But let's talk about what's really important...

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

If all foods are already genetically modified then which foods were going to be required to be labeled under the new law?

I agree that's a problem, and that's the question. Only foods that are GMO and have been for years like seedless grapes and navel oranges? Every chicken? Only foods that have gene insertions from other species? Foods that are manipulated to be pest-resistant? What if it's done in a test field, rather than in a laboratory greenhouse?

What do you think? Which of those should be labeled as GMO?

If a farmer has a particularly good looking crop and he then uses the seeds of that crop, nobody would define that as "genetically modified". All species evolve over the years. Nobody would call these species "genetically modified".

They certainly are, when certain genes are selected for by the growers, and other former genes are eliminated on purpose. That's exactly what genetic modification is.

When Monsanto alters DNA in a laboratory, that would be "genetically modified".

That is exactly my point. What do you think is the difference between Monsanto altering DNA in a laboratory, and the DNA alterations selected by farmers over 5 years?

The product is often the same.

Foods have been genetically modified for centuries. In modern America our foods have become uniform in size and appearance, ship well, last forever, at the expense of nutrition and taste, due to genetic modification.

Good lord - look at apples in a supermarket. They taste nothing like apples should. We killed off the species of banana we were eating 40 years ago because they were genetically modified and were wiped out by disease. The bananas we eat today are entirely different (also genetically modified)

I'm more concerned about how the genetic modifications done over the past 80 years to our foodstuffs, so they can ship across country, have ruined the nutritional composition, taste and variety.

There was nothing confusing about the law.
I don't know why you're trying to confuse people.

I never said there was, and I'm not trying to.

People know what "genetically modified" means, notwithstanding your disingenuous attempt to confuse people and tell them that all food is genetically modified.

Fine - define what you mean by "genetically modified". Give a definition right here, right now.

That's my point. The words are scary. But people don't really understand what it means.

I don't care if people want their food to be labeled for GMO. I have no respect for Monsanto, in spite of your ridiculous baseless assumption.

But people in the USA have very little knowledge of what "genetically modified" means. So you define it right now, so we're both on the same page.