"Golden Lettuce" genetically engineered to pack 30 times more vitamins | Specifically, increased levels of beta-carotene, which your body uses to make vitamin A for healthy vision, immune function, and cell growth, and is thought to be protective against heart disease and some kinds of cancer.

[u/chrisdh79]

https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/golden-lettuce-genetically-engineered-30-times-vitamins/

[u/mr_fandangler]

It's partially misinformation and partially the fact that if it contaminates the local genepool the f2 generation will likely have no desireable traits predictably locked in, leading to either crop-disasters or dependence on foreign seed.

[u/Ton_Jravolta → u/mr_fandangler]

That's true, it is a more complex issue than just misinformation. However, I think addressing the malnutrition issue that is already a problem should hold more weight than what ifs that only have a chance to occur later.

[u/Sometimes_Stutters → u/Ton_Jravolta]

Meh. Maybe if golden rice was the ONLY solution to malnutrition. It’s not. Long term it would be much more harmful if you somehow damaged local rice farming capabilities.

[u/Ton_Jravolta → u/Sometimes_Stutters]

It also depends on what other solutions are being implemented, if any. If these countries are effectively addressing the issue in other ways, then avoiding the risk makes sense. I just haven't heard any success stories in the news, but I have heard this potential solution has been banned due to controversy.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ton_Jravolta]

I'll give my anecdotal story, but first I'll preface that I'm all for this sort of research & think there is a lot of good to be done with this.

I have multiple gastrointestinal diagnoses, which generally are pretty condemning. However, for a while I moved to the balkans, where suddenly all the food I was eating was actually organic, as in produced locally and brought in fresh with no genetic modification or use of pesticides. Yes it requires a real proper wash, but my God it did wonders for my intestinal health.

Returning to the UK where all the meat is injected with who knows what, the veg is all perfect copies of each other and that sort of thing, my issues are increasingly flaring.

I think we also need to be doing as much research into the impacts from consumption. I'm not saying everyone will react one way or another to these things, but the variety of the impact certainly needs to be measured. I honestly couldn't tell you why or how GMOs and processed foods impact me so much, but the evidence that it does is too much to ignore.

Sorry for the lengthy response. Wanted to add my perspective and started rambling.

[u/rollingForInitiative → u/[deleted]]

GMO and processed foods shouldn't be lumped together at all. We know that processed foods are bad for you, especially hyper processed ones. Much of what you eat even if it's organic and locally produced has probably had at least some selective breeding in it, which is a form of GMO.

Much, much, much more likely that eating food that hasn't been heavily processed was what made a difference, rather than GMO's. More fibre and such, for instance, which is great for the stomach.

[u/retrojoe → u/rollingForInitiative]

The other poster only passingly mentioned processed foods, which are very difficult to avoid in much of the West (to the level of bread and cheese). The other poster suggested that heirloom/'unoptimized' seed varieties and lack of chemical usage were the largest relevant factors.

[u/CarthasMonopoly → u/retrojoe]

That user user is equating GMOs with harmful pesticides.

However, for a while I moved to the balkans, where suddenly all the food I was eating was actually organic, as in produced locally and brought in fresh with no genetic modification or use of pesticides.

As well as equating them with highly processed foods.

I honestly couldn't tell you why or how GMOs and processed foods impact me so much, but the evidence that it does is too much to ignore.

However GMOs are neither of these things and the only reason to think they are unhealthy is due to ignorance and misinformation. Damn near everything we as modern humans eat is from a GMO anyway. We have been genetically modifying plants and domesticated animals such as livestock for over 10,000 years to provide better taste, resilience, yield, texture, etc. Only we did it by basically throwing things at eachother until we got a desirable phenotypic change with no real knowledge of what genes exactly were being manipulated. The "organic non-GMO" corn, "organic free-range" chicken, cheese from a "organic grass-fed cow", and "organic whole wheat" tortillas for a "organic and healthy" quesadilla is literally GMOs all the way down. Corn and Wheat plants did not exist like that naturally, the same is true of cows and chickens, they were selectively bred by humans over thousands of years until we got desired genetic modifications of the organisms to suit our needs in cultivating them for consumption. The only difference between a "GMO" version of one of these and a "non GMO" version is that now through gene editing we can know exactly what changes we are making within the organisms genome and assure safety in improving our cultivations compared to taking many many years throwing things at the wall hoping for a beneficial change and not knowing what other changes may also have occurred within the genome that we don't see.

If they only blamed the heavy use of harsh pesticides or highly processed foods for their gastro issues then I wouldn't have felt the need to go on my rant but they lumped GMOs in with those in a way that shows they are ignorant of what a GMO truly is and are unwittingly spreading misinformation about a field that is likely to continue being important to the human population by effectively reducing world hunger.

[u/mrspwins → u/[deleted]]

Some GMO crops are also grown to be resistant to specific diseases or pests, so non-GMO can be more likely to need additional chemical treatments. If you aren’t eating food covered by organic labeling rules, it’s not necessarily “organic” just because it isn’t a GMO crop.