Tell me about cooking oil.

[Chacoguy]

I live alone and I'm not a great cook. A quart bottle of cooking oil will last me months. I finally finished my last one and went to pick up another at the store. When I got there, I was confronted by an astonishing array of oils; corn, olive, canola, soybean, etc. So, what are the various merits, drawbacks, uses for all these different types of oil?

[boomerwang]

I use butter instead of whenever possible, coz it tastes better. But I'm built like a crooked toothpick, so YMMV. All cooking oils taste plasticy to me.

[Kat]

Canola oil, olive oil, and a couple of others are supposed to be healthier for you. I use canola oil for baking (in recipes that call for oil) and olive oil for cooking (saute-ing, stir-fry types of recipes, also add it to pasta dishes and the like).

[Dudley]

We use peanut oil for nearly everything.

[ulfhjorr]

What you want to buy is going to depend on what you plan to do with it and what you hope to gain.

Canola, Olive, and Peanut oils (COP) are desirable for those concerned with heart health because they have a better ratio of unsaturated to saturated fats. You may want to be careful with Peanut Oil if you cook for/around anyone with nut allergies (though it's supposed to be the proteins, not the fats that cause reactions).

Of those three, canola and peanut tend to be less expensive and have lighter flavor profiles. They won't impart as much of their own flavor to the foods you are cooking as would some olive oils. A light or extra light olive oil would have a similarly light taste on its own. An extra-virgin olive oil*, on the other hand, imparts a lot of good olive oil flavor to foods.

Personally, I keep both canola and EV olive oil in my kitchen. I usually use the canola oil in baking or very rarely when I want to keep the olive oil flavors out of the food I'm cooking. I use the olive oil for a broad range of dishes, because I find the flavor allows me to use less oil in my food. (That is, EVOO taste + fat yumminess means same amount flavor, less fat than with other oils.)


*Some people worry about the "low smoking point" of olive oils, but I've never had a problem in home cooking. I think this is a concern more for professional cooking, where they tend to use higher temperatures than the average home cook.

[HongKongFooey]

For one thing they have different smoke points. Oviously you want the smoke point of your cooking oil to be higher than the cooking temperature of your recipe. For deep-frying you may want grapeseed oil which has a neutral flavour but a fairly high smoke point.

Olive oil and Canola oil are monounsaturated but olive oil has a stronger taste. That could be good or bad depending on your dish. Safflower oil is good for frying but turns rancid easily. Something like coconut oil is more stable and can be used if you need to store your dish for a while. On the other hand coconut oil may not help your cholesterol much.

I mostly cook with Canola or regular olive oil. Extra-virgin olive oil comes out for salads and the like.

ETA: damn everyone's fast tonight.

[GoSmoke]

It depends on what you want to use the oil for.
I use plain old vegetable oil for anything that needs to be deep fried(although we don't do that muich anymore) and I don't bake, so I can't be of any help there.
Olive oil is wonderful stuff. I recently started using it and I can't believe how good it makes food taste. I brush it lightly on chicken breasts and they come out of the oven juicy and delicious. It is terrific as a salad dressing ingredient and it's fabulous brushed on toasted bread with roasted garlic. Use it sparingly and buy the very best you can afford. Once you start using it regularly you won't be able to cook without it.

[AuntiePam]

I recently went back to Crisco (solid shortening) for frying -- eggs, potatoes, some meat. I know it's not as healthy as those unsaturated oils, but I don't do a lot of frying anyway. It just seems like with the solid, not as much grease/fat/whatever stays in the food.

[Islander]

I have to chime in here though my opinions may not be popular. Some thoughts, in no particular order:

1. Vegetable oils are high in Omega-6 fatty acids. Ideally the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 is 1:1. In the Western diet, it’s more like 1:20 or even higher, which contributes to a number of problems, not the least of which is heart disease. Olive oil is an exception because it is a monounsaturated rather than a polyunsaturated oil.

