TTIP is one of the worst things that could happen to quality of life in Europe.

However, if you visit this fine emerald isle, you will find the US has no monopoly on bland, mildly sweet food. (To be fair, we _do_ have some pretty great cheese)

I recently visited Dublin for the first time, and picked an Indian restaurant based on Yelp ratings/reviews. I've never eaten worse Indian food than I did that day.

I don't believe that the restaurant operators are unable to make OK food. They were Indian themselves. Perhaps they had to change their flavours to adapt to local palates, and their ingredients due to economic pressure?

I find the same thing happening with Mexican food with regards to dulled flavours.

Well, apart from whisky, nobody ever considered Ireland a place for good food. For UK of course it's even worse, they're actively known for the bad taste and cuisine.

As someone from the UK I take offense at that, sure we might not be on the same level as Italy or France (but really, who is?) but we have some great traditional food. Pies of all kinds, fish 'n' chips, traditional sausages, good old roast dinners, chicken tikka masala and of course the healthiest breakfast in the world. Tasty stuff. And lets not forget our mayonnaise and ketchup beats all others, hands down.

Sort of makes my point. None of these have anybody (of statistically significant percentage) outside the UK salivating, or have ever created something like a "British restaurant" to be found abroad (like there are French or Italian restaurants everywhere).

And even the best of this list was invented by taking from a foreign (the Bangladeshi) cuisine tradition.

>and of course the healthiest breakfast in the world

Bacon, sausages, eggs, and beans? I think nutritionists can point to at least 20 other candidate countries for that title...

Have you ever tried a traditional English pie? I'm a bit biased obviously, but as an anecdote my Italian co-worker who moved here recently absolutely loves them (and I can't help but say 'who ate all the pies, guido?' to him). They don't have that kind of pastry in their cuisine at all and he can't get enough of them. It's a national cuisine, just because not a huge number of people outside the UK eat it doesn't make it bad in any way.

> or have ever created something like a "British restaurant" to be found abroad

You're right, cuisine isn't our major cultural export (I'd say that's TV) but it's hard to find authentic national food outside of the respective nation. Most Italians would cry at the sight of most of the "Italian food" served at "Italian restaurants", just because it's not a label you can stick on your restaurant doesn't mean it's bad...

> Bacon, sausages, eggs, and beans? I think nutritionists can point to at least 20 other candidate countries for that title...

You forgot the hash browns, black pudding and toast, all in huge quantities. Also that went way over your head, it's possibly the most unhealthy breakfast in the world when done right.

Certainly there are great foods to be had, but on the whole it seems it's not the UK's strong suit.

It's not usual to see a pie with meat in Italy, usually its filling it's all vegetables/eggs, seldom some ham. There are plenty though.

Nope, nothing like that, I think. English pies use thicker pastry, are filled with gravy and never anything green. Something like this[1] gives you an idea. Perhaps it's the sort of equivalent, but the Italian I work with says there is nothing like them that he's ever had in Italy.

1. http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3148692/dads-beef-mushroo...

I'm in the U.S., so the search results might be affected by my location.

edit: I tried on google.co.uk and I get more results similar to what you suggested.

So, it's definitely affected. :)

Well, Italians have pastry in their cuisine — but they boil it and call it pasta grin

Probably cultural products more generally, including books and music.

Pork Pies are pies as well I guess, but they are a different beast and as nice (no gravy, solid filling) unless you get an amazing melton mowbray one.

I will also add that traditional British ales played a pretty huge role in fueling the underpinnings of the American homebrewing / craft brewing movements. Of course, us Americans transformed it entirely in a different direction from the British CAMRA "real ale" world. :) But some of the most popular American craft brew style clearly have clear British lineage: IPAs / pale ales, porters, and stouts.

British-style pubs that serve those exact dishes are very popular in Canada.

As for whether its true, that's a much harder sell. I can buy that Britain has quite a bit of bad food; 'British' mass-market food can be a bit shoddy, since it tends to be traditional dishes like fish'n'chips and pies that respond terribly to low-quality ingredients and lengthy storage. The restaurant stuff is much better, but it can certainly seem rich and heavy to those unfamiliar (partly because it's special-occasion food being served every night).

