Hi guys,
I would like to present the short movie about the biggest company, involved in GMO (genetic modified) production - Monsanto. It shows the negative sides of genetic interference in food production and huge political lobbing that persuade governments and farmers around the world to introduce and further more to generalize this solution to the global food production.
To get to know more about this topic I recommend the movie FOOD INC directed by Robert Kenner.
It is commonly known that genetic engineering of plants could offer some health benefits to consumers such as improving nutritional quality and using less pesticide in cultivation. On the other hand the lack of evidence of negative effects leads to high risk and possibilities of long-term side effects such as a cancer or immunological disease...
In my opinion we ought to start to take care more about what we eat and be more interested where the food products, that we buy in our markets, come from!!!! I am against eating GMO food and I am for cultivate our domestic products from local farmers and butchers.
Now, close your eyes, please... And try to remind the taste of ham that your grandparents served you on fresh baked bread from local bakery..., taste and smell of real Polish tomatoes with natural color (not so red and same size like those that you can by in supermarket:(...
To calm down a bit, watch the video clip bellow;)
GMO - what do you think about it?
Have you ever realized the rising problem of food production?
Do you take care about what exactly do you eat?
Are you sure what in Polish food there is not any GMO?
That just confirms what I wrote two weeks ago. We are going towards a facist world where the presidents of corporations rule everything. And we do it on our own wish. Nobody forces us to buy their products. Monsanto is evil for they way of acting and monopolist tendencies.
ReplyDeleteI suggest you don't buy food in supermarkets, it's better to buy it from the local farmers as there is still a chance it doesn't come from monsanto. Besides, you support them this way, cause recently most of them are having enormous trouble selling their products. I met a farmer two years ago who said he can hardly sell a kilogram of onions for 0,4zł a kilo, while you pay 2złs in a supermarket.
Well this week I will write about food too on http://pjwstk2ms.blogspot.com/. In Warsaw we have new EcoBazar. I recommend you to go there during the weekend.It is really great place. I have never thought that in Poland we have such a good products. Our cheese and specially ham is very famous in Europe.
ReplyDeleteHere is some link:
http://biokurier.pl/aktualnosci/453-biobazar-warszawa
Well, so far I thought that thanks to GMO food has better quality and is healthier - I didn't realize that it may cause a diseases like cancer. Ofcourse I knew that there has to be some negative aspect of it but I didn't think that they may be so serious as you wrote.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to the quality of ham, bread etc. - I agree with you. I come from small village and every time I visit it I enjoy the food. Its taste is totally different than this in Warsaw for example. And I don't say here about home made food but bought at some local, small shop.
I will have to visit this ecobazar Małgorzata wrote about and check, what food is worth there. Thanks for mentioning it - I didn't know about it before.
Eco bazar is open every saturday. All of the products have eco certificate.
ReplyDeleteŻelazna 51/53 - before it was a Norblin Factory:)
I have mixed feelings about GMO. I believe that after watching the presentation from last week most of people would be against everything that is modified in artificial way. Of course, we don't know the risk as the results can come in years. Still, there is a problem of hunger which we haven't solved yet. It concerns huge masses of people and GMO could be an answer for it. When we look at this side of the problem, it seems we are a bit selfish with our "more sophisticated" dilemmas.
ReplyDeleteWestern countries waste a lot of food to stimulate the market and the food production... Surplus food is not sending to third world countries or distributing to the starving people, and the truth is that those food is devastate or disposed of in different way!!! So very sad is the fact that GMO is not the way to solve the problem of hunger although it could be...
ReplyDeletekniaz is right. How could GMO save people form hunger if nobody is going to give it out for free and the poor countries can't afford to pay?
ReplyDeleteYou know how much food is wasted everyday because it wasn't sold?
check this situation: the man was heavily taxed because he gave away food for free:
http://podatki.gazetaprawna.pl/artykuly/5296,po_przegranej_w_wsa_piekarz_z_legnicy_wniesie_skarge_do_nsa.html
I think nowadays everything is GMO. There are thousands of people strongly engaged and gain profits from such technology. My opinion (even if I’m against) doesn’t change anything.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, if I had to define my clear opinion, I would say staying in the middle.
I couldn’t find any sense of overpaying enormous amount of money just to buy “green” carrots or potatoes. Is there any sense of buying 3 tomatoes for 60 PLN? For me – no. Firstly, I’m not crazy. Secondly even if I received perfectly written and framed certificate with holograms and watermarks still I wouldn’t be 100% sure about place where that tomato was planted.
Actually I find ‘Eco style’ like a fashion trend really common in a group of reach people. Now I’ve heard there is a strong group of people festinated in eco eggs made by “kury zielononóżki”…for me it’s silly. I agree with healthy food and active style of living.
