Wow - Tomatoes come in all shapes and sizes, but this group is going to define which shape and size is healthy? Class 1? That's garbage, and just another way to make the industry standard seem better.

This whole idea seems really evil.

That's alright. Monsanto will give them the definition of the ultimate Class 1 GM hybrid Roundup friendly tomato. All others will quickly vanish.

Here come the genetically modified irradiated clones. Yum!

The U.S. can't tell if a tomato is a fruit or a vegtable - how can we expect our Homeland to Protect us from Killer Tomatoes much less than from poison pen letters to senators standing in the way of Bush's judicial appointments?
Heckovajob!

Boycott the sons of bitches!

When did my Tomato mate with a Frog?

No wonder Americans are increasingly overweight or sick or both thanks to GM modified food and nasty food additives like aspartame. Greed is not good for you.

"The Codex Alimentarius, or food code, is a global reference point for producers, processors, regulators and traders."

I see the word "consumer" is missing. The Codex Alimentarius may be their reference point. Will I really be free not to have it be my reference point or will I just have no choices.

Go to the link given at the end of the article, and give what you can. Dr. Laibow and her husband are an amazing team. They go to every Codex meeting and organize third world countries to fight this soviet-style "trade" system.

It's good that folks here seem to be able to read between the line. This article makes it sound like they really have our best interests at heart.

Best thing we could do for ourselves is to collect all the un-modified seeds we can get our hands on, and then fill our backyards with greenhouses instead of grass, then grow our own tomatoes and other veggies - and make sure we save seeds from everything we grow so we can continue to have vegetables we know how, and in what they've been grown.

"Wow - Tomatoes come in all shapes and sizes" ... and colours. We had both orange and yellow hothouse tomatoes a few years ago but they must not have sold well since they've disappeared.

At least we can still get local hothouse product and don't have to worry about killer tomatoes from the US.

Here's the real scoop, folks: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5266884912495233634

dcbeltway__ Your statement that people are increasingly overweight and sick due to GM foods is totally off the wall. The main reasons for those problems are the sedentary lifestyle many people have, and eating food containing too much fat, and too little fiber and protein.

The biggest percentage of GM crops are not used in human foods but are consumed by livestock here or exported to other contries for their stock. The rest of it is going into ethanol for fuel.

You can lay awake at night worrying about GM crop production if you want, but it is here to stay as it is well accepted by the majority of producers.

Raising some of your own food is a great idea, but there are about 200 million or so people in the country that will not be interested in that unless they are starving.

I remember back in the 50s, going with my family into the field to pick a bushel basket of tomatoes. I feel sorry for all you poor folks who just will never know what a real tomato is - its one of life's true pleasures! I grow a few tomato plants in my back yard, these days. I can't make myself buy one of those disgusting tomato substitutes they sell in the market off-season. (I used to keep bees, too, but that's another story ...) Happy days: I swear to god I read online this morning that "they" are working on ever-more evil ways to trick people into "believing" that chemical additives, etc. are "natural," while marketing this as "helping the planet."

Curiously, the mountains of feces generated from industrial animal farms hasn't been implicated in this summers' media driven "tomato-fear" event. Agreed, grow them yourselves if possible, also, avoid the PVC lined cans at your grocery store.

There are two things that no amount of money can buy. One is true, honest love and the other is a fresh tomato.

I signed a petition and sent a letter to my Congressman about two years ago against this insanity. The Germans started a campaign several years ago against the Codex thing.

What we are witnessing is the dark side of capitalism with it's insatiable appetite for more and more profit, control, and subservience to a vicious class of people who praise the philosophy of greed and selfishness.

Kernel (6.12), "overweight" yes, no link there as far as I'm aware, but "sick" ... hey where have you been the last decade or two? Have you done no research at all on GMOs? You can't have if you think there's no link between GMO and sickness.
Just for a start:

Remember the L-Tryptothan fiasco? Killed many and ruined the lives of many more. Of course the company concerned maintained it wasn't GMO that caused the problem, but they were caught out in a lie.

Then there's BT cotton. An economic disaster it brought many Indian cotton growers to suicide. Contrary to Monsanto's claims, it still needed weedkiller, produced far less cotton and cost the farmers a fortune in buying seed from Monsanto. Monsanto's resp[onse was to blame the Indian cotton-growing technology!!! The workers who handled the stuff suffered from terrible skin conditions.