But to sincerely claim that the Brits don't have good food is a bit absurd. It seems to be born of either ignorance or ahistoricism. People know "fatty pies", but not cullen skink or any of the other more specialized delicacies, and they seem to have gotten their sense of what's available in around 1945, which was understandably not a high point in British cuisine.

These are the best places to go in England IMO. Avoid any chain pubs at all costs, the smaller local ones serve the best food in the countryside hands down.

I had been foolishly looking forward to a meal of fried potatoes, olive oil, Parmesan, salt, and lightly seared diced garlic, with perhaps a bit of parsley (or, dare I dream, cilantro/coriander). I thought it might bring back memories of nights spent at Giants games

What I got was chips with a gigantic blob of sightly garlic-scented mayonnaise plopped on top of it. Disappointing, to say the least.

To be fair, there is some fantastic food, but you have to look for it. Dublin has some surprisingly good burritos, for instance. I think the issue comes from the fact that inexpensive street food in places like Italy is phenomenal, but in Ireland and the UK tends to be mediocre.

That's your first mistake. You can get all that, but it's not exactly English. You'd have better luck with getting all that on roast potatoes to be honest.

> I think the issue comes from the fact that inexpensive street food in places like Italy is phenomenal, but in Ireland and the UK tends to be mediocre.

I agree, but then again we don't really have a street food culture like those places. London has got pretty into the street food idea, and there are tonnes of really nice food markets springing up everywhere. Pretty damn expensive, but nice once in a while.

For what it's worth, I've gotten really in to cooking since living here. I make my own Doro Wat and tequila lime chicken in particular.

In general, foods here don't usually have a lot of nuanced flavours. There are exceptions, and I love a hearty uncomplicated meal as much as the next person, but I do miss it. Admittedly I may have been spoiled when I was in CA, where I lived (San Diego and SF) both seem to have pretty great food.

That's hardly what one means when talking about a good national cuisine though... The UK also has excellent Indian restaurants, but that's again something else.

I think I blame the British connection for some of the issues with American food: overly sweet, fish without bones, little seafood, etc.

That's a myth that's refusing to die, it's not true at all.

Ever eaten pot roast? That's British food. Ever eaten a roast potato? That's British food. Ever eaten cheese, mushrooms, roast beef or rabbit? Those are all British foods.

British food, properly done (i.e., not the result of WWII rationing or Victorian institutionalisation) is savoury and earthy: roasts, onions, cheeses, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, turnips. It is hearty and filling, and goes well with the native ale. It's delicious.

Don't knock what you haven't had.

I haven't stayed in a single hotel anywhere that doesn't serve English Breakfast. And I'm sure a lot of people are enjoying a Sunday Roast or a Chicken Tikka Masala every now and again.

But of course, I know there are a lot of ignorant people in the world, which is why I admit the myth persists.

That's not British though, it's Indian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tikka_masala

Chicken tikka masala is chicken tikka, chunks of chicken marinated in spices and yogurt, that is then baked in a tandoor oven

Those don't sound like British words... let's follow the links:

Chicken tikka is a chicken dish originating in South Asia.

A masala is any of the many spice mixes used in Indian cuisine. The name comes from the Hindi word for spice.

The tandoor is used for cooking in Southern, Central and Western Asia.

Did you mean British commonwealth, or British isles?

Nobody is disputing the Asian influence on British cuisine. And nobody is disputing whether or not tikka masala is British.

"...The historians of ethnic food Peter and Colleen Grove discuss various origin-claims of chicken tikka masala, concluding that the dish "was most certainly invented in Britain, probably by a Bangladeshi chef".[14] They suggest that "the shape of things to come may have been a recipe for Shahi Chicken Masala in Mrs Balbir Singh’s Indian Cookery published in 1961".[14]..."

Only by people who've no idea what they're talking about. British food got a bad reputation due to, I think, three factors: first, it's the native cuisine of the English-speaking world (which means both that people don't notice it and that there are a lot of cheap, poorly-executed examples to hand); second, rationing during and after the Second World War badly hurt both availability of ingredients and folks' taste for ingredients; third, Victorian-era institutions were terribly efficient at churning out 'scientific,' 'cutting-edge' food-like substances which were almost but not quite entirely unlike the real article.

