Hacker News Reader

Comment by oxide | Hacker News Reader

A couple I know who avoid GMO products have a few things in common with others I've seen saying the same things: Ignorance of what a GMO really is, a deep distrust of corporate interests/government regulators and a strange, unearned trust placed in those selling "organic" products.

It costs them a premium, but they say they're doing it for their children. I can't argue against it to their faces, but quietly I wonder if they wouldn't be more financially free if they weren't so willingly chained to 7 dollar gallons of milk.

View on HN

The tricky thing is it's very hard to really be on top of all the evidence, so we rely on some signaling. The "granola" crowd tends to place unearned trust in organic or non-GMO products, but the "science" crowd tends to place unearned trust in methodologically suspect corporate studies with a clear conflict of interest.

I'm pretty much right down the middle on this stuff, but I tend to regard the latter as a bigger problem simply because the amount of money and lobbying involved. Think of the amount of money to be made by increasing grain yields by 1%, can we really expect industry to determine objectively that a higher yield grain is nutritionally equivalent?

I think that is unfair to the science crowd. I consider myself part of them, and I am highly suspicious of corporate interests.

Of course with the commercialization of public institutions and the insane pressure to publish, one can not trust scientific publications as well as before. What is it 60% of life science publications can't be reproduced?

There is a real need for change in system, so we can trust research more. I think the capitalistic thinking has ruined science. One looks at science as some production process which needs to increase yield. Thus one ends up focusing on quantity rather than quality.

I'd rather see a lot fewer publications and stuff of actual quality which can be reproduced than what is going on now.

In regards to organic produce, imagine how much money the producer can make by charging a lot extra. Organic does not necessarily mean better for health or environment, in fact in some cases organic may be even be worse

https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/organictext.html

>Organic does not necessarily mean better for health or environment //

I don't see how you can say that for the later case - most of the requirements mentioned here (for example) http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/index_en for Organic food seem like they would be better for the environment.

In take of less potent and lower quantities of non-food chemicals used as pesticides, herbicides and reduced presence of antibiotics seem like things that would lead to better human health (either directly or indirectly) too.

Can you explain how focus on a local supply chain, say, as one element of Organic farming practice is detrimental to either of those things, [human] health or environment?

Example: some GMO crops are more tolerant of compacted soil and weed competition, reducing the need to till the soil. Tilling the soil requires enormous amounts of diesel fuel, with obvious bad environmental implications. By reducing the use of diesel, the GMO crops help the environment.

Oh, you don't even have to accept global warming to see how using diesel to till the soil can cause harm. Particulate matter in the air is really harmful. (both the diesel exhaust and the soil getting churned up into the air) Disturbed soil runs off into streams, leading to dead zones. Competition for crude oil seems to support war, which has lots of bad effects on the environment.

So... eat GMO to save the environment.

Tilling the soil is not needed if you practice organic permaculture farming.

That way we get reduced productivity, meaning we need to devote more land to crops and less to wilderness or whatever. Also, what you can do in a labor-intensive garden is not going to produce affordable food for billions.

From the source I have given:

> A recent study compared the effectiveness of a rotenone-pyrethrin mixture versus a synthetic pesticide, imidan. Rotenone and pyrethrin are two common organic pesticides; imidan is considered a "soft" synthetic pesticide (i.e., designed to have a brief lifetime after application, and other traits that minimize unwanted effects). It was found that up to 7 applications of the rotenone- pyrethrin mixture were required to obtain the level of protection provided by 2 applications of imidan.

> It seems unlikely that 7 applications of rotenone and pyrethrin are really better for the environment than 2 applications of imidan, especially when rotenone is extremely toxic to fish and other aquatic life.

I know it is anecdotal evidence, but organic farmers would not care if the fertilizer/pesticide made from mined minerals are better/worse for the environment or not as long as it passes the "organic" criteria. A rather more useful criteria IMO would be "relatively harmless to the environment"

> Can you explain how focus on a local supply chain, say, as one element of Organic farming practice is detrimental to either of those things, [human] health or environment?

http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local...

