Posted on 11/20/2015 8:56:40 AM PST by w1n1
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved genetically modified salmon, the first such altered animal allowed for human consumption in the United States.
The Obama administration had stalled in approving the fast-growing salmon for more than five years amid consumer concerns about eating genetically modified foods. But the agency said Thursday the fish is safe to eat.
In announcing the approval, the FDA said that there are "no biologically relevant differences in the nutritional profile of AquAdvantage Salmon compared to that of other farm-raised Atlantic salmon."
AquAdvantage Salmon was created by the Massachusetts-based company AquaBounty. Ron Stotish, the company's CEO, said in a statement that the fish is a "game changer that brings healthy and nutritious food to consumers in an environmentally responsible manner without damaging the ocean and other marine habitats."
The fish grows twice as fast as normal salmon, so it reaches market size more quickly. It has an added growth hormone from the Pacific Chinook salmon that allows the fish to produce growth hormone all year long. The engineers were able to keep the hormone active by using another gene from an eel-like fish called an ocean pout that acts like an "on" switch for the hormone. Typical Atlantic salmon produce the growth hormone for only part of the year. Read the rest of the story here.
Wild caught would avoid this, but some foods can only be farmed (when was the last time you ate wild caught beef?)
The product should be labeled.
Just like farm raised salmon, which I avoid.
FRANKENFISH
Exactly. Let the market decide. If it is bad, the business will fail. Gubmint shouldn’t be picking winners and losers. If you don’t like poison, don’t eat it.
Seems our government now keeps veering between venality and silly “liberal” panic.
As long as it doesn’t make them smarter. We’ve got salmon pens near our place and when the sea lions manage to open up a hole we get these fish swimming right up to the boat ramp expecting lunch. What they get is a net.
“Yes, and it’s so good for you that it’s important that it never be labeled as such. We wouldn’t want Mr. and Mrs. consumer to get the idea that they can make their own decisions about what to eat, now. Eat up, children.”
This is the liberal left nanny-state view. The view that adds laws and regulations when unnecessary, usually for ulterior reasons, political or economic etc...
Non-GMO food producers can label their food as non-GMO.
If you don’t want to buy GM food, buy food that is not GM.
Problem solved.
“If it tastes good I’ll eat the hell out of it.”
That is right. If it taste like most food sold to day; probably not.
I haven’t had a decent tomato in 30 years. A friend tells me it is because they pick them too early and not longer use enough cow manure.
If true, they are picked while still in bloom and are using cat shit for fertilizer.
As so often happens the cure is worse that the disease. On some level verifying the stuff being sold as food and medicine isn’t outright poison is a good thing. Unfortunately everything we do is done by people, fallible, grumpy, avarous people with all the problems that implies.
I don’t have a problem with FrankenFoods, just so long as they are labeled as such. I would also appreciate the label indicate the country of origin, for obvious reasons.
The Center for Food Safety and Nutrition is part of the FDA. They are the organization that tests and monitors food for human consumption, including the imports.
Yes but you missed the question which is not food safety and nutrition but potential affect on the environment which is separate from Safety in humans and nutrition of food.
See the post I had responded to.
So do I. I like to know what I’m eating. I get my beef from neighbor, grow my own veggies, and eat wild salmon. I avoid anything with the word China on the label.
“On some level verifying the stuff being sold as food and medicine isn’t outright poison is a good thing. “
It is a very good thing. And there was a lot of outright poison being sold as medicine or health enhancers which is why the FDA was formed in the first place.
This is one of the legitimate roles of government, unlike social engineering, wealth distribution etc...
The states, localities and the open market are the ones to deal with this stuff and would do a much better job. And no matter how much federal tyranny you allow, they still wouldn’t stop someone letting them loose to breed in the wild.
A smart super market will identify this product, even if the Feds won’t.
Well, again, since the feds are absolutely limited by the Constitution which is the ONLY source of federal power to act, the first and really only question you have to ask yourself about the feds is, “Is it constitutional?”.
I see nothing in the Constitution to authorize the feds to interfere with our food or drugs or to establish the FDA. “Ensuring safety and security” is not an enumerated power delegated to the feds by the Constitution and ONLY enumerated powers are those the feds may exercise. Since unconstitutional federal acts are by definition acts of tyranny, the FDA and its activities are acts of tyranny.
“If it tastes good I’ll eat the hell out of it.”
Twice!
It's always been legal to eat; you just couldn't sell it.
Are you a constitutional scholar?
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