Native English, Welsh, Scottish & Irish cuisines are all delicious.

Anybody that cares for it the way people globally care about French, Italian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Japanese, even German etc food?

One can find more Korean BBQ joints than British restaurants the world over...

Let's put it this way: some countries have more interesting (to the world) cuisines than others. Not every national cuisine is of the same caliber.

As I understand, there was a long down period essentially as a side effect of the way industrialization played out in Britain, but that's turned around recently internally and there is growing international acceptance of the British cuisines among people who are into food.

It hasn't reached the same kind of popular currency as some other cuisines, globally, but I'd not be strongly inclined to think that's due to inherent quality factors, rather than awareness.

Second, my point is not that I had some pot roast or fish and chips that were "bad" -- as in bad cooking (although you get that too a lot). My point was that even cooked the best way, they are nothing to write home about compared to other national cuisines and their dishes.

Then you're talking about food which:

- Is a very small proportion of all food consumed in the UK

- Is the food least likely to be affected by TTIP (as it's traditional, many/all of the ingredients are readily available and don't need to be imported)

So, regardless of how you or I feel about traditional British cuisine, it has little to do with the comment to which you replied (which commented on the potential impact of TTIP).

*and oysters, but one can't really take credit for the ocean currents.

Mind you, the food they sell is still significantly better than an equivalent low cost grocery in the US.

But I live in rural Iowa (USA). Not everybody can live this way.

If organic / grass fed / 100% / fish species meant something, then consumers could decide whether they wanted to spend more for quality or save money on alternatives. With a lack of differentiation, race to the bottom prevails.

PS: The shenanigans from international importers are criminal. Trade pacts should include a clause where one-sided tariffs can be legally imposed as punishment for a lack of export policing on the sending country's side.

Aka blacklist vs whitelist computer security policies

It's too easy for a willful infringer to cloak their goods in the sheer volume of imports. The vast majority of which, by economic necessity, will never be searched in a thorough manner.

Furthermore, if you do detect counterfeit/dangerous goods on the inbound, what can you do without cooperation of the exporting country? About the only option you have available is "ban all X from Y" until the other party does something.

I admit I was trolling that if GMO are healthy, then ultimately there is no harm in a neutral label. My comments got downvoted very hard. It boiled down that those labels would essentially be a form of misinformation, or that the uneducated public would make uninformed decisions. I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but the post got 400 comments.

This is like saying that "machines are safe". It makes not sense, there all all kind of machines you can design. You should study a specific machine case by case.

Gene modification is enormous, and open to all kinds of unintended consequences. Just because we don't understand it yet it does not mean it is safe(we modify genes without really understanding what they really do with detail, we are unconscious ignorant).

I believe people should be able to buy GMO food if they what , but with traceability, if something wrong happens, and something wrong always happens with everything, to know it soon and do something about it.

But traceability is exactly what companies like Monsanto want to destroy. Look at Volkswagen, when something wrong happens, with traceability the lawsuits alone could bankrupt the company if people have children with leukemia or autistic and a scientific connection is proven.

-GMO because tons of Roundup® has been dumped on it ~Is Roundup® safe?

-GMO for marketing or other purposes but which could have features harmful to humans. ~How much, if any, scientific & statistically valid tests have been done?

-GMO for any reason but could have features which disrupt the current flora & fauna of their environment. ~Can a problem be observed before it is too late to correct for it?

-GMO which results in expansion and/or defense of monoculture. ~Are consumers ok with low quality food with minimal variety?

-GMO which is almost certainly owned by Monsanto ~Are we prepared to cede most of the benefits (and control; cf terminator seeds) of GMOs to a ruthless, aloof megacorp?

"we modify genes without really understanding what they really do with detail"

Except that with genetic engineering, we know precisely what they do. Ironically previous ways of changing genes are a lot more random.

No, we don't. At best, we know a few of the reliable consequences of that gene locus. We know nothing of the proliferation that gene may have in a wild population, or how our modification will help or hamper the organism to adapt to a changing environment.

"We know nothing of the proliferation that gene may have in a wild population, or how our modification will help or hamper the organism to adapt to a changing environment."

We don't know exactly, but we do know a lot more than nothing.

