[LatteLazy]

And all these things are sort of the point: ancient, modern and crispr etc techniques are fundamentally different and have different outcomes. Hence it is not unreasonable to ask which was used to create what someone is selling...

Also more range: you cannot move whole genes from vastly different organisms using selective breeding (good luck selectively breeding arctic fish with strawberries to get that anti-freeze gene).

Personally I don't particularly care what technique was used. But I very much doubt the motives: are they making the flavour better by just adding more sugar? And to allow for that, and faster harvest reducing the vitamin content? Is the "apple" I am eating actually closer to a chocolate bar nutritionally than the Apple I ate 20 years ago? Maybe I just want to keep the same old fashioned one, even if it is different to the original wild apples from 27000 BC?

I think the same logic applies to "organic" produce. It is not a matter of whether X is safe. Is it a matter of if I can be bothered to track 1000 Xs and assess all of their safety and understand them all and cope with every new X etc. Or just get this other thing...

[JoeAltmaier]

Genes jump around a lot. You have virus genes in you. Genes move between plants and animals all the time.

This GMO-is-different-and-evil stuff is shallow unexamined nonsense. That's what I was getting at.

Back to my point: better to know a new species is carefully crafted and not random-backyard-meddling. For obvious reasons. Apricot pits have cyanide. Beans, parsnips have toxins that hurt us. We've been seeking better versions of these things for centuries. Now we can have them for the asking.

Let me off the Luddite bus, please.

[LatteLazy]

I think you're over-estimating how many species suddenly gain new genes from other genuses. But that is sort of beside my point: you say carefully crafted and I agree. But carefully crafted to be healthy and ecologically sound or to be profitable? We don't need more profitable unhealthy food.

So what am I meant to do, personally review every piece of GMO at a genetic level for changes that I do not want? or just decline the lot?

And who should have the right to tell me I don't get to know what I am eating?

I am sure there are at least some luddites who just fear the new. But that does not address the actual points raised here and you can't dismiss the real questions because the people asking them are standing next to hippies...

[JoeAltmaier]

Not a single thing ever been done to make backyard crossbreeding be 'ecologically sound' or healthy.

You don't know what you are eating now. It's not substantially different. That's my point, and one that folks are resistant to accepting. No surprise: they're resistant to any change in their notions.

[LatteLazy]

You're getting tied up in contradictions again.

If the old food was no different to the new food then why change it? If it is different then I want to know and I want the right to opt out.

Similarly, we are changing the nutritional content because that is the point. But I don't need to worry because it will be the same nutritionally as the old food. So what is the point.

This is where we are losing each other. If there is no difference why bother? If there is, I want to know all the details and have the opportunity to opt out. That is not unreasonable right?