Ah, and Morgellon's "disease": There's very good evidence that this sinister condition is related to fungus genes used in GMO's.

I haven't scratched the surface yet!

You are right with one statement though: "Its here to stay". What a catastrophic injustice it is that once legal, you only need one grower to make the decision - basically for his whole country (or continent - seed and pollen don't recognise borders)! Once its there, its there and with whatever hazard (or holocaust) has been whittingly or unwhittingly built-in!

With the exception of locally grown "heritage" tomatoes available at a few stores here in Seattle, I've yet to find a store-bought tomato that's worth eating. Big, bright red, shiny, firm and absolutely tasteless. I expect that would describe a "Class 1" tomato. I'd rather do without, thanks. If you have any sunny yard space atall, or even a little patio or deck and a coupla big pots, grow your own, eat em fresh, and put up the extras in glass jars. You won't regret it a bit!

I will have four class 1 tomatoes, a class 2 watermalon and umm a nice bag of mixed class 1 and 2 lettuce.

Sounds interesting.

"that will not be interested in that unless they are starving."

Actually ,kernal,Cubans did starve in the Special Period until they started growing their own food in flower pots . Hey,sounds hokey , but most survived and produced the film The Power of Community:How Cubans Survived Peak Oil.Not a independent blockbuster like Inconvenient Truth but still homey,low-tech and informative.

Americans should look up " Special Period " and "The Power..."if they don't want to suffer from similar mistakes.

Clarke Kent has it right. Watch the video then think about what Codex means to us. Don't have time. The short story: Codex is the brain child of a convicted Nazi. He was convicted of slavery at the Nuremberg trials for his connection with IG Farben. Remember they produced the gas that the Germans used on the Jews.(zyklon-B) His Idea is who ever controls food controls the world. We won (the Allies) world war II. But the Nazi's are still at war. They just using another name now. Also Big Pharm,Agra,Chema are all in this together. They see profits galore. It has never been and will never be in the interest of large Companies to put the consumer first. It is always profits that rule. Just look at all the recalls of medicines there have been. We should all be diligent as to what Codex says is good for us.

These people are disgusting. I am so glad that peak oil is here finally: One day in the not-too-distant future, these sobs will be obsolete, and they'll have to do something meaningful with their lives, like shovel the shit they've poisoned everywhere. Stupid madmen.

Walmart will sell the new tomato reminiscent of vegetative matter like the Pringles in the can that are not potato chips and don't have to pay the taxes in England or was it the EU.

Procter and Gamble's lawyers gleefully argued that since their chip was less than 50% potato and shaped like no known natural products it was not subject to the potato chip tax.

I knew they taste like mechanoid paste salt, but even I thought there was 50.00000000000000000000001 % dehydrated potato like starchy stuff.

Kernel

There you go again, just like an industry spin doctor. Sooner or later GM crops WILL be forced off the market. Watch this space.

Read "Seeds of Deception" www.seedsofdeception.com

Folks, this article is just too benign in its neutrality. Codex is a draconian agreement designed to facilitate controlling the world through food. Someone else on this list noted the idea originated with one of the nazi's doing time after WWII. While in prison, he thought food is the way to control everything. He began to work with his cohorts, including those in the USA, and by 1962 the UN developed this Codex Alimentarius committee. It had the benign sounding idea that they should ensure that all people have at least a minimum food standard met. However, that is the newspeak of the issue.

Codex has at heart the total control of all food, herbs, supplements, and anything that can affect health–even incense in a church. The FDA recently told the cherry grower's association that they would now declare cherries a drug since they made health claims on their website. So we see that under Codex anything that affects health is to be government controlled. As a matter of fact under Codex the following it to occur:

1. All vitamins, supplements, herbs, etc are to be classified as drugs and pulled from the market.
If a company want to produce a vitamin they have to undergo the same $10 million research costs as big pharma–and for each and every use of the vitamin. Do we even know all the uses of vitamin C in our bodies..