Ultimately, this. You can test for very, very small numbers, but you can't test for zero. This is why, for example, even though lead has no biological function, extremely small "acceptable levels" are specified in regulations rather than simply saying zero lead. You can prove that, for example, lead levels in the air are less than 0.15 µg/m^3, or that they are not. You cannot do that for zero (nonzero is easy to verify, but zero is not).

There is also, of course, the fact that no food is safe in all scenarios. Even pure water is toxic at high enough doses. For that reason, it makes no sense to hold GMO food to even higher standards than non-GMO food: equal standards certainly make sense, but not higher.

Normal food has the advantage that we already know it has no disastrous ecological consequences, by virtue of the fact that is has coexisted in its environmental niche for a while. The more food is altered, the less sure we become about that.

As Taleb has pointed out, our standards for danger should match the risk/reward involved. (E.g., we're ok with fast-tracking unproven cancer treatments because the alternative is death. Likewise, we have high standards for a common cold treatment because the alternative is inconvenience.) Unfortunately, we have no backup plan for the planet, so we must be extra careful with what we introduce to it.

To me, saying we don't need more stringent standards for GMOs is like saying we can definitely burn $X billion more oil reserves and not worry about global warming.

Except with genetic engineering, by being precise as to how and where the new genes are inserted, we are actually altering it less than with traditional breeding or mutagenics. Those types of breeding have far less testing than transgenics. We can potentially create new genes with those older methods that have never existed before and never know about it.

This is something that taleb was criticised for by biologists and geneticists (and basically his reply was "that they are idiots", yup, great argument).

"Normal food has the advantage that we already know it has no disastrous ecological consequences".

There is no such thing as normal food: Take the sweet potato. It has been altered transgenically using the agrobacterium twice in its history without human intervention. The agrobacterium is the same bacteria used when doing transgenic GMO. Basically nature beat us to it a long time ago when it comes to transgenics.

You can breed a potato the old fashion way to contain high level of solanine (which can be poisonous). Its not how the genes are altered, its what they do that is key.

It is also a way to enact intellectual property regimes over the world's biggest industrial sector. It is worth looking at how this has affected other parts of the economy.

I wouldn't mind GMO labels at all - hell, I'd buy primarily GMO-containing products on purpose, out of spite. But there's enough insanity going on about the labels we already have (e.g. E-numbers paranoia) that I don't think labeling GMOs will end well.

This text looks like it has been drafted with the main purpose of safeguarding the interests of industry, and the producers and consumers of fossil fuels. Instead of including text that would help to ensure that climate targets can be met, as we had hoped, this text will only make it more difficult to reach the needed energy transition

https://www.tni.org/en/article/ttip-leaked-eu-trade-proposal...

I suspect the differences are minor, and some things people fear are maybe even not so bad. Here they fear "chlorine chicken" from the US, but who knows, maybe it actually is better to soak chickens in chlorine before selling them. Maybe you should be afraid of chlorine free chicken in the US if TTIP goes through...

TLDR: European regulations force more stringent regulations on producers of eggs; therefore eggs are cleaner and you can store them for weeks without refrigeration.

IMHO they've also got a much nicer colour.

There is a cost to having free-range eggs. There's a cost to controlling egg-quality so they can remain unwashed, and unrefrigerated for days.

Now in the US, you can choose if you want to pay that cost and thus shop at different supermarkets that cater to your tastes. In the EU countries, you must pay the cost because its mandated by the government.

If you'd prefer blander food, that requires more refrigeration, and deeper cooking because its inexpensive... you can't make that choice. It's taken away from you by the government.

You might be on to something, that you should have the right to cheaper food, even if it notionally means poisoning yourself.

The problem is though that you are not always in a situation where you can make an informed choice. Even if all the necessary information is provided at the point of sale (an exhaustive list of the details of the production of the food).

You don't always consume at the point of sale: You may be buying sandwiches or be in a restaurant. Perhaps you could have regulations about the point of consumption having to declare all details there. I can imagine that becoming quite tiresome in Starbucks.

If you have that, how do you enforce it? How much do you spend? How much time do you spend updating these rules to cover all the new permutations that an evolving market produces every day.