GMO - Genetically Modified Organisms.
ReplyDeleteI'm a believer of natural food, but to live in conviction you must reckoned with very expensive products and very serious problem how to get good natural food.
When i go shoping for example to carrefour i read white sticker and read how many E components was used to product this food. It's really annoying because 90% of food sales in poland contains bad components. Next example is meat and eggs. I try to buy only Free-range eggs from healthy hen.
Oh I just found an answer for my question:) Thank you Malgorzata, I've read your presentation on blog2 and was curious where is this eco bazar that you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI think in big city we don't have a choice. I mean unless we have much money to spend on food like 60zl for 3 tomatoes as Tomasz wrote. I agree "healthy food" is very expensive. But still I never buy meat in big markets (carefour or biedronka) there is a many places in Warsaw with good vegetables, fruits, meat always fresh. We just need to do a little research around our place of living:)
I have a summer house on the east of Poland. For people living in the city it's hard to imagine how good products are sold there. Meat taste like real meat! Fresh vegetables in the summer of course are just great! And eggs we always buy from our friends who live there, eggs from hen not locked in a cages in the inhumane way. So if we have such a possibility to buy products in some small villages or from people who have their own "food buisness" we should benefit from this. But to all these fashoin markets in the center of Warsaw with healthy food I say no. The prices are just too high.
@Jakub and Kniaz
ReplyDeleteYou don't understand. GMO can help poor countries if they will cutivate modificated plants. There is no point to cultivate them in Europe and then transfer it to Africa for example. That would be a huge waste of money.
Learning about GMO was a traumatic experience for me. I didn't realize that people could go so far in conscious planning of mutual destruction. It is much worse than a spontaneous war because it is legal and approved! I have always realized the rising problem of food production, however, I do not agree with the methods that United States embarked upon. In my opinion, the world's resources and potential are enough to produce food for everyone and there is no need to use such destructive methods. In the long run, those methods, if not ceased, can lead to the destruction of the human population. Most of GMO food contains ingredients that lead to the cancer of the reproductive system. The consequences of that should be obvious to everyone.
ReplyDeleteI care a lot about the food that I eat. I cook at home and rarely eat 'outside'. I believe that nutrition is the most vital part of health care. If you don't eat well, this is where your health problems start.
Polish food is still very good when it comes to taste and much more natural in comparison to the food from Western Europe (I won't mention USA as it is even worse). There is nothing better than the taste of a Polish bread from the countryside or Polish fruit and vegetable grown on small farms. I think this is also the reason why Polish people are much healthier than, for example, Americans. Our food is of a high nutritional value and no empty calories.
The topic of genetically modified food is very controversial. Companies that produce them claim they are necessary to feed the world. They also say that GM food is safe for human consumption as well as for use in such products as vaccines, pharmaceutical drugs and animal feed.
ReplyDeleteAll those in favor of GM products say that they are safe, and are not substantially different from food products derived from normal cultivation methods. Those who are against GM products say that they have unknown effects at best, and that they are extremely dangerous at worse. As it has been pointed out in the presentation, there is a risk that GM products cause cancer. Even though it has never been proven people are afraid and prefer the 'all-natural' products.
I have found two independent research studies that demonstrate evidence of allergenic reactions, fertility consequences and immune issues from GM products:
http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2929
&
http://books.google.com/books?id=eqFAHQVuoj8C&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=John+Graham+York+Lab&source=web&ots=GT8CC0OOZN&sig=aotryh9D3ke_4MkUAMNhWNtXosk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false
Unfortunately, GM foods labelling is not mandatory in all countries. Therefore even though some people may decide never to buy GM food, they fail to notice that they may have been eating them for years.
Honestly, I have nothing against GMO. Of course within the limits of common sense ;) - a little bit of healthy chemistry has never hurts anyone ;)- I don't understand why so many people are afraid of GMO?
ReplyDeleteWhen I buy food products at the store I never read labels so I don't know if they are modified or not. I have eaten them for years and I'm still healthy;)
I suppose that the same GMO is in Polish food as well as in other countries food unless we have our EKO/green garden.
I can't really imagine up-to-date world without GMO. But as you said, we can't be sure whether it's completely safe or not . It's obvious that when we need huge productions of food it cannot be entirely natural so I think I am aware of a rising problem of it. I can't say that I look at everything I eat and check its ingredients but sometimes I'm really interested what put in my mouth. But it's not easy to find not modified food.
ReplyDeleteArtificially created food is the good business, but only when we are manufacturer of them. When we are consumers this is very dangerous for us. We can't fight with nature and will never win. Why? Because we are part of nature, created by nature and we can't change this. Since 2 years I try live in rules of nature and don't eat junk food and now I feel much better.