2. The smoke point of cooking oils or fats has nothing to do with the atmosphere in your kitchen and everything to do with the cancer-causing acrylamides that form under high temperatures, which is what makes french fries and charred BBQ steaks so bad for you.

3. Crisco has the double whammy of being a vegetable fat and a trans fat. So does margarine. When these were introduced in the 30s and 40s as an alternative to animal fats like butter and lard, heart disease went up, not down. But industry loved them because they were so cheap to produce... and we all know that Americans want cheap food.

4. Canola oil has a history too long to summarize here; I can say that it began as a highly toxic industrial oil, got played with to reduce its erucic acid (among other drawbacks), was appealing to the industry because it was cheap to use in processed foods, and began a new “healthy” campaign as, not rapeseed, but “Canada Oil,” or “Canola.” “An initial challenge for the Canola Council of Canada was the fact that rapeseed was never given GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status by the US Food and Drug Administration. A change in regulation would be necessary before canola could be marketed in the US.(4) Just how this was done has not been revealed, but GRAS status was granted in 1985, for which, it is rumored, the Canadian government spent $50 million to obtain....no long-term studies on humans have been done.” (from Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2002 .
Another factor, for those who care, is that all canola is, to my knowledge, GMO. Thank you, Monsanto.

5. There is overwhelming evidence that saturated fats are better for us overall than the manufactured replacements crafted by the food industry. Butter, cream, lard, bacon fat, coconut oil, are all healthier than their artificial counterparts. Dietary sat fats have virtually no connection to serum cholesterol. The studies are all out there, but after several generations of emphasis on the fat-free lie, it will be like turning the Queen Mary around to reverse the thinking on Egg Beaters, coffee whitener and the like. Sound queer? Think of the Inuit, a healthy culture who lived until the advent of Western food on a diet composed largely of seal and whale blubber; they died more commonly of starvation than heart disease.

I personally use butter or coconut oil for cooking and try to keep the skillet temp low. If you don’t care for the slight flavor of coconut it imparts to the food, try the processed rather than unprocessed type, which is flavorless. Likewise, save the EVOO for bread and salads, and use the “light” olive oil for baking, since it lacks that intense flavor we all love in the right milieu. (I do love the EVOO in Mediterranean fish stew, where the temperature never gets above a simmer. The problem comes in frying.)

I’ll defend any of these statements in detail, with citations, if anyone cares. Right now it’s after midnight on the East Coast and I wanted to be in bed two hours ago. Damn you, Giraffe!

[Kat]

For us stupid people, what's GMO?

[Islander]

Genetically Modified Organisms, sometimes abbreviated GM or GE (Genetically Engineered). Geez, no question is stupid if you don't know the answer!

Corn, soybeans, canola and cotton are the big 4 GMOs in the U.S. (Most other countries refuse them). Monsanto is seeking to get approval for alfalfa, and last year they failed at sugar beets because of public outcry. I understand that much of the domestic rice crop has been contaminated with GM seed. No human studies have ever been conducted on the safety of these crops and Jeffrey Smith, GM authority, has published 65 specific human adverse reactions to them.

Yeah. Ask me the time, I'll tell you how to build a watch. Sorry.

[Locked In The Trunk Of A Car]

GMOs, by the way, aren't really nearly as scary as a lot of people would have you believe. Simply, genetic engineering is the addition of new genes into an already-extant genome. (Sometimes, the new genes come from a different cultivar of the same species, i.e. a gene providing blight resistance found only in wild plants.)

Genes are responsible for coding the order of amino acids chained together to produce proteins; the end result is just that genetically modified crops contain a new type of protein which causes a desirable effect like blight resistance, increased salt tolerance, or improved yield. While some proteins cause adverse effects to humans, triggering allergies in certain people, new proteins added into food products undergo significant testing -- more testing, in fact, than any "natural" hybrid plants receive, ("natural" in quotes because they still take human interference to create) and those "natural" hybrids contain a lot of useless other genetic material which often lowers crop yield and affects taste. Genetic modification is precise, well-tested, and regulated, and despite the fear-mongering, it is safe.