Effectively this has what has happened with eggs in USA by transferring the cost of producing clean eggs onto stores and consumers who must now bear the cost of refrigeration.

There is an environmental cost to all this energy used as well, in storage and transportation. Then there is food wastage because these eggs spoil more easily. So it's not even all about "your" choice any more ...

By enforcing standards at point of production it drastically reduces the amount of red tape required to ensure consumers get a certain quality product.

Another example of the difference between the US and EU with regards to encouraging choice is labelling.

In the EU, food must be labelled for origin, and other factors. In the US, that's all option but if a food company does label, it has to meet strict standards as to accuracy of the label.

Do consumers care about GMO corn vs non-GMO corn? In the EU, the question is non-optional, you must label. In the US, the question is optional---some companies label themselves as non-GMO and charge higher prices, some do not label themselves anything and could be using GMO or non-GMO products.

The point of the article is US consumers can't really choose what they're buying, because we are constantly, systemically lied to about the contents of our food purchases.

http://blog.chickenwaterer.com/2013/03/influencing-egg-yolk-...

You can argue that it doesn't matter what chickens eat, and you could win. But I'd wager that to a great many people the quality of food does matter.

There is the spurious matter of the nutritional quality of the eggs as discussed here http://www.thekitchn.com/what-does-egg-yolk-color-actually-m...

"Some studies have shown, however, that eggs from pasture-raised hens can have more omega-3s and vitamins but less cholesterol due to healthier, more natural feed."

The colour is just an additive put in chicken feed. You can get colour charts for the egg colours.

http://blog.chickenwaterer.com/2013/03/influencing-egg-yolk-...

The shell appears to be genetic: http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/why_are_chicken_eggs_different_...

While I can't speak for all European eggs, you can store UK eggs for longer, outside the fridge, because they are likely to be significantly less dirty at the point of collection, the chickens they came from are less likely to be infected with salmonella, and because they are not subjected to a damaging process (washing) that aids the transfer of harmful substances from the outside of the egg to the inside.

I am under the impression that European eggs are not refrigerated. My understanding is that once you refrigerate an egg, the membrane separates from the shell, requiring that you continue to refrigerate it, as the egg is no longer properly sealed. Since American eggs are refrigerated to begin with, you need to continue refrigeration.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/22/eu-dropp...

Monsanto is an agrichemical and seeds company. It is not in the food business. I know 'Monsanto' is sometimes used as a general synonym for 'evil company', but this is somewhat inappropriate.

2. TTIP is enormously encompassing, about far more than food.

3. A cursory search will show lobbying by Monsanto for TTIP.

Currently under EU regulations it is a requirement that GM be declared, so it is wholly appropriate.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2016/02/10/the-...

Sorry, to be blunt, but this is bullshit. There are scams (olive extra-virgin was a big problem), but in general the rules do work and problems are being addressed, e.g. in Italy every olive tree is now digitalized [1].

If you want 'extra protection/certainty' then please buy labeled 'bio-food' with strict condition. Sure also there, you might find cheaters, but it is rare.

[1] (sorry, german) http://www.nzz.ch/nzzas/nzz-am-sonntag/ein-schmieriges-gesch...

Not seeing how the two sentences follow. Why should the EU be enforcing its laws on food packaged there, if the latter is destined for shipment to the US where pretty much anything goes?

Your values aren't worth squat if they aren't applied to all you do. This just means that if you are willing to sell shit labeled as flowers to a foreign nation it will happen at home too

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camorra

Also, keep in mind that - in contrast with the US and as already raised elsewhere - the EU tends to crack down on would-be fraudsters and prosecute when they find issues. Also, it's not unheard of for businesses to tip health inspectors to check out their competitors at the slightest hint of fraud. It might merely be an impression, but the same in the US seems to require alerting consumers and sometimes alarming them before the FDA bothers to wake up (as put on film in e.g. A Civil Action or Erin Brockovich).

The european market is significantly bigger than US one (380m people) but manages to have much better labeling standards.

If you claim on the label that your product is 52% tuna it can be (and frequently is) randomly tested and if it's not tuna, or 52% you can be open to prosecution.

By the sounds of the US system you're probably eating horse regularly, but no one ever tests to establish this.