"Forsaking comparative advantage in agriculture by localizing means it will take more inputs to grow a given quantity of food, including more land and more chemicals—all of which come at a cost of carbon emissions."

You talk like the "GMO industry" unilaterally makes decisions. They put out studies, these studies can be (and are) critiqued by public scientists. Further, no "industry" is charged with regulating the quality and safety of our food--that's the job of the FDA. The science camp is at least making evidence-based decisions, whereas the "granola" folks are dismissing everything for fear of hypothetical methodological errors (all the while ignoring that the organic food industry is still an industry complete with its own incentives). As far as I'm concerned, this debate is a mirror of the vaccination debate or the climate debate with (perhaps) lower stakes.

> this debate is a mirror of the vaccination debate

The two seem to be polar opposites to me. In the case of vaccines, you have thousands of years of history that demonstrates the danger of diseases and recent history showing how effective vaccines are. Those arguing against vaccines need to show serious harm caused before it would cancel out the benefits.

In the case of GMO foods, history argues against the technology. We know that non-GMO food is healthy. We have thousands of years of evidence to support that fact. The problems GMO are solving are on the producer's side, not the consumer's.

You can argue that the problem being solved is providing enough food to feed everyone and that history also shows the devastating effects of famine and starvation, but there are other ways to solve that problem that have none of the risks of GMO foods (less reliance on meats, for example, would make much more efficient use of our agricultural resources). Show me an alternative way of dealing with measles, flu, tetanus, hep and all the other illnesses we vaccinate that's even half as effective as vaccines and I'll concede that the two debates are similar.

In the case of GMOs, history absolutely argues for the technology.

If you don't believe in the safety of "unnatural" foods, you'll need to stop eating corn, bananas, beef, pork, and any other domesticated plant or animal. Recent history has shown that GMOs are much more precise and effective at domesticating plants for our purposes.

Why are you quoting "GMO industry" when that's not even a phrase I used?

I put it in quotes because I'm not sure if this is a recognized term or if I just coined it. I didn't intend to misrepresent you, but I can see how it could be read as such. Apologies.

Your comment gave me an interesting thought: how would a labeling system that describes exactly which modifications were made to the organism in question work?

There current argument du jour about GM has to do with things like the Arctic apple, which doesn't turn brown when it's sliced, due to silencing several genes[1] - this sidesteps the usual "but now there are fish genes in my tomato!" as nothing has been added, just removed.

1: http://www.arcticapples.com/how-did-we-make-nonbrowning-appl...

But.. there's no "save the earth" argument for this GMO modification, just a mild convenience.

I achieve the same thing by slicing apples with ceramic instead of metal. Think of how much I saved on R&D!

I think the non-browning modification also helps protect the apples during transportation, which in turn reduces waste (since fewer apples will reach the store in a damaged, non-consumer friendly state). Reducing waste _is_ "saving the earth" :)

Interesting post, thanks. This certainly begs the questions of if/how it would be possible to concisely (or even not so concisely) convey this information to consumers.

This work for me. Why do all the rebuttals here consist of throwing hands in air and exhaspirating, "Where will it end?" We are talking about the future of our food and the huge profits that stand to be made. We should never stop testing these products.

And where does it end? What if the main product isn't GMO, but some small part of the additives in the product were GMO?

To be quite clear, personally I'm 100% pro-GMO. But that's because I believe the benefits that can be realized outweigh the risks. However, in this case I'm simply curious from both a packaging/product design and regulatory point of view: how would this work? I agree it would have to stop somewhere.

Part of my biggest issue is that a company can patent the gene modifications they make and then say, "You're eating our proprietary cucumber now." I understand their business model, but I think if anything should be "open source", it should be our food.

> Part of my biggest issue is that a company can patent the gene modifications they make

Also the results of non-GMO breeding can be, and have been patented.

> but I tend to regard the latter as a bigger problem simply because the amount of money and lobbying involved

As the current US presidential election has shown, when money and lobbying collides with emotions and FUD, the latter wins every time, and thus I consider the latter a bigger problem.

Think of all the lives to be saved by increasing grain yields by 1%.