Questions of morality regarding gene patents, where GM crops pollinate non-GM crops on unrelated fields, such as Monsanto v. Schmeiser, are a different kettle of fish, important in their own right but unrelated to the science and its safety.

For further reading, the wikipedia article on GMOs is a good starting point which tries to cover all angles.

---

More on topic: Canola comes from the rapeseed plant, which is in the genus Brassica, one of the most versatile plant geni used for food purposes. The rapeseed/canola plant itself also provides rutabaga; its close relatives are turnips, mustards, and (B. rapa), which provides cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. (All from the same species!)

[boomerwang]

A tip: machine oil is not good for cooking with. You can have that one for free.

[Islander]

Originally Posted by Locked In The Trunk Of A Car

GMOs, by the way, aren't really nearly as scary as a lot of people would have you believe. Simply, genetic engineering is the addition of new genes into an already-extant genome. (Sometimes, the new genes come from a different cultivar of the same species, i.e. a gene providing blight resistance found only in wild plants.)

Genes are responsible for coding the order of amino acids chained together to produce proteins; the end result is just that genetically modified crops contain a new type of protein which causes a desirable effect like blight resistance, increased salt tolerance, or improved yield. While some proteins cause adverse effects to humans, triggering allergies in certain people, new proteins added into food products undergo significant testing -- more testing, in fact, than any "natural" hybrid plants receive, ("natural" in quotes because they still take human interference to create) and those "natural" hybrids contain a lot of useless other genetic material which often lowers crop yield and affects taste. Genetic modification is precise, well-tested, and regulated, and despite the fear-mongering, it is safe.

Questions of morality regarding gene patents, where GM crops pollinate non-GM crops on unrelated fields, such as Monsanto v. Schmeiser, are a different kettle of fish, important in their own right but unrelated to the science and its safety.

For further reading, the wikipedia article on GMOs is a good starting point which tries to cover all angles.

---

More on topic: Canola comes from the rapeseed plant, which is in the genus Brassica, one of the most versatile plant geni used for food purposes. The rapeseed/canola plant itself also provides rutabaga; its close relatives are turnips, mustards, and (B. rapa), which provides cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. (All from the same species!)

I will hjave a LOT more to say aboiut this tomorrow when I have slept off my insomnia. In an utshell, canola is the result of a massive pr com[aign to make it appear healyhy/ Since the mid-1980s I've been following geetic modificatgion from the likes of Cargill, Syngenta and Monsanto, the people who brought glysophate (Round-Up) and agent orangfe and whjo have forced ths never-tested technology on Iraq and pollinated the cradle of maize in Mexico. IMO Monsanto is profrit-driven evil incarnate. And itr looks lioke a herd of lllamas hqs run through ths post because I never le3qbred to type and this is what happens when I am a) tireed and )b too tired to correct typos. Back tomorrow making sense!

[blank]

And remember- Olive Oil has a low smoke point so it's no use for wok cooking- I prefer groundnut/peanut oil

[Tamsen]

The short answer: Just buy the corn oil.




This is not based on any research. It's just how I use the various oils for the most part.

Frying foods - corn oil or a blend of corn and canola.
Baking - canola
Sauteing - olive oil
Sesame Oil - used almost exclusively for sesame chicken. (just get take out)
Crisco is used only for homemade peanut butter cookies or pie crusts.

Most people who live alone and don't consider cooking fun would be just fine buying only the corn oil. It'll work for most kitchen tasks.