2. All produce is to be irradiated or treated. This is to be the end of organics.

3. All animals are to receive antibiotics. Even pets!

4. GM seeds and plants are to be encouraged.

5. It will be illegal to make health claims for any food.

6. It is stated in Codex that people can get all nutrition from the (depleted) food provided by
big agribusiness.

7. The process of risk assessment is devoid of meaningful research. It proposes to give a
substance such as a vitamin to test animals and at the point of ANY response, that amount will be cut by 10 and that is what will be considered legal. Is this how they propose drug use? I think not. Do you know that doctor's are free to give a drug for untested uses in their practice?

8. The FDA is the lead agency to make Codex happen, although the USDA also has a hand in it, particularly with GM seeds. Almost 2 yrs ago the FDA put out a draft guidance which was a direct list of Codex requirements. Since that time they have been making new rules that attack
the DSHEA regs. These are the regs that guarantee us the freedom of access to all natural products --unless the FDA can show there is a problem with one of them. Remember the bogus
argument against ephedra a few yrs back which ended in the removal of that herb from our market?

But most importantly, Codex was scheduled to take full effect by 2009–that is only 6 months away. Canada is pushing their codex bill called C-51 and there is a growing fight over that. The government there is claiming it will have no effect on people's access to natural products, but if you read the bill's language, it will have all the effect that Codex wants. The language being used is the best of madison avenue advertising execs–it is benign, minimal, non-inflammatory and extremely dangerous. It will woo any uninformed person into a state of somnambulence.

Contact your reps and write articles to the press. There has been virtually no public information put out on this and most in congress are totally unaware.

"Soylent Green is people!"

I am so glad that there are so many knowledgeable people here on this subject. I was about to blow a fuse on what Kernel had to say. He is either a flack for the industry or an embedded government provocateur.

There is one more thing that I want to bring to your attention and that is TERMINATOR TECHNOLOGY. There is a lot of good information on the Internet on this subject so look it up.

However, let it be known, that this technology was let loose into our environment more than ten years ago. To the poorly informed, these are seeds that shutdown after the first germination.

This technology was created for sheer profit by the mega corporations. Farmers are unable save their seeds for the following year's harvest. Farmers would have to BUY their seeds from year to year from the vendor and they would be robbed of feeding themselves and others as they have done for eons. It is a long and frightening story.

One concern is that if this technology once it is let loose into the environment, it can possibly shut down all of the germination of all plant life on earth. In short, it could stop the reseeding or germination of our crops. If this is so, we are ever so screwed.

If the corporations are lucky, they would have complete control over our food supplies. If you cannot buy seed…you do not eat.

dogface___ Sorry, you have it wrong. I have been a family farmer for over 50 years raising corn, wheat, cattle, hogs, chickens, and dairy for a while. Also have had a large garden with help of my wife to raise as much of our own food as possible. No connection whatsoever with government or corporations.

My feeling is that these paranoid scare stories do more harm than good as it prevents sensible discussion of how our food should be handled in this country. We might as well say cars will be outlawed some day to prevent pollution and save fuel.

New developements need to be monitored, as most of them are permanent changes but need adjusting as we know more about them. Do you have a cellphone? Careful, it could affect your health.

Can someone enlighten me as to the recent South Korean protests of US beef imports? Is it the same beef we get/eat?

I've always been a bit weary of the beef/pork industry, and have a sneaking suspicion that the health issues dealing with these meats are always downplayed.

Kernel:

If what you say is true and that you are a farmer, you are so ill informed and I feel so sorry for you. do not trust me, do your research.

Kernel:

If what you say is true and that you are a farmer, you are so ill informed and I feel so sorry for you. Do not trust me...do your research.

Growing your own food is an act of revolution.

blueapples 26: very good idea!

I doubt that young people even know what tomatoes are supposed to taste like. Amish tomatoes in Michigan brought back memories.

"The main reasons for those problems are the sedentary lifestyle many people have, and eating food containing too much fat, and too little fiber and protein."

The main reason is their diet of denatured, processed, salted foods.

GM crops banned in Switzerland until 2012

The Swiss Federal Council (government) has voted to extend the country's moratorium on genetically modified (GM) plants for a further three years beyond the current expiry date of November 2010, Dow Jones reports.

http://www.allaboutfeed.net/news/id102-50901/gm_crops_banned_in_switzerland_until_2012.html