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No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

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Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#31

Post by jfoutz »

bogger wrote: post #22
kintamanimatt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with any of those things? None of those things are harmful.

Expecting downvotes for this: I strongly suspect that hormones in meat make Americans bigger. I am from Europe. I have met many Americans both of whose parents were born in my country. They don't look like us. My perception is that on average they are significantly bigger, and are both taller and broader than is normal in my country. I don't know if this has health implications, but I would rather not eat meat which…

I'm not a doctor, so i wouldn't claim your theory is impossible. But we americans have a horrible diet, and we eat tons of food. I can't say much about height, but breadth comes from 1300 calorie fast food lunches.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#32

Post by kintamanimatt »

bogger wrote: post #22
kintamanimatt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with any of those things? None of those things are harmful.

Expecting downvotes for this: I strongly suspect that hormones in meat make Americans bigger. I am from Europe. I have met many Americans both of whose parents were born in my country. They don't look like us. My perception is that on average they are significantly bigger, and are both taller and broader than is normal in my country. I don't know if this has health implications, but I would rather not eat meat which…

I'm under the impression you're from Ireland judging by your username. Kids and adolescents that are well fed tend to grow more than those that aren't, and portion size in the US tends to be substantially greater than elsewhere, especially Europe. Also, there seems to be a greater focus on working out for aesthetic reasons in the US. All of this is, however, does appear to be changing, and moving more toward an American norm. You may also be suffering from confirmation bias! Or, you're right and something in American food is affecting growth rates, but there doesn't appear to be a lot of evidence to support this notion.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#33

Post by lclarkmichalek »

bogger wrote: post #22
kintamanimatt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with any of those things? None of those things are harmful.

Expecting downvotes for this: I strongly suspect that hormones in meat make Americans bigger. I am from Europe. I have met many Americans both of whose parents were born in my country. They don't look like us. My perception is that on average they are significantly bigger, and are both taller and broader than is normal in my country. I don't know if this has health implications, but I would rather not eat meat which…

Well you will get downvotes if you don't actually provide any evidence beyond "he looks funny". The whole beef hormone controvosy is complete bullshit; the EU has lost cases against the US & Canada in the WTO twice now, both times for lack of scientific evidence behind their decision. The ban happened when Europe was wrestling with mad cow disease, which in no small part influenced the populance against the scientific method with regards to food saftey. This, along with the fact that MEP's had recently been elected for the first time, made the decision almost entirely populist. The EU has _never_ justified the ban scientifically.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#34

Post by scott_s »

bogger wrote: post #22
kintamanimatt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with any of those things? None of those things are harmful.

Expecting downvotes for this: I strongly suspect that hormones in meat make Americans bigger. I am from Europe. I have met many Americans both of whose parents were born in my country. They don't look like us. My perception is that on average they are significantly bigger, and are both taller and broader than is normal in my country. I don't know if this has health implications, but I would rather not eat meat which…

This phenomenon has been studied, but is currently thought to be because of lifestyle differences. See "The Health Toll of Immigration": http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/health/the-health-toll-of-...

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#35

Post by mitchty »

notdang wrote: post #27
kintamanimatt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with any of those things? None of those things are harmful.

They don't taste good.

What doesn't "taste good"? Almost all modern food is Genetically Modified at some level, all meat has hormones as well so not sure specifically what constitues tasting good with that.

Are you saying hormones make things taste bad? Have you blind A-B tested that assumption? Same for "GM" food? Also what exactly is constituted as GM? Is Corn a GM food or still "natural" because we just used selective pressure and chose what populations of maize was able to continue to the next iteration?

To be honest the Sturm und Drang over GM foods while seeminly well meaning seems to belie similarities to the climate change deniers. If humans do it it somehow is implicitly bad, but almost all modern food isn't "natural", assuming we define natural as without impact from humanity. (yes the link is tenuous, but its similar to zombie stories being tales of human hubris gone awry, and alien invasions being worries of the unknown. GM being our hubris, climate change being fear of the unknown or inability to be able to control our future)

If the arguments against GM for example are against terminator genes, sure valid, but even if those genes spread, I doubt they'll get selected for too long in the wild.