[SmartAleq]

I use olive oil for most dishes, butter for things that olive oil doesn't go well with. I use sesame oil for high temperature wok cooking and it really bumps up the flavor profile of Asian foods. I've gotten away from using vegetable, corn, soybean and canola oils because I hate the flavor--now I'm using peanut oil and like it much better. I'm about using products that are heavily subsidized or likely to be GMO--that's just me and I've found over the years that my hunches have proven right more often than not. Sometimes I splurge out and get small bottles of avocado or walnut or other nut oils just for salads and whatnot but they don't get used quickly and tend to be fragile. Almond oil infused with sandalwood is the best massage oil on the planet.

[Solfy]

Do not use cooking oil as a sexual lubricant with latex-based condoms.

[Islander]

Thank you, Solfy, that would never have occurred to me. (Well, not in a cooking thread). And don't cook with Astroglide.

[Solfy]

Originally Posted by Islander

Thank you, Solfy, that would never have occurred to me. (Well, not in a cooking thread). And don't cook with Astroglide.

You'd be surprised what people will reach for in a moment fueled by lust, desperation, and Jagermeister. No not me. It was a friend. Not the friend with the prophylactic sock, either.

[Giraffe]

I've had much of the same confusion as the OP about the differences in oils, so this thread has been really informative. Thanks especially to Islander, for an amazing post. (And it's not my fault you stayed up too late, Mr. Know Everything About Oil. If you were dumber, you'd be more well rested. )

[GoSmoke]

Very informative. Thanks for the info. I learn so much on this board.

[Chacoguy]

Just chiming in my thanks for all the great info.

[Islander]

Originally Posted by Giraffe

I've had much of the same confusion as the OP about the differences in oils, so this thread has been really informative. Thanks especially to Islander, for an amazing post. (And it's not my fault you stayed up too late, Mr. Know Everything About Oil. If you were dumber, you'd be more well rested. )

Ah, excuse me, that's Miz Know Everything About Oil. And I don't (she said modestly) but I do know rather a lot about nutrition.

I promised I'd get back to this thread with more specific info. For the uninterested, tl;dr.

• About the sat fat scare: great example of correlation ≠ causation. A researcher named Ancel Keys, back in the 50s I think, compared saturated fat intake with serum cholesterol, found a correlation, and promoted his causation hypothesis. Journalists took his study at face value and the trend was on. Trouble was, he cherry-picked the data; in fact, there were 22 countries in all, and when data were compared, the correlation disappeared. Plenty of documentation bears this out, but here's as good a summary as any: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22116724

Every pre-literate culture consumed loads of saturated fats and enjoyed brilliant health and perfect teeth until introduced to commercial, processed foods. The seminal work is Weston A. Price's Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. You needn't read it from cover to cover; a few random chapters and some photos will convince you. For further info, check out the website: http://www.westonaprice.org. There's a long discussion of healthy oils there.

• I urge anyone still committed to vegetable oils to re-think their disastrous effect on your health. Here's a chart that will give you an instant view of the Omega 3-Omega 6 ratio. Remember, that ratio in our diet should be 1:1. http://tinyurl.com/37s6kp
I'm starting to see supermarket pie crusts made with lard again. Fact: the only food with more Vitamin D than pastured pork lard is fish oil.

• About GMOs. Let's begin by admitting that the so-called Green Revolution was a disaster for traditional cultures. Yes, it increased yields...while depleting the soil of organic material, microorganisms and trace minerals, to be replaced by costly petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides — not an ideal trade-off. But at least farmers were able to save their seed from year to year.

Enter Monsanto with an even more revolutionary approach: genetically altered strains of seed, the germ created at the molecular level through a somewhat inexact process. Seeds are patented, expensive, and must be bought new every year; it's illegal to save them. These seeds do not increase yields, despite the hoopla. They may someday produce crops that withstand extremes of temperature or drought, or extend shelf life, though so far these are remote goals. What Monsanto's seeds are famous for is their resistance to the herbicide Round-Up (glyphosate). Guess who manufactures that?
Advantage: Better weed control. Spray as often as you need, your crop is immune.
Advantage: Monsanto makes buckets of money on their patented seed, which is illegal to save.
Advantage: Monsanto makes buckets of money on their herbicide (even though it has now gone generic).
Disadvantage: our food is now awash in more poisons.
Disadvantage: agricultural runoff carries the toxins into the environment, where insects, birds and small aquatic animals have been shown to be killed or malformed. What about the bees?
Disadvantage: cross-pollination has occurred, creating superweeds immune to herbicides.
Disadvantage: although it's been portrayed as safe for humans, Round-Up has been shown to cause liver damage, miscarriages and cancer, to name a few. There are peer-reviewed articles. Go google.