In the case of the UK, austerity has resulted in Trading Standards being stretched to breaking point or beyond as funding has sunk way below actual need. Presumably the Tories will soon point to this as proof that a state owned system cannot work so let's privatise it.

Brexit leaves me deeply concerned the UK will resemble the US more.

> if the last scandal you have found is dated back to 2013, that only confirms my point.

Words fail me at your reasoning. How closely do you think I follow foreign food purity issues?

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/19/fda-approves-genetically-modi...

We're not all a bunch of anti-science luddites, you know.

(It's often GMO in the sense "let's take a bunch of seeds, expose them to radiation and carcinogens, and experiment with whatever comes out.)

In some countries (e.g. mine), these rights are not called "patent" but are not substantially different from what they are where the name is patent.

You can maybe get a patent for the process, but can you get a patent for the resulting lifeform or its individual genes? My understanding is that you can not, but if that's wrong I'd love to be corrected.

I agree that gene patents and whether to use GMO manufacturing are two different issues, but given that all of the GMO companies seem to be grabbing patents on their products, not buying GMO products seems like a good way to not support these practices. Especially since we already have GMO labeling in some places, whereas patent-information markings are very unlikely to ever be implemented.

Yes, you can get a patent. There are even organisations that aspire to patent organic plant variants that obviously aren't GMO. [0]

>given that all of the GMO companies seem to be grabbing patents on their products

No, not all are. First of all, not all developers of GMO technology are even companies - they may be universities or government agencies, for instance [1]. The widespread and misguided opposition to GMO technology works to the benefit for large companies (like Monsanto), though, because they have the resources to hire enough lawyers to manage the process where it matters.

Secondly, there's nothing "grabbing" about filing for patents or equivalent IPRs for plant variants; it's what you need to do to protect your variant even when you plan to release it into public domain (so that a malicious party would not claim them).

[0] https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/08/07/challengin...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice

There are other reasonable motivations for labeling GMO, ie. political and environmental (not all environmental reasons are "GMO is frankenstein food").

Moreover, the GMO scaremongering will last, as any other fad, for a limited amount of time. The part of public who rejects GMO for shallow (no) reasons, will quickly forget and move one to be scared of something else.

Mandatory labeling gives the impression that it's relevant information. Whether your food is GMO is totally without consequence. I don't see why the government should burden and mislead the rest of us so you can more easily wage your political campaign from the comfort of your local Whole Foods.

I'd actually be fine with mandatory labeling if it said something like "GMO. Totally harmless but the food hipsters wouldn't shut up until we forced everyone to read this stupid label."

Eg http://www.livescience.com/47931-msg-not-safe-for-everyone.h...

Copying from Wikipedia:

>"Excitotoxicity is the pathological process by which nerve cells are damaged or killed by excessive stimulation by neurotransmitters such as glutamate and similar substances." //

Is excitotoxicity of glutamates a myth, it must be if the claim that 'MSG is completely harmless' is true.

And some people have an allergy to water. I think GP meant "harmless" as referring to general population. There are always people who are allergic or otherwise harmed by things that are harmless to the 99.99% of humanity. Additional labeling might be justified if their number grows beyond a rounding error. And that still doesn't change the fact that unless you're the confirmed rare case for which X is harmful, you have no reason to fear it or to believe (and spread) misconceptions about it.

The side issue is objective truth here. So, you're telling me that no one has ever been harmed by consuming normal quantities of MSG? That's what "proven harmless" means.

It only requires one study to show some link between MSG and negative health effects to make it rational to seek that information, something like this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27312658 maybe, suggesting neuronal destruction (using mice as a model). It's not proof.

For example, from the Wikipedia article on "Glutamate flavoring":

>"At a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in 1990, the delegates had a split opinion on the issues related to neurotoxic effects from excitotoxic amino acids found in some additives such as monosodium glutamate."

If neuroscience experts don't have consensus, that would be a reason to avoid "additives such as MSG", no?

I still think that if we're going to do this democracy thing that people who want "no MSG" labels ['no free glutamate' would probably be more useful] should get them regardless of my view of their scientific basis.

