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Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

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Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#11
post #9

This isn't helpful. I don't like use of pesticides and I think there's a reasonable controversy to be had about the dangers of Glyphosate. But the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous, we should welcome every possible alternative. Whatever the Glyphosate (and GMO) concerns are, they are tiny in comparison.

Kind of like the conspiracy theory that some conspiracy theories are made up by governments to make theorists look ridiculous, sometimes I wonder if science-blind anti-GMO sentiment was manufactured by these big agriculture companies to draw legitimate attention away from truly studying the pesticides we're using.

Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#12
post #4

"Mom's Across America" is a well known science denying hotbed who stoke fear of GMOs, chemicals, and vaccines. They don't care whether or not glyphosate is safe or not. They care that impossible foods is getting headlines, and they want to get a piece of it by introducing FUD. Impossible is 100% right to do a hard reply to this. These people aren't interested in honest debate or product safety and the world needs to…

I agree that your assessment is fact- and history-based and don't know why you are being downvoted. Their claims are groundless, and a distraction from a lot of the real health issues that actually plague society.

Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#13
post #4

"Mom's Across America" is a well known science denying hotbed who stoke fear of GMOs, chemicals, and vaccines. They don't care whether or not glyphosate is safe or not. They care that impossible foods is getting headlines, and they want to get a piece of it by introducing FUD. Impossible is 100% right to do a hard reply to this. These people aren't interested in honest debate or product safety and the world needs to…

That's a strong allegation. Why do you believe it?

Go and read the response from Impossible Burger. They take the MAA article and highlight the sections with their direct response. It becomes clear that they do not care about the accuracy of their claims.

Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#15

Direct link to response: https://assets.ctfassets.net/hhv516v5f7sj/77NQsg1qDb6d9Hi4PB...

If this is really interesting enough to discuss on HN, the story should link directly here, not to the blogspammed version on Care2.

The actual Impossible Foods response is savage and sort of entertaining. I'm not a fan of Impossible but my respect for them went up a notch after reading this.

Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#16
post #11
post #9

This isn't helpful. I don't like use of pesticides and I think there's a reasonable controversy to be had about the dangers of Glyphosate. But the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous, we should welcome every possible alternative. Whatever the Glyphosate (and GMO) concerns are, they are tiny in comparison.

Kind of like the conspiracy theory that some conspiracy theories are made up by governments to make theorists look ridiculous, sometimes I wonder if science-blind anti-GMO sentiment was manufactured by these big agriculture companies to draw legitimate attention away from truly studying the pesticides we're using.

That was the first thought I had when I saw the title of the organization "Moms Across America". Sounds like it was named by a corporate team of lawyers, PR and Marketing professionals for politically charged yet monetarily motivated attacks against "ankle biter" companies.

Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#17
It seems that at some dosage of glyphosate, the gut microbiome would be altered in a way that would make it more hospitable to pathogenic bacteria and less hospitable to beneficial bacteria. The real question is what is the shape of this dose curve. How much glyphosate is needed to shift the relative proportion of beneficial to harmful bacteria 1%, or 5%?

Probably much more than found in Impossible burgers, but it would be nice to have more research on glyphosate's effects on the human gut. Does chronic ingestion of glyphosate from unwashed raw produce have any statistically significant effect on the human gut?

"The presented results evidence that the highly pathogenic bacteria as Salmonella Entritidis, Salmonella Gallinarum, Salmonella Typhimurium, Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium botulinum are highly resistant to glyphosate. However, most of beneficial bacteria as Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Bacillus badius, Bifidobacterium adolescentis and Lactobacillus spp. were found to be moderate to highly susceptible."

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Awad_Shehata/publicatio...

Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#18
post #9

This isn't helpful. I don't like use of pesticides and I think there's a reasonable controversy to be had about the dangers of Glyphosate. But the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous, we should welcome every possible alternative. Whatever the Glyphosate (and GMO) concerns are, they are tiny in comparison.

>> "the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous"

Reference, please.

In case you haven't seen what industrial plants agriculture looks like nowadays:

https://www.ecowatch.com/europes-dirty-little-secret-morocca...

The anti-meat propaganda is getting obnoxious. The most sustainable agriculture is one in which the soil is fertilised with manure and rotated livestock, because grazing animals keep the soil healthy and meat keeps us healthy, because we are omnivores.

We might need to discourage CAFOs by cutting the corn subsidies and by raising their environmental taxes, which will raise the price of meat, but we also need to use less pesticides and artificial fertilisers, because we are heavily polluting the soil, the water supply and killing the bees, which should drive up the cost of fruits and vegetables too.

And from ecological, to health and ethical considerations, most pro-vegan arguments (not all) are bullshit. The next time you're happy about not killing animals and being eco-friendly, see this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/songbirds-death-to...

Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#19
post #4

"Mom's Across America" is a well known science denying hotbed who stoke fear of GMOs, chemicals, and vaccines. They don't care whether or not glyphosate is safe or not. They care that impossible foods is getting headlines, and they want to get a piece of it by introducing FUD. Impossible is 100% right to do a hard reply to this. These people aren't interested in honest debate or product safety and the world needs to…

I'm still completely baffled by people like this. Why do they even exist? What do they have to gain by spreading misinformation about something like an alternative-meat burger? Are they just incredibly stupid? Do they value getting headlines over the health and wellbeing of people? What is it? I'm completely lost here.

Re: Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

#20

If I recall correctly, the Glyphosate cancer allegations come from farmers who inhaled it day in and day out for years - a totally different ingestion model from eating it in small amounts.

They also came from farmers who were using glyphosate solutions that included many other chemicals, and no doubt came into contact with a variety of other pesticides. A direct link between glyphosate and actual illness has not been established.
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