In addition, without the option of GM foods, how does everyone propose we feed an ever increasing population of humans without impacting the environment any more than we already have? I personally foresee insects and other alternative protein sources as an inevitability. What is being proposed as alternatives that will scale to the sizes we need? I'm honestly curious here despite how the tone of my post might come off but anti GM foods in general strikes me as the same strain of anti-science as anti-climate change. Sure be conservative with changes, but most GM is pretty mundane.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#36

Post by lclarkmichalek »

jbcurtin2 wrote: post #30
kintamanimatt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with any of those things? None of those things are harmful.

You're not serious, are you? Cows are fed corn feed to bulk them for slaughter weight sooner. If the cow ended up not being slaughtered it would end up dying due to disease. Antibiotics keep it alive in order to get it to our plates. The whole american food industry is ...ked. I dread the day we start producing GMO'd rice. - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1112115/

Where am I meant to make the logical leap to "this is a bad thing"? Keeping a cow healthy prior to it being slaughtered seems like a good thing, as far as I can tell, and I don't know of any great evils coming from corn feed, other than the increased land and water cost. The use of antibiotics is something I have my own concerns on, but I fail to see what it has to do with GMO rice and feeding cows corn.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#37

Post by kintamanimatt »

jbcurtin2 wrote: post #30
kintamanimatt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with any of those things? None of those things are harmful.

You're not serious, are you? Cows are fed corn feed to bulk them for slaughter weight sooner. If the cow ended up not being slaughtered it would end up dying due to disease. Antibiotics keep it alive in order to get it to our plates. The whole american food industry is ...ked. I dread the day we start producing GMO'd rice. - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1112115/

All cows that aren't slaughtered end up dying from disease or old age. Antibiotics prevent the spread of disease and aren't harmful in and of themselves, but their overuse can lead to resistant bacteria. And I'm not sure why you'd have a problem with genetically modified rice if it would increase the food supply safely. ll of these things have been relatively well studied and there appears to be no evidence to support any indication that this these practices are harmful to humans.

There are so many people that take a fearful view without evidence, but such fears are scientifically unfounded.

Also, movies and TV aren't necessarily great sources of information. They're entertainment first and foremost, and to put it charitably, not always especially factually accurate.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#38

Post by Kylekramer »

wazoox wrote: post #6

Frankly, I can't see a single good reason for this trade agreement, and a lot of good reasons against, starting with that I (and all other Europeans) don't want GM food, hormone beef and chlorinated chicken in my plate any day soon.

An anti-GMO comment is the top comment on a story about US spying? This place is starting to veer into Alex Jones territory.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#39

Post by bogger »

lclarkmichalek wrote: post #33
bogger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting downvotes for this: I strongly suspect that hormones in meat make Americans bigger. I am from Europe. I have met many Americans both of whose parents were born in my country. They don't look like us. My perception is that on average they are significantly bigger, and are both taller and broader than is normal in my country. I don't know if this has health implications, but I would rather not eat meat which…

Well you will get downvotes if you don't actually provide any evidence beyond "he looks funny". The whole beef hormone controvosy is complete bullshit; the EU has lost cases against the US & Canada in the WTO twice now, both times for lack of scientific evidence behind their decision. The ban happened when Europe was wrestling with mad cow disease, which in no small part influenced the populance against the scientifi…

I don't have evidence that hormones in beef affect humans. Do you have evidence that they don't? Personally I would rather not eat it without such evidence.

I just quickly googled and found this on the website of the American Public Health Association: "By contrast, the US government position is that hormone residues in beef from adult cattle pose no threat to human health. This assumption of safety, however, has remained untested by long-term epidemiologic studies and instead relies on dated research concerning the ability of estrogen (estradiol) to mutate genes. This policy fails to reflect more recent research that hormones and hormonally active chemicals may exert their toxicity instead via epigenetic changes.12,23"

Source: http://www.apha.org/advocacy/policy/policysearch/default.htm...

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#40

Post by ihsw »

Kylekramer wrote: post #38
wazoox wrote: post #6

Frankly, I can't see a single good reason for this trade agreement, and a lot of good reasons against, starting with that I (and all other Europeans) don't want GM food, hormone beef and chlorinated chicken in my plate any day soon.

An anti-GMO comment is the top comment on a story about US spying? This place is starting to veer into Alex Jones territory.

I may not be able to speak for anybody else but I find the GMO debate has many parties with multiple (even conflicting) goals. Personally the primary opposition I have with GMO is the very murky patent environment. It's no secret that Monsanto engages in patent warfare and manipulates legal systems across the world to stamp out competition.

GMO foods can bring about a revolution to the world because it's an interesting intersection between engineering and biology.

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