• More on GMOs. Jeffrey M. Smith is respected as the world's authority on genetically altered foods. See Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette. Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, Archer-Daniels-Midland and the lot will assure you that no harm to humans from GMO has ever been shown. Liars. In the latter, Smith documents, in grave detail, 65 serious adverse outcomes of GMO. One: A GM food supplement, a brand of L-tryptophan, caused an epidemic in the '80s that killed 100 and caused 5000-10,000 to fall sick. Another. GM crops accumulate and concentrate environmental toxins in meat and milk. The FDA knows this. Another: despite denials, transgenes survive the digestive system and wander through the body, including crossing the placenta and the blood-brain barrier. There are 62 more. Sterility, organ defects, allergies, infant mortality....Read the book.

• I'd like to go on about Mosanto's unethical practices and the damage done to farm families but that's an even bigger hijack. Info is readily available for the curious. Highly recommended full-length videos, available on line:
The Future of Food
The World According to Monsanto
Food Inc.

Sorry, I do get rather passionate about this stuff.

[Andrew Jackson's Hair]

There's little question of correlation between a societal obsession on nutritional health and an actual decline in same. Clearly some people, possibly most of them, have no idea what they are talking about and never did.

But

Originally Posted by Islander

Every pre-literate culture consumed loads of saturated fats and enjoyed brilliant health and perfect teeth until introduced to commercial, processed foods.

...indulge me on this, won't you? You can't seriously think this is true.

[Islander]

Originally Posted by Andrew Jackson's Hair

There's little question of correlation between a societal obsession on nutritional health and an actual decline in same. Clearly some people, possibly most of them, have no idea what they are talking about and never did.

But

...indulge me on this, won't you? You can't seriously think this is true.

I grew up on organic home-grown food and continued that tradition with my own family; I have always enjoyed brilliant health; I've had a lifelong interest in human nutrition and was subscribed to Organic Gardening when you were still in diapers, AJH — so if you're calling me out, I'll take it to the limit.

About native diets: the classic work on this was done by the abovementioned Weston Price. Recent studies have confirmed the need for healthy saturated fats and urged that we discontinue vegetable oils. If the links I've supplied aren't enough, I'll gladly give you more. But indulge me: do your homework first.

[Jaglavak]

Hon, save your pixels.

[Andrew Jackson's Hair]

Originally Posted by Islander

About native diets: the classic work on this was done by the abovementioned Weston Price. Recent studies have confirmed the need for healthy saturated fats and urged that we discontinue vegetable oils. If the links I've supplied aren't enough, I'll gladly give you more. But indulge me: do your homework first.

I clicked on that site and frankly it's too covered with EAT BUTTER propaganda, true or not, to be worth my time. Provide me with direct links to the actual work, I have no problem reading actual research and I don't need to sift through 2 hours of nonsense about how Frito-Lay is trying to kill me.

And I'm not taking you to task on your entire post, just the one statement. My "homework", such as it, suggests that the difference between "pre-literate culture" (i.e. 1960s Yanomano Indians, 1920s New Guineans) and a culture that produces "commercial, processed foods" is far too vast (i.e. most of recorded human history) to support a statement as broad as the one you made.

In fact, I know it's not. I'll be satisfied with 5 reasonably indisputable examples though.