As a members of a CSA (Community supported agriculture) I trust my supplier of my organic food, because I am part of it. I do not pay a premium compared to traditional supermarket products. But I enjoy a superior quality. But, since I am a prosumer the whole food supply process is quite different.

Similarly, I live in VT and have small food producers and farmers all around me. These products are also available in grocery stores, but when you can qualitatively observe the differences between the land and growing practices of GMO farmers and organic farmers, the choices are not presented in such a flat way as when lined up on a shelf.

I doubt the general public is qualified to decide which practices are better than others. For example, I grew up on a farm, but I couldn't tell you if free-range eggs are safer or healthier than eggs from caged birds. Nor could I tell you if chemical-free produce is safer than organic. Nor could I tell you if antibiotic-free meat is safer or healthier than "regular" meat. I can tell you what I've heard from my pro-GMO family and my anti-GMO friends, but without diving deeply into the studies and counter studies, it would be hard to draw an informed conclusion.

Isn't there a moral aspect of this? Shouldn't you treat the animal you are "consuming" as good as possible?

Probably, but even here I doubt the public is qualified to make this call. The canonical example is a sow pen which has just enough room for a sow to lay down while she nurses her piglets; this is actually better for the animals because it prevents the sow (~800 lbs) from crushing her piglets (~5 lbs); however, laypeople see an animal rights violation.

Sure. But remember the main topic here is plants, and there are no moral considerations there.

What, you don't think plants have feelings?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/peter-wo...

I can imagine you have more sympathy for animals than plants since they are more like us, but I suspect bias if you use that as a basis for morality.

> free-range eggs are safer or healthier than eggs from caged birds.

This makes absolutely no sense. "free-range" is a question about chicken health, not egg safety.

Please note that I never made that claim; I simply observed it.

> I do not pay a premium compared to traditional supermarket products

Is this comparing with organic products, or also non-organic? What is a "prosumer" in the food/grocery sense? I'm not familiar with the term in that context.

It is hard to compare, since the distinct food item does not have a price. You pay the farmer collective a slice of their yearly budget in terms of money or work and get a slice of the yearly production. Furthermore the CSA produces food / varieties that are not even available or comparable in terms of quality in the supermarket. But one member weighted the outcome of one years production and compared it to typical supermarket prices of similar products and found out that the CSA was actually cheaper.

The community is sharing their money or work to keep the agriculture running. They are actively engaged in their food production and therefore prosumers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agricultur...

So "prosumer" is a portmanteau of "producer" and "consumer"? Just want to clarify because in most/many contexts, it's "professional" and "consumer".

Sounds like price comparison is an open question, unless there are more definitive/rigorous comparisons out there. At the very least, it sounds like there's a tradeoff between quality and selection (when you walk into a supermarket you can choose to buy whatever you want, whereas a CSA is limited to what's currently being harvested at a particular farm).

I'd certainly be open to making this tradeoff for some of my food, though when I've had CSA deliveries redirected to me by neighbors on vacation, I found that much of the food (even oranges, which I think of as moderately durable) went bad within just a few days.

"whereas a CSA is limited to what's currently being harvested at a particular farm"

That turned out to be an big advantage of the CSA for me. It is very satisfactory to be in natures rhythm, be engaged in the growing of things I eat and therefore in the growing of myself. I learned a lot of new products and recipes I even did not know exists.

A CSA isn't necessarily a co-op or farming collective or anything like that, though--it's a way to increase the small farmer's revenue, thereby enabling more expensive means of production / better quality / different goals, by cutting out the middlemen--isn't that so?

I don't see how you could avoid paying a premium since, by definition, the organic growers are less efficient.

You bypass most of the usual supply chain by buying from local farmers directly.

See http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ for an in-depth explanation of the concept.

It isn't necessarly the case : permaculture has very high yields and low costs compared to oil-based agriculture.

I eat GMO food all the time, but organic milk is so damn delicious. It's the one thing I'll splurge on. Even 1% tastes as good as normal whole milk imo. The rest tastes the same to me shrugs

Dairy products are highly variant, depending on what the cows are fed. If it's organic, it's possible that it's also grass-fed or something along those lines.