ReplyDeleteThere are some branches of, lets say, business where money should not be most important factor. As we can see it is not so simple. For example GMO vegetables. They look great, they are bigger and grow faster. This is enough for food companies to choose it. They can save a lot of money in quite short period of time.
ReplyDeleteGMO can exist but in one condition. We will be still able to choose between it and products produced naturally. It is more less like with fast foods. We still have a choice to eat there or maybe go to home and prepare dish ourself.
GMO in my opinion means contaminated food. GMO food is in no way healthy food. Only products that are preservatives free are healthy. GMO food is modified by human. We cannot be sure what effect this food will have on us in the future. It is of course understandable that thanks to GMO food we can have strawberries in the summer time and other products that normally do not grow in a given season. Taking into consideration the pace of life in today’s world GMO food helps us eat anything. However I doubt if the food we eat is healthy.
ReplyDeleteYes I do realize that there is an immense problem when it comes to the food production. Today, due to an increase in GMO food we cannot be 100% sure what we have on our plate. There is one thing however we can be sure of and that is that food producers are trying to literally stuff us with the artificial food deprived of any nutritional values. Food supplies diminish every day. There are so many people around the world that it has become almost impossible to feed everybody. GMO can be the answer to this problem. If we can produce food on our own we will not starve. However as I mentioned before the question is what kind of values would such food have?
To be honest with you I am a very busy person and I do not always pay attention to what I eat. Sometimes when I have no time whatsoever even the worst food that will help me stuff my stomach can do. However I do realize that I should eat more healthy. When I have time I like to cook myself something healthy. Then I do realize how bad eating habits I have. I do realize that I have to change it but I do not have as much time as I would like to have to eat healthy.
In today’s world there is no certainty that what we eat is GMO free. Food in Polish stores comes from different parts of the world and that is why it is hard to say what quality it has. I am however convinced that Polish food is not as GMO stuffed as in other countries and that is why when I eat I do not have to think about the fact that I am eating artificial food. There is however no doubt that even in Polish food there are some GMO substances.
Even though I am not a great supporter of GMO food and I think that it should be banned from stores I do agree with the statement that there is an immense problem with hunger around the world and GMO might be the only way to solve it. There are more and more people on the earth and one day we can run out of our own food. Then we will have to produce it artificially. So it seems like there is no one easy answer to this problem. I have to admit that if we look at GMO from this perspective I have to agree and give a green light to GMO. But only when it is meant to help people survive. When it comes to high prices for healthy food the easiest way to save on food and get healthy food is to get it straight from the farmer who produced it. Only in that case do we know that the food is healthy.
Michał I do agree with the opinion that GMO food is a very controversial issue. On one hand we have people who starve around the world and on the other we have people who eat GMO food that is said to cause cancer. Even though it is not proven there can be a lot to it. And what is worse, even if there are people who do not eat GMO food because they think it is dangerous for their health they buy products not labeled GMO unconsciously. On the other hand there are also people who do not want to know that the food they are buying is GMO. Sometimes it is better to be blissfully unaware. It is also true that GMO business is the best business when we are the producers but not users of it.
ReplyDeleteStrongly genetically modified food is horrible.
ReplyDeleteMaybe in some cases essential, but the magnitude of carrying capacity behind the side effects ...
One of them may be gigantism in children ...
You can already see how a negative impact on the development of an organism is genetically modified food. The amount of hormones contained in it makes the children are indeed "oversized" for its age.
In the mature organism often causing havoc ...
Nowadays Everything almost all food is Genetically Modified.
ReplyDeleteWe have two cases:
First, food genetically modified by nature for thousand years - In my opinion that food are OK.
Second, food genetically modified by humans for last 30 years... - I thing that is hard to predictable effect that modifications.
GMO is not always evil. It's of course about savings, but not only that we pay less, but that manufacturers earn more. I think that ni most cases it has no negative influence on our health and I'm for sure not that eco-guy reading everything printed on the label.
ReplyDelete>GMO - what do you think about it?
ReplyDeleteI've watched the Food Inc. documentary. I think that American farmers don't have any choice. If they don't buy seeds from Monsato they will be
destroyed. Even if farmers try to grow without GMO seeds, Monsato has his people to seat some of their seeds on somebodies property and then blackmail the farmers.
>Have you ever realized the rising problem of food production?
Rising problem of food production is quite new topic but present in wide open for about 20-30 years. So yes, I realized. I think the wake up call was BSE/Mad cows disease. From that moment people started paying better attention to what they are eating.
>Do you take care about what exactly do you eat?
Yes, I do but sometimes you have to compromise.
>Are you sure what in Polish food there is not any GMO?
I think that Poland has some big potential to be corrupted. :D So wouldn't be shocked if 70% of our food was GMO. :)