[Andrew Jackson's Hair]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

Hon, save your pixels.

shouldn't you be crying about Haitians, somewhere...?

oh right. that's soooo last month.

[Solfy]

Originally Posted by Andrew Jackson's Hair

I clicked on that site and frankly it's too covered with EAT BUTTER propaganda, true or not, to be worth my time.

Butter's no good. Cows are full of hormones and antibiotics. The only safe thing to do is not eat ever again.

[Andrew Jackson's Hair]

Originally Posted by Islander

But indulge me: do your homework first.

You know what? Nevermind. Actually, against my better judgment I went and read through a chunk of the Weston Price site. Consider yourself indulged. It's a joke, the whole thing stinks of a cult, right down to the hokey "research" and the invitations to donate some money and start a local chapter.

So umm. Is like, Blake just totally committed to staying on the SDMB? I feel like I'm wearing too many hats over here, I just can't cope with the pressure

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Solfy

Butter's no good. Cows are full of hormones and antibiotics. The only safe thing to do is not eat ever again.

You and your stinking chemicals. Modern cooking oil is all full of triglycerides and fatty acids. They frighten and confuse me.

[ulfhjorr]

They should frighten and confuse you...margarine is, after all, only one molecule away from plastic explosives.

[Solfy]

Originally Posted by ulfhjorr

They should frighten and confuse you...margarine is, after all, only one molecule away from plastic explosives.

So is sexual lubricant.

[ulfhjorr]

So you're saying that margarine is a sexual lubricant?

Man, I should have so gotten the hint when they little lady was disappointed I got the little tub last time...

[Solfy]

Coming to a grocery store near you, "I Can't Believe It's Not Astroglide!"

[whirlingbladesofkick]

Are the preceding posts an example of hijacking or natural thread drift?

[Solfy]

Originally Posted by whirlingbladesofkick

Are the preceding posts an example of hijacking or natural thread drift?

I'm getting way too much glee out of simultaneously discussing hijacking and walking the thin line between a hijack and "the OP has been answered, now let's be silly."

In my defense wrt to original comment regarding sexual lubricant, the OP did ask about drawbacks of cooking oils.

[ulfhjorr]

Hopefully the latter, since we've already gotten a lot of on-topic responses. But I'm willing to knock it off if so desired.

[whirlingbladesofkick]

I think the discussion about the dangers of GMOs used to make vegetable oil is an interesting topic and an example of organic thread drift. If the OP objected to the topic drifting over there, I think it would be appropriate for him or her to ask that people interested in discussing theories about GMOs or about saturated animal fat or about what we know of the nutritional profiles of primitive peoples to start a thread.

However, if the OP does not request it, is it incumbent on anyone who is interested in that discussion to move?

Second: (and this isn't a dig, solfy) who gets to decide when the silliness starts? Do we just kind of have a feel, like, this has been answered by a sufficient number of people, so it's ok to cut loose? Isn't this thread a perfect example of one where someone may choose not to post on topic because the topic is basically over?

I am just asking...(to coin a phrase).

[Solfy]

Originally Posted by whirlingbladesofkick

I think the discussion about the dangers of GMOs used to make vegetable oil is an interesting topic and an example of organic thread drift. If the OP objected to the topic drifting over there, I think it would be appropriate for him or her to ask that people interested in discussing theories about GMOs or about saturated animal fat or about what we know of the nutritional profiles of primitive peoples to start a thread.

However, if the OP does not request it, is it incumbent on anyone who is interested in that discussion to move?

Second: (and this isn't a dig, solfy) who gets to decide when the silliness starts? Do we just kind of have a feel, like, this has been answered by a sufficient number of people, so it's ok to cut loose? Isn't this thread a perfect example of one where someone may choose not to post on topic because the topic is basically over?

I am just asking...(to coin a phrase).

The thing about silly one-liners is that they're not typically sustainable for any length of time, so they don't (often) grow the legs that alternative subjects like GMOs do. The advantage of sprouting something like GMOs off into its own thread is that it might attract the attention of someone who is interested in discussing GMOs, but who might not be reading about cooking oils.