Personally MSG doesn't really bother me, I don't like the "enhanced" taste with foods that are rich in it but a little seems fine. I do get headache and bloatedness after having the UK version of Chinese Restaurant food, seemingly more so than with other food types, but I'm pretty sure that's just over-eating [perhaps the enhanced flavour encourages it?].

"People" is sure of that... and so what? Food with additives sell. Have a walk in the street and observe what's the volume of organic (I'm using "additive-free-as-possible" for comparison purposes) food sold against "regular" one.

Talking at home about good intentions, irrational fears and so on translates little to purchasing habits. I actually heard only two people in my life talking about MSG, and only one is the "food hipster" who doesn't buy.

Of course, cases like associating skulls and crossbones with microwave ovens are an entirely different story.

> so you can more easily wage your political campaign from the comfort of your local Whole Foods.

I'm not sure if you're intentionally disingenuous here; the supermarket (generalizing, purchasing of goods) is actually the least comfortable place where to wage political campaigns, because it's the place where one puts the money where the mouth is if he really believes in his ideas, and doing so is expen$ive.

> Totally harmless but the food hipsters wouldn't shut up until we forced everyone to read this stupid label.

Let me make sure I understand you correctly. In the jar of yogurt I have in front of me, whose main readable are is ~250 cm², an OGM writing would take an estimated 0.8 cm² (it would necessarily follow the typical guidelines of mandatory warnings), and it would also be in a part which has no immediate visibility. I therefore exclude that as "forcing everyone to read". I also extremely rarely see advertisements in the supermarkets with warnings - this would cannibalize a part of their own offer.

Can you explain who and how would exactly "force" the public to read such warnings?

Note that of course some food would, for marketing purposes, shovel "GMO free" in shiny colours. That's advertisement, it's not government-regulated mandatory warning.

The idea with this is that you put much more information available:

http://www.marklynas.org/2016/07/time-compromise-gmo-labelli...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycrisp

As was smoking, and sugar, and thalidomide. What about what we don't know yet?

It doesn't matter if you think how people choose their food is not sensible, what matters for GMO labeling is whether you think they should be allowed to choose.

Don't know what you mean by DHMO in this context, are you trying to make a joke about water? FWIW we have labeling for food dosed with water, eg bacon, such labeling is perfectly proper.

And DHMO in this context means the GMO fear makes about as much sense as DHMO fear. People are afraid because it sounds "chemically".

But not allowing be to have the data to make a choice because a certain undefined cadre of society considers that choice to be irrational seems exceedingly likely to have a chilling effect.

So now you can't label your goods as phthalate-free because someone somewhere decided, perhaps with the help of a plastics manufacturer (yes I'm cynical), that "there's no rational reason to avoid them"?

This prevents people from being more conservative with risk than the authority who decides we're not allowed to have that information; yes it also means people can make a decision that you wouldn't but we all have the information available.

If GMOs have nothing to offer, why would the consumer want them, harmful or not?

Except they won't be, because "organic" doesn't involve less pesticides - it often involves more pesticides but of a more "natural" flavour. It may have started from the desire of some consumers to buy food that's made locally and with a more pre-industrial feel to it (because they believe it's healthier), but now it's just a way to milk people who have strong opinions about food.

In the EU (as we still are in the UK for the moment) this http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/eu-policy/eu-legisla... is the situation with food labelled "Organic". It's certainly not about being pre-industrial, it's about being sustainable and cautious with natural resources and health.

This is a really stupid regulation though. It's just protectionism for Greece, like the regulation that you can't call it "champagne" unless the grapes were grown in Champagne, France. There is no reason to expect this; consider Cheddar cheese, Peking duck, French toast, and Hamburgers.

It's interesting you pick out cheddar. Consider Cheddar cheese - much of it was so direly awful as barely meeting requirement to be called edible let alone cheddar. Labelling your cheese "cheddar" should give me some expectation of production process (it can't be cheddar if it's not been cheddared or aged) taste and texture just as labelling Fire Engine Red paint gives me expectation of colour inside the tin. Would it be stupid protectionism to be disatisfied that I received pale pink paint in the tin?

Fortunately there's an EU PDO protection for Cheddar - "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar", so this is what I now usually buy. It requires a minimum aging of nine months and that the milk come from the same farm producing the cheese. It's a dramatically better product.

margarine is never labeled 'tastes like butter' here. same with Grana Padano. Sure everyone has the ability to produce knock off Parmesan. But when I want the real thing I know I'll get it.