You can always tell when the cows switch between grass and silage in the spring and fall. Milk tastes like garbage for a week or two until they get sorted out.

This one tastes like it the cow got into an onion patch.

That sort of thing is a major concern for selling goat's milk. Bad things can also happen with hormonal changes when the billy and nanny goats are allowed together.

That's an intentional product in central Europe, believe it or not.

My understanding is that this is partially due to different pasteurization processes. Organic milk is heated at a higher temperature and for less time, than the pasteurization process used for non-organic milk. This carmelizes the sugars in the organic milk, making it sweeter. The process is also the reason why organic milk lasts longer on the store shelf.

See this article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-organic-m...

It's actually for the same reason that a placebo is good: a but more sugar.

I try to almost exclusively eat organic products. It's not really about the taste or even much about my own health. The real benefit is to the environment where the plants are grown. The overuse of herbicides, pesticides, and antibiotics can destroy the natural ecology of an area.

You do realize organic farming uses significantly more pesticides, right? [1].

[1] https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/organictext.html

Interesting link, I'm admittedly not that educated on this. However, not all organic farms use more pesticides. Some hardly use any pesticides at all.

What is the most sustainable and ecologically friendly way to get food then? Local farms, farmers markets, or growing your own food seems like the best but I don't think that's sustainable for the whole population.

> Some hardly use any pesticides at all.

Citation? I can't imagine they would use little or none unless they were farming something specific, like rice, which can grow under water or if it's grown indoors.

> What is the most sustainable and ecologically friendly way to get food then? Local farms, farmers markets, or growing your own food seems like the best but I don't think that's sustainable for the whole population.

So I'm having trouble finding the study I read a few years back but it essentially found that large, centralized farms are the most efficient because our transportation has gotten so good and many plants grow better in specific climates versus growing everything locally. So if you have enough scale then centralized, huge farms seems to be the way to go.

However that's using today's farming. I've seen many write-ups calling for entire buildings with hundreds of floors for farming. If we can get those energy efficient then we should be able to create the perfect climate for each plant and we'll be taking up vertical space so it'll be better land usage too.

Though that would suck if power died from, say, a solar flare and all of our food was in these towers...heh

I'll cite myself on this one. I've worked on two organic farms, both in very different environments (CA & FL), and neither used more than a trivial (or less) amount of pesticide. Regarding your difficulty imagining using less pesticides unless a monoculture; well, it's been the opposite in my experience - it's daunting just to think of listing everything grown on the farm in FL. And contrary to the many comments here asserting the inefficiency and unreasonable cost of organic farming, I have yet to observe much to corroborate. As for the quality of product, it's excellent, well beyond mere subjectivity.

Here you go about the absence of pesticides : http://www.fermedubec.com/publications.aspx

Basically, french state's scientific body reviewed this organic permaculture farm for 4 years. They do not use pesticides, do not use thermic engines, and are so productive that it allows farmers to earn the median french salary while doing 35h/week on average.

How? No tilling of the soils. Worms do it for you. No weeds, since the soil is always cultivated, leaving no room for them. No need for a lot of fertilisers : the organic soil is actually growing from the constant adjunction of carbon, and beans are fixing the nitrogen in the soil. No need for excessive watering : the soil retains humidity. Etc...

Science, guys.

> Citation? I can't imagine they would use little or none unless they were farming something specific, like rice, which can grow under water or if it's grown indoors.

I don't really have a source for that more than anecdotal evidence. I've been involved with local farms that don't use any pesticides, however they were on the scale of ~5-15 acres. On a commercial scale it's probably not really possible. And organic food you'd buy in a supermarket is definitely not grown in this way.

The link you provided also only mentions two types of organic pesticides when there are thousands of USDA approved organic pesticides. I'm sure there are some USDA Organic pesticides that are just as harmful if not more so than some conventional pesticides but that's really just an argument for better USDA regulations.

>So I'm having trouble finding the study I read a few years back but it essentially found that large, centralized farms are the most efficient because our transportation has gotten so good and many plants grow better in specific climates versus growing everything locally. So if you have enough scale then centralized, huge farms seems to be the way to go.

