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Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

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Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#31

Post by DVassallo »

batbomb wrote: post #15
DVassallo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With “natural” I mean natural for humans to eat them. Those foods can be assumed safe because, by definition, they have been eaten by humans for hundreds of thousands of years. Can you say the same thing for GM food?

Can you name one item at an organic grocery store that was eaten by modern humans even 50000 years ago?

Yes: meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts... Quite a lot.

It doesn’t have to be 50000 years. For example: I trust that drinking cow milk won’t kill me even though it hasn’t been common for long. Can’t say the same for GM food.

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#32

Post by rorykoehler »

StrangeDoctor wrote: post #30
hedora wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re doing this so they can irresponsibly dump roundup on the soy plants without killing them. Roundup is a non-specific herbicide, so this will damage the environment near the farms. Also, Roundup is almost certainly a carcinogen, and impossible burgers already have higher levels than competitors. I definitely won’t be buying any more of their product. Edit: Fun reading: https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreame…

A lot of GMO soy actually lets them use less additional roundup that would contribute to runoff. Edit: I was talking about run off specifically, not about the end product.

>The levels of glyphosate detected in the Impossible burger by Health Research Institute Laboratories were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat Burger.

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#33

Post by hedora »

samcat116 wrote: post #23
hedora wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re doing this so they can irresponsibly dump roundup on the soy plants without killing them. Roundup is a non-specific herbicide, so this will damage the environment near the farms. Also, Roundup is almost certainly a carcinogen, and impossible burgers already have higher levels than competitors. I definitely won’t be buying any more of their product. Edit: Fun reading: https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreame…

Do you have any evidence they plan on doing this?

As far as I know, this is the only reason to use GM (aka “roundup ready”) soy. The genetic modification only affects herbicide resistance.

If they’re using some other (uncommon/obscure) GM soy, they should have said so in the press release!

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#34

Post by Robotbeat »

samcat116 wrote: post #27
kybishop wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a celiac, I certainly don't. Even for those that aren't celiac, making the claim that gluten is healthy is dubious at best. I'd also imagine there are many more celiacs out there than those with soy allergies.

This. Gluten allergies or intolerance seem to be on the rise. Probably makes sense to exclude it if they wanna be the future of food.

Why would gluten allergies and intolerance be on the rise?

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

DVassallo wrote: post #12
ehmish wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think natural things are prima facie good ?

With “natural” I mean natural for humans to eat them. Those foods can be assumed safe because, by definition, they have been eaten by humans for hundreds of thousands of years. Can you say the same thing for GM food?

> Those foods can be assumed safe because, by definition, they have been eaten by humans for hundreds of thousands of years

Even prior to GM foods, humans have been engineering food to change it's traits for longer than civilization, and essentially everything humans eat today is a product of such engineering. GM foods differ systematically from other forms fo engineering only on the degree of precision and control possible (which is far from perfect, but much greater than any other known technique.)

Basically nothing humans eat today has been eaten for hundreds of thousands of years.

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

DVassallo wrote: post #31
batbomb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name one item at an organic grocery store that was eaten by modern humans even 50000 years ago?

Yes: meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts... Quite a lot. It doesn’t have to be 50000 years. For example: I trust that drinking cow milk won’t kill me even though it hasn’t been common for long. Can’t say the same for GM food.

> Yes: meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts...

Yes, but if you zoom out to categories that broad, GM food still fits within them. GM foods are not any less like foods eaten tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago than anything else we eat.

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#37

Post by pfdietz »

dehrmann wrote: post #13
mrbtc wrote: post #4

Related story: https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/gmo_impossible_burger_posi... > The levels of glyphosate detected in the Impossible burger by Health Research Institute Laboratories were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat Burger. The total result (glyphosate and it’s break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb. Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were 1 ppb. > “We are shocked to find that the Impos…

> Only 0.1 ppb of glyphosate has been shown to alter the gene function of over 4000 genes in the livers, kidneys and cause severe organ damage in rats How true is this? That number seems pretty low.

Sounds like utter bullshit to me. 0.1 ppb causing severe organ damage? This cannot possibly be true. The LD50 of glyphosate in rats is 5,600 mg/kg, or 56 million times that concentration.

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#38

Post by hedora »

mrbtc wrote: post #4

Related story: https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/gmo_impossible_burger_posi... > The levels of glyphosate detected in the Impossible burger by Health Research Institute Laboratories were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat Burger. The total result (glyphosate and it’s break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb. Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were 1 ppb. > “We are shocked to find that the Impos…

I linked it above too, but 1ppm (1000ppb) is the proposed EPA guideline, but 20x that is proposed for soybeans:

https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=EPA-H...

I’d be curious to hear what the guidelines are outside of north america.

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#39

Post by currymj »

mrbtc wrote: post #4

Related story: https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/gmo_impossible_burger_posi... > The levels of glyphosate detected in the Impossible burger by Health Research Institute Laboratories were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat Burger. The total result (glyphosate and it’s break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb. Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were 1 ppb. > “We are shocked to find that the Impos…

I don’t know but Moms Across America is 100% not a credible source for anything. If they’re right it’s a “stopped clock” situation.

Re: Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy

#40

Post by btown »

samcat116 wrote: post #23
hedora wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re doing this so they can irresponsibly dump roundup on the soy plants without killing them. Roundup is a non-specific herbicide, so this will damage the environment near the farms. Also, Roundup is almost certainly a carcinogen, and impossible burgers already have higher levels than competitors. I definitely won’t be buying any more of their product. Edit: Fun reading: https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreame…

Do you have any evidence they plan on doing this?

From the article: "94% of the soy grown in the US is genetically engineered to resist herbicide toxicity. This helps control weeds without more toxic weed control agents or over-reliance on tillage, which drives soil carbon loss."

And while GM soy itself is harmless (per the links in the article), the Roundup herbicide it enables is far less conclusive as to its health effects: see https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/monsanto-parent-company... and https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-toxic-is-the-...

It's very difficult to fully avoid produce treated by these products, and I doubt that Impossible Burger does anything to concentrate herbicide residue any more than any other processed foods. (EDIT: other links in these comments throw this into question.) And I respect that they've made a pragmatic compromise: their use of GM produce could truly move the needle on livestock consumption, whereas rejecting it could prevent market adoption of their entire category. They're making the best of a horrid situation; if you want to blame someone, blame Monsanto, not them.

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