If someone outside of France (Auvergne, more specifically) can concoct a product with similar quality, let them label and market it under their own name.

If you fork an open source project, wouldn't it be convenient to come up with a new name for your project?

And if someone from a different place makes a product that is compositionally identical then probably their ability to market it will depend on the customer's recognition that it is exactly the same thing.

Yeah, brands do happen, I bought a cheese labelled "Blue style cheese" the other day because it was cheaper and may have been made in Poland to the same process.

Moreover quality of the product is not always the only reason to buy a product (see fair trade, organic product, religious belief ...)

What they can't do is pretend their product is the actual traditional product from some other geographical location.

There seems like no possible way that can be detrimental to consumers?

Even the water can make a significant difference. The animals producing the meat will influence taste depending on their life and what they're eating. It's reasonable that a regional product will turn out markedly different to the same recipe in a completely different environment.

It's reasonable to want the product as intended, not what it becomes after a series of shortcuts and cost savings to produce ostensibly the "same" product.

It's only heavily industrialised foods where this starts not to matter, mainly as it becomes so disntaced from those inputs.

I'm by no means an extremist on the topic. I think it would be pretty silly at this point to say that only Cheddar from Cheddar, England could be labeled as such. But origin naming rules aren't silly either.

The milk matter, cereal matter, where cow live matter. The whole supply chain. it's really difficult/impossibile to replicate that.

You can have something similar, but call it with the generic name.

In Italy you can get really good food everywhere. But i can assure you, you can feel the difference between location. For that we get DOC, DOP to certify location, tradition, etc.

"It wouldn't work. The animals would have to be transported. They would sweat and that affects the taste".

There are also some products in EU which are sold as '<something something> style <fooditem> because of the reason you state, but with that said: They rarely reach the quality of the 'real deal'. Apparently it is not very easy to create similar quality products?

It is about representing the right information.

You're not opposed to trademarks, are you? (I don't see how any rational consumer could be, otherwise it's a free-for-all with fraud and fakes.) It's exactly the same thing, except for traditional industry.

People are free to call their new products whatever they like, as long as they don't take one that's already taken. They should compete on their merits, not freeloading on the goodwill established by an existing brand (i.e. geographical area with specific standards of production etc.)

I'm not sure exactly why I've never thought of Greek yoghurt in the same way!

Why do you expect that? It can't be based on the name, since virtually all foods with an origin name were not actually made there. I'm pretty sure you don't expect Cheddar cheese to have come from Cheddar? Would you accept ordinary yoghurt that was imported from Greece being sold as "Greek Yoghurt"?

If I imported Camembert cheese from Cheddar, it would still be Camembert. If I imported Cheddar cheese from Hong Kong, it would be Cheddar. French toast sold at a Denny's in New Mexico was made in New Mexico, not France. Peking duck is duck prepared in a style characteristic of Peking, not any duck prepared in whatever style but sold in Peking. And Greek yoghurt is yoghurt prepared in a style characteristic of a Greek company that decided to sell thickened, sweetened yoghurt.

it might be a strange concept for non-europeans, but for us, this is one of the best things that came from EU integration. if I buy a copy, I want to know it's a copy and not original. simple as that.

This is not about protectionism for producers, rather the protection of consumers. Noone is telling the consumers what to buy, merely telling them what they can expect when they buy.

To take the example of wine, consumers of Bordeaux wines have accepted that since the classification of growths in 1855 there is a formalised structure and hierarchy of producers. One can know that wine from a First growth will be superior in quality to a lesser growth. From looking at the wine label, a customer immediately can tell that the wine will be of a certain quality without having to take a gamble. Codifying this into EU law allows no other winemaker within the EU to produce a wine with a label that claims the wine is a First Growth Bordeaux. This is great for consumers.

The EU is not protecting producers in that anyone can make wine to compete with these Bordeaux wines but cannot 'piggyback' off of the 'brand' (for want of a better word) that Bordeaux has built for its producers.

The reason for that regulation is a combination of protectionism on one side and a desire to be well informed about the products you're eating.