I'm sure that large, centralized farms are most efficient in the short term. But long term effects on food production and soil could offset that. If in 50 years the soil is nutritionally drained and farms have to continue to pump more nutrients in then the cost and effeciency is going to drop. [1][2]

I think near-term, some combination is required because the level of food production needed is so high. Long-term, incorporating more sustainable practices into commercial scale farms or moving production into greenhouses like you mentioned is a better idea.

I'll add that after doing more research today, the label "Organic" doesn't mean better for the environment. That much is now clear to me. However, sustainable farming practices that can usually be found a small-local farms and backyard gardens are more environmentally friendly. Though scaling that for worldwide production is a difficult problem.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4552827/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160305010056/https://nature.be...

Organic is bad for the environment because it's unsustainable. It's purely a luxury product.

Lol let's just burn the forests! Organic forest is so bad for the environment!

A deep distrust of corporate interests and government regulators is not only healthy, it's the only sane position to take if you look at even recent history. People have already forgotten about the lead scandal in Michigan.

>>It seems like folks buying into the GMO conspiracy are often the same folks who buy into any conspiracy.

I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. Just like the right-wing has their anti-government extremists, the left-wing has their anti-corporate extremists. However, the latter group is interesting in the sense that they actually think science is on their side.

I axed that a few minutes ago, it seemed a little harsh.

sorry to anyone who was confused by my edit.

Non-GMO or pro organic may have most of their stuff sourced from big corporations. I don't know about you, but most of the organic food in my grocery store comes from massive corporations...

You're conflating a few issues. Organic food is more than just GMO-free. With regards to milk and meat, I can easily understand that people would want to avoid the hormones and antibiotics used excessively in conventional farming. I know there is scant evidence for these to be harmful to the consumer of the product. But at the very least you're helping a bit to avoid the coming super-resistant bacterial infections.

From what I've observed, people buying organic may be wrong about organic food specifically, but they pretty obviously have something else figured out. They cook fresh food every day, they eat together as a family (often with friends), none of them are overweight. For them, cooking and eating are a social activity and O can't escape the observation that they're happier than those families eating a 20pc chicken nuggets box in front of the TV.

There are organic and local small tomatoes and white raisin in my house and when I have people coming by and eating them they always are amazed how it tastes much better than anything they ever bought at the super market(?).

I live in Europe though and we don't seem to suffer yet from the hostility of anti-organic people.

I'd wager that the reason for the difference in taste is in the freshness.

It is difficult to farm at scale and sell produce year round across a continent; time to consumption is a luxury beaten out of it at that scale and food often suffers under it. Only the varieties of tomatoes, etc. that can withstand changing temperatures and conditions, make it to market weeks later, and still look good enough to sell will be used, and these are often not as flavorful both initially and after several weeks.

...and a strange, unearned trust placed in those selling "organic" products.

Why is it "strange and unearned"? In many states / countries there are specific regulations that qualify what can be labelled "organic" or not (having to do largely with whether certain classes of pesticides or fertilizer were used in their production or not, for example).

Are you saying that pesticides in the food chain are complete red herring, and that any concern about them is "strange and unearned"? I'm not sure I quite follow you, actually.

Pesticides are used on organic food too. Often they use much larger volumes of less effective pesticides to compensate.

The non-use of pesticides can be a problem too - there was an outbreak of a dangerous E. coli strain in Germany 2011 due to a contaminated organic farm. (Interestingly, the E. coli in question had acquired a few extra genes encoding for the toxin from another E. coli strain, natural GM)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_o...

Just because the outbreak occurred on an organic farm... doesn't mean it was "caused by" the lack of pesticide use (or any other cultivation practices, per se). In fact, as to that particular outbreak, the very WP page you cite says:

Using epidemiological methods the outbreaks in 2011 were traced to a shipment of seeds from Egypt that arrived in Germany in December 2009.

Citing as a source:

http://phys.org/news/2012-02-insight-whole-genome-sequencing...

You cite "ignorance of what a GMO really is" - what do you think they're misinformed about?