[Islander]

Originally Posted by Solfy

Butter's no good. Cows are full of hormones and antibiotics. The only safe thing to do is not eat ever again.

Since the OP has already been addressed and the thread's beginning to drift anyway...Solfy, you're confusing beef cattle, which are, with dairy cattle, which are not. Then there's this.

Since you probably knew that, I can't tell from the tone whether you're giving me a dig. If that's the case, I'm sorry you feel that way, but with all respect to your career, I prefer to eat chemical- and drug-free food.

And to AJH: don't waste your time, you were born knowing everything anyway. Oh, and if I wanted hostility, I would have posted at the Dope.

[Elyanna]

[HIJACK]

I love Islander.

[/HIJACK]

[Solfy]

Originally Posted by Islander

Since the OP has already been addressed and the thread's beginning to drift anyway...Solfy, you're confusing beef cattle, which are, with dairy cattle, which are not.

Since 1993 it's legal in the US to give dairy cattle rBGH - synthetically produced growth hormones to add to the naturally occurring growth hormones already present in the cattle - that some people claim are responsible for earlier puberty onset in children among other things.

Hormones for the milkers, antibiotics for the eaters.

It's not a dig so much as a point that there's precious little in our food chain that hasn't been monkeyed with in some form or another, for better or worse. With our limited understanding of the long-term health implications of something as complex as diet, the choices between "good" foods and "evil" foods are less than straightforward.

[Locked In The Trunk Of A Car]

Islander:

I can't find anything about a "Jeffrey M. Smith" from an unbiased source -- he's not even important enough to merit a Wikipedia entry, yet he's "respected as the world's authority" on genetically altered foods? Your only response to the independent studies (and the government-backed ones) proving their safety is "Liars"? I'm going to need more than that.

I don't intend to refute claims of immoral behaviour by the corporations involved; as I said earlier, it has no effect on the safety of the products, and I agree that these companies have behaved reprehensibly. All I'm concerned about is the science of food safety; can you show any studies showing GMO foods to be unsafe?

[Islander]

Originally Posted by Solfy

Since 1993 it's legal in the US to give dairy cattle rBGH - synthetically produced growth hormones to add to the naturally occurring growth hormones already present in the cattle - that some people claim are responsible for earlier puberty onset in children among other things.

Hormones for the milkers, antibiotics for the eaters.

It's not a dig so much as a point that there's precious little in our food chain that hasn't been monkeyed with in some form or another, for better or worse. With our limited understanding of the long-term health implications of something as complex as diet, the choices between "good" foods and "evil" foods are less than straightforward.

rBGH is pretty much a dead issue. Possibly some dairies in some states are still using it, but it seems unlikely, since it leads to mastitis and other diseases and shortens the life of the cow, in return for a niggardly increase in production from an animal that has already been selectively bred to overproduce. At one point, in several states, Monsanto made an attempt to criminalize any statements that specific dairy products were "rBGH-free," since the implication was that something was wrong with their bovine growth hormone. Legislative attempts failed so massively wherever they were brought up that Monsanto recently sold its Posilac division (Posilac being the trade name of the drug) — to Lilley, I think, but don't quote me.

At any rate, the "long-term health implications" of processed foods are clear to someone (i.e. me) who has been following the studies for years. Food additives are certainly not the sole cause of liver disease, Celiac disease, gluten intolerance, peanut allergies, precocious puberty, obesity, diabetes, CHC, stroke, MRSA, ADHD, etc. but they clearly have a role. Environmental toxins have a role as well, but they are beyond my control. All I can control is what I put on and in my body. So...given our different perspectives, you and I may simply have to agree to disagree on this.

