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Originally Posted by lifetimefan
I think the GMO crops themselves aren't as bad as some people make them out to be. I still don't want to eat them, largely because long term effects on humans for all the various strains hasn't been tested.
What is 1000 times more hazardous are the vast amounts of roundup used on these crops.
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The long term effects on humans for non-GMO crops also hasn't been properly tested either though. Plants are full of naturally toxic chemicals including known carcinogens. Humans have also been modifying plants since the dawn of agriculture. It started with crossing plants that had desirable traits and seeing what happened. Then we went through the irradiate plants and see what happens phase. Current genetic modification methods are much more controlled than either of those. In most cases there's no inherent reason to expect the products to be worse for humans. That's not to say there shouldn't be proper oversight and testing.
I agree you have a point about the pesticides. Trace amounts are one thing, but making a pesticide-resistant crop so you can use more pesticide doesn't seem like a great idea to me. Still, the residues on food crops are regulated based on negligible risk levels and in a lot of cases the toxicity of the pesticide residues is much lower than the natural toxicity of the plant that we eat without worrying.