betcha most people don't know about GMOs' safety record. Or how much more testing GMOs undergo than "organic" crops. Or the difference between GMO and hybridized crops. THese being very relevant, very *important* pieces of information in making intelligent decisions.

Well, yes, to all that you've said here. I was just making a casual postprandial comment about general ignorance on the topic, not really trying to remedy that ignorance. When it comes to food, there are plenty of other things it would make more sense to worry about.

Well, admittedly, the corporations makign GMOs are generally opposed to the labelling of GM products. This stance doesn't help educate people on the subject.

OTOH, their reasoning is pretty clearly explained by the survey you referenced. They're justifiably afraid of a knee-jerk reaction fueled by the general ignorance, fear, and outright paranoia people have about GM crops. So they've spent the last 10 years coming in under the radar. There's hardly any point in labelling GM foods anymore: if it comes in plastic, it probably has something.

(deleted comment)

That's what I get for replying before reading fully. Ignore that...

And why is everybody focused on the GMOs? Doesn't anybody care about the fact that I feel oogie?

::sniffle::

::hugs:: get better soon.

:)

Thank you!

::hugs back::

:-)

Where did I say I objected to it?

I do think products with GM ingredients should be labeled, but I think everything should be labeled. I'm in favor of more informed consumers. If people want to avoid genetically modified foods for whatever reason, they should be aware of how they are failing to do so. And if people see that their favorite processed foods already contain GMOs, they might (A) decide to eat more fresh fruits & veggies, or (B) decide that if they've lived this long on GM foods, maybe they don't need to panic so much. Either alternative would probably be a good thing.

On the other hand, it is possible that some GM crops are having undesirable long-term effects nobody has proof of yet (one theory is that GMOs are responsible for the apparent increase in life-threatening food allergies, for instance). If there were more good, broadly-disseminated information about what's in specific products, it might be easier to prove or disprove what the alarmists have to say about them.

I don't object to GMOs. I object to widespread ignorance--on all sides.

Yeah. Sadly that stuff is nearly impossible to avoid in the U.S.

Yeah. I don't object to genetically modified crops. I do object to the fact that GM foods are so incredibly difficult to avoid. Not that I'm trying to avoid them myself, but I know enough people with food allergies and food intolerances who have to be extra careful about what they put in their bodies that it seems insane for there to be no labeling of the stuff.

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