Opinion of this image

[Figueira]

It's interesting that whenever the GMO debate comes up, nobody considers the possibility that there are other issues at stake besides the health of the people eating them.

What do you mean?

Environmental effects.

[DrScholl]

I would imagine that anyone with concern about GMOs would know where to get non-GMO food, which is mostly in health food stores. An expensive labeling mandate could get passed on to the consumer, which would not be beneficial to those in lower incomes looking to buy fresh produce.

[Famous Mortimer]

Why would labeling GMO status cost anymore than labeling sodium content? Just ad an extra line.

[Famous Mortimer]

Refusing to label GMOs make it seem like there's something to hide and only fuels conspiracy theories. If you just label it, most people would stop caring, just like they already don't care about high fructose corn syrup or blue dye number 12.

[King]

No. The opposite is true. Labeling it makes it seem like there is something important. Companies like Chipotle already exploiting it by making people think their giant GMO free burritos are health food.

[bedstuy]

Why would labeling GMO status cost anymore than labeling sodium content? Just ad an extra line.

No.  It's way more than changing the label.  Food companies have an entire infrastructure to control the ingredients in their products.  They have no infrastructure to decide whether they use non-GMO or GMO corn in their products.  They would need to create that from scratch.

Farmers have no infrastructure to separate GMO and non-GMO crops.  They would need to do that or decide to exclusively grow GMO or non-GMO, even if that is otherwise a bad decision.  That would cost a ton of money.

Grain elevators would have to completely change their business and create a system of GMO and non-GMO grain elevators. 

And, everywhere else in the supply chain would have to adapt to that.  It's not a small change.

[Crumpets]

Why would labeling GMO status cost anymore than labeling sodium content? Just ad an extra line.

No.  It's way more than changing the label.  Food companies have an entire infrastructure to control the ingredients in their products.  They have no infrastructure to decide whether they use non-GMO or GMO corn in their products.  They would need to create that from scratch.

Farmers have no infrastructure to separate GMO and non-GMO crops.  They would need to do that or decide to exclusively grow GMO or non-GMO, even if that is otherwise a bad decision.  That would cost a ton of money.

Grain elevators would have to completely change their business and create a system of GMO and non-GMO grain elevators. 

And, everywhere else in the supply chain would have to adapt to that.  It's not a small change.

Or you could just have a third option: "May contained genetically modified ingredients"

[bedstuy]

Why would labeling GMO status cost anymore than labeling sodium content? Just ad an extra line.

No.  It's way more than changing the label.  Food companies have an entire infrastructure to control the ingredients in their products.  They have no infrastructure to decide whether they use non-GMO or GMO corn in their products.  They would need to create that from scratch.

Farmers have no infrastructure to separate GMO and non-GMO crops.  They would need to do that or decide to exclusively grow GMO or non-GMO, even if that is otherwise a bad decision.  That would cost a ton of money.

Grain elevators would have to completely change their business and create a system of GMO and non-GMO grain elevators. 

And, everywhere else in the supply chain would have to adapt to that.  It's not a small change.

Or you could just have a third option: "May contained genetically modified ingredients"

How is that any better than just what people ought to do now, assume everything is GMO unless they know otherwise?

[NeverAgain]

The Question is how much we want to pay for knowing what has GMO's and what doesn't. From bedstuy's research it looks like the cost of the labor to make sure that these products are not GMO is in the upper billions which could be spent on educating the public on GMO's. Also then we can put labels on non-GMO products for people who still feel un-safe on it to buy.