So my guilty pleasure is Big Brother (US version) and I watched recently as the "houseguests" were reading product labels (they get very bored in that house) and began discussing what GMOs were. They all agreed they were terrible. None of them had a clue what they were ("it's like chemicals or something, I think. Yeah.") Given two products on a shelf, one labeled "non-GMO", they would blindly choose that one.

I imagine this is most of America.

Almost every person I know who is on the organic bandwagon are very insistent, despite the evidence I have provided them, that organic food uses no pesticides and is better for you because it's "natural" whereas GMOs are made by companies who only care about money and are not tested enough and even if they were tested enough they could still do something bad because "you never know".

Ultimately it comes down to an ignorance in how the farming process works and an ignorance in how genetics work when modifying plants either in a laboratory or though breading.

I've also never met a person who supports organic who also knew about the practice of using radioactivity to cause random mutations in organic farming.

All of the above reasons are why I stopped engaging with the aforementioned "natural fallacy" folks long ago. It's painful, and seems to get nowhere regardless of how many facts are throw at them.

"seems to get nowhere regardless of how many facts are throw at them."

If you're engaging someone who doesn't agree with you on an issue, purely throwing facts at them is very unlikely to convince them of your point, and is going to end up frustrating both sides. Human psychology just doesn't work that way. We're not purely rational, evidence-based beings.

How much time have you taken to understand their positions and the reasons they hold them? Are they just irrational? Ignorant? Obstinate? Willfully uneducated? If you think this is the case, how can you convince them anyway? After all, they're irrational, ignorant, obstinate, and willfully uneducated :)

If you can understand (that's not necessarily the same as agree with) where they're coming from, that goes a long way towards understanding how you can reach some kind of shared understanding and agreement where none existed before. That might seem like it's a slower process, and takes too much time. But if it actually works, and the other method (throwing facts) doesn't, it's actually accomplished something.

There's a lot of contentious issues right now that are very important for us to reconcile. Working on skills like this, figuring out how to come to agreements and compromises, working solutions, is vital.

I am absolutely awful at this but you're completely right. I've never had facts change anyone's mind but at the same time I've been told I'm a "robot" regarding emotions so I have changed my mind in the past but I don't think that makes me better. In fact it seems I may be deficient in emotions compared to many that I interact with.

So I _try_ to figure out where they're coming from and relate to it. But I can never do it. I've never figured out a way to argue with someone in a productive way.

In fact if you know of any good reads on the topic I'd love to check them out. I've been told I'm not empathetic enough though I try to be and I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I have a really hard time with this, too. I've seen the problems it's caused me personally and in the US with its crippling polarization. There have been some discussions around HN recently:

- Crocker's Rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12881288

- Principle of Charity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12774600

- Rapaport's Rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12774692

I also found Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind"[0] really worthwhile. I mean to read it again in the next week or so. What I find particularly impressive with his work is that he found that his research actually changed his own thinking.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt

And you know, re-reading your response "I've never had facts change anyone's mind", I think even if you don't change someone's mind at the time, finding some common ground, something you agree on is a worthwhile accomplishment. Sometimes it seems the gulf between us is so large. Recognizing that it might not be is reassuring.

I hope you find these useful!

Thanks! I'll definitely look through these.

I mean the reality is right in the name -- I'm sure that you can find enough uninformed people to make a shame-video, but you could do that for any topic. My suspicion is that they distrust the primary sources because they have significant lobbying power and a strong financial incentive to push the product regardless of the long term effects or societal harm it might cause.

Not OP, but I get the impression a lot of anti-GMO folks think that GMO crops are synthetic, irradiated, mutant organisms when in fact they are still just conventionally-grown, chemically-organic plants.

In other words, nutters think GMOs are Spiderman when they're actually just Batman.

Moreover, irradiated mutant plants (and those produced by exposure to chemical mutagens) are not GMOs, and qualify for organic labelling.

Try asking the typical anti-GMOer what a GMO is and you'll get your answer. To start with, many don't know what GMO stands for or the basic concept of recombinant genetics.

While perhaps a bit of a hyperbole, this video lines up pretty well with me real-world experience (unfortunately): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzEr23XJwFY

I suspect most GMO opponents thing GMO is some kind of substance that the food contains.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com