Pet Peeves - Misleading Labelling and Packaging

[ArcticaMT6]

Except the specific chemicals are used in huge quantities as well. Not just targeted applications as you say.

So you're arguing that the quantities of pesticides used by organic farmers and by conventional farmers are equivalent?

Organic pesticides have less harmful effects.

Furthermore, I don't like GMO foods. I don't want people fucking with my food.

There's no intellectually satisfying definition of GMO that doesn't include every food you eat.

Not necessarily equivalent, but if you think the non-organic farmers are only applying their pesticides in targeted small amounts, you would be incorrect.

If you are speaking scientifically, you would be correct about every food being genetically modified. What I, and everyone else who uses the term GMO, am referring to, is manipulation of the cell structure/DNA of plants. I.E. The Roundup plants that have pesticide built into them, the apples that never turn brown, and many others. I don't like the idea of companies combining a pesticide with a plants genetic makeup. Hell, even MMM himself eats organic.

If you want to eat the normal food, go for it. It's cheaper. I would argue inferior taste, but cheaper. It's your own personal decision. I stand by my decision and realize not everyone feels the same.

[GuitarStv]

If you want to eat the normal food, go for it. It's cheaper. I would argue inferior taste, but cheaper. It's your own personal decision. I stand by my decision and realize not everyone feels the same.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8340585/Organic-food-less-tasty-than-normal-watchdog-says.html
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=866175

^ Some studies argue inferior taste for organic food.

[grantmeaname]

That's not how roundup works. Your understanding of organic food is based on a critical factual inaccuracy.

[Jamesqf]

Mendel would be so proud!  Seriously though, legitimate question here:  if I buy seeds at the store and plant them to grow fruits and vegetables, are those genetically altered?  I'm not trying to suggest i'll start a 40 day fast if all the foods I know and love are modified.  I'm really just curious.

Yes.  And guess what: so are you.  You've maybe heard about this thing called evolution?  Works by modifying genes :-)

That's not to say that I really approve of a lot of the particular modifications that are made, just as I don't approve of "organic" super-sweet corn, or apples that taste like balsa wood soaked in apple juice...

That's not how roundup works. Your understanding of organic food is based on a critical factual inaccuracy.

Good point!  Strictly speaking, Roundup (tm) or glyphosate is a herbicide, not a pesticide.  That is, it kills plants, not insects, and is typically used to control weeds.  'Roundup Ready' (tm) plants have a gene that confers resistance to glyphosate.  That gene is purely natural, though, and some weeds are already evolving their own resistance to glyphosate, just as bacteria have evolved resistance to antibiotics.

The argument's not really new.  For instance

Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean: so, over that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race: this is an art
Which does mend nature, change it rather, but
The art itself is nature.

  Shakespeare, 'The Winter's Tale', Act 4, scene 4.

[Ottawa]

Good point!  Strictly speaking, Roundup (tm) or glyphosate is a herbicide, not a pesticide.  That is, it kills plants, not insects, and is typically used to control weeds. 

Small point: All herbicides, insecticides, larvicides etc etc...are under the broad category of pesticide.  So technically Roundup is a pesticide...but specifically it is a herbicide.  Although I've never liked the term pesticide.  Pest to who?  ;-)

[DeepEllumStache]

Found an allergy warning on a can of coconut milk of "May contain coconut."

Not to be picky or anything, but I would hope so.

[Ottawa]

Found an allergy warning on a can of coconut milk of "May contain coconut."

Not to be picky or anything, but I would hope so.

Maybe it was franken-coconut milk?  Made from severely GMO'd and cross-hybridized cows and coca?  For authenticity they added "May contain cocount".  :-)

[MrMyMoney]

Packaged carbs with a "good for your heart" seal because carbs are bad for your heart.

I think you are saying "duh, no shit carbs are good for your heart"....but throw that seal on there and people will buy it because they're zombies.

No, I'm saying humans were never meant to eat so much carbs, especially grains.

[the fixer]

My favorite recent one was a bottle of "maple" syrup that said in big text on the front "no high fructose corn syrup." The first ingredient: corn syrup. The second ingredient: some other type of sugar.

The most frustrating thing is a trend I've noticed on certain packaged foods, especially the "natural"/organic brands and the Trader Joe's private label stuff, where similar products all are packaged in slightly different quantities. They must be trying to obscure which product is actually more expensive per unit weight or volume and hoping I won't pull up the calculator on my smartphone.

GMOs: my problem is entirely with Monsanto and the business model. I don't have a problem with the biology involved in producing Roundup-Ready soybeans or other crops. But when a company comes along and says they have a patent on a plant, which by its very nature tries to reproduce itself; and then they go after farmers whom they suspect of "violating their patent" by saving the seeds that the crop gave them; and the farmers are basically presumed guilty even though it's been documented that the genes can and do jump across fields via pollenation; well, yeah, I have a problem with that. Imagine if a DVD you bought tried to make copies of itself, and you were prosecuted for NOT destroying the copies it made?

As for pesticides, at least with an "Organic" label I know more about what was used on the food I buy than without the label. The problem is chemicals get widespread use in agriculture before we know what their long-term effects are, and even among those that are banned in the US, they can still be used to grow crops that get exported here. http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/cameroon/some-pesticides-use-around-world

[Undecided]

If you want to eat the normal food, go for it. It's cheaper. I would argue inferior taste, but cheaper. It's your own personal decision. I stand by my decision and realize not everyone feels the same.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8340585/Organic-food-less-tasty-than-normal-watchdog-says.html
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=866175

^ Some studies argue inferior taste for organic food.

I have conducted my own small-scale "study" of this issue (prompted by moving from a produce paradise to a place where it's much harder to grow most types of produce, and the season is much shorter) and concluded that for many types of produce my major grocery store's "conventional" version is likely to taste better most of the time, but the "organic" version is likely to taste better at the peak of that product's season. Generally my local produce (whether organic or not) tastes better than my major grocery store's produce, but my local produce selection is much more limited than the selection at my major grocery store during a majority of the year.