[Islander]

Originally Posted by Locked In The Trunk Of A Car

Islander:

I can't find anything about a "Jeffrey M. Smith" from an unbiased source -- he's not even important enough to merit a Wikipedia entry, yet he's "respected as the world's authority" on genetically altered foods? Your only response to the independent studies (and the government-backed ones) proving their safety is "Liars"? I'm going to need more than that.

I don't intend to refute claims of immoral behaviour by the corporations involved; as I said earlier, it has no effect on the safety of the products, and I agree that these companies have behaved reprehensibly. All I'm concerned about is the science of food safety; can you show any studies showing GMO foods to be unsafe?

Smith is all over the 'Net. You could start here: http://tinyurl.com/lujy9l

Or just google him, leaving out the middle initial. I don't know what you mean by "unbiased" since there is little to put up against fact...and the facts of harm are fully documented in his second book, Genetic Roulette. I mentioned three examples upthread. The book is sitting beside me as I type and I can furnish chapter and verse on these and/or other studies if you insist. But dammit, I shouldn't have to. The information is available for anyone who cares to pursue it. If you like, you can start a new thread, because I think the question posed in the OP has been thoroughly covered by now.

And just BTW, few other country are willing to import our GM grain or GMO-fed beef. The evidence is out there.

[Locked In The Trunk Of A Car]

Originally Posted by Islander

Smith is all over the 'Net. You could start here: http://tinyurl.com/lujy9l

Or just google him, leaving out the middle initial. I don't know what you mean by "unbiased" since there is little to put up against fact...and the facts of harm are fully documented in his second book, Genetic Roulette. I mentioned three examples upthread. The book is sitting beside me as I type and I can furnish chapter and verse on these and/or other studies if you insist. But dammit, I shouldn't have to. The information is available for anyone who cares to pursue it. If you like, you can start a new thread, because I think the question posed in the OP has been thoroughly covered by now.

And just BTW, few other country are willing to import our GM grain or GMO-fed beef. The evidence is out there.

I checked your link -- it's just a blog post by the man. I checked the bio there, too, and it doesn't say anything about his qualifications other than to call him an "author". I also searched Google for him -- with and without the initial -- and dug into two pages of hits on both searches without finding anything from a well-known publication about this man. I found his own websites, of course. Not exactly expected to be unbiased. Nothing else.

You're right, though: you shouldn't have to find information. Unless you actually want to convince anyone.

[HongKongFooey]

Interesting. Tonight's episode of Good Eats is on cooking oils.

[Islander]

Originally Posted by Locked In The Trunk Of A Car

I checked your link -- it's just a blog post by the man. I checked the bio there, too, and it doesn't say anything about his qualifications other than to call him an "author". I also searched Google for him -- with and without the initial -- and dug into two pages of hits on both searches without finding anything from a well-known publication about this man. I found his own websites, of course. Not exactly expected to be unbiased. Nothing else.

You're right, though: you shouldn't have to find information. Unless you actually want to convince anyone.

Dear Locked In The Trunk Of A Car, I already have information accumulated over more than 25 years, when Monsanto first began to play with recombinant DNA. I've been following the research first, because I was a farmer, a consumer and a parent and therefore had reason to follow it, and second, because I was an educator with a responsibility to research and report what was going on in the scientific community. I didn't set out to proselytize here. If you do a google search on "proof that GMO foods are safe" and another on "lack of proof that GMO foods are safe," you will essentially end up with the same results. Why? Because the industry has little in the way of long-term safety studies to offer, whereas those with concerns have the motivation to dig deeper and longer, to experiment and dcument and publish. There's a temptation to call these "biased," but only because it's groups like Organic Consumers Association and Environmental Working Group and similar agencies with genuine health concerns who have the wherewithal to sponsor ongoing studies. Published studies of the risks and dangers of GMO are published in peer-reviewed journals like The Lancet, Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry, Clinical Toxicology, Cancer, and so on.

There's not space and time enough to convince someone to whom all of this may be new, but if you've read the entire thread, there are other sources you might explore.