Reading through this thread brought up something I had not before considered. I am an organic food fetishist and was wondering if Switzerland accommodates this lifestyle.

I buy only organic produce, and very rarely eat in restaurants, unless they are vegetarian and organic. Produce in the UK is pollluted with 136 different chemicals, hormones and steroids, so I stay away from it all. Worst of all they are now importing from the US GM foods. Which is obviously causing rampant obesity there.

Are there grocery shops or supermarkets which sell organic foods in Switzerland? And are they hard to find? Is being a vegetarian considered loopy by the Swiss? Do they have vegetarian restaurants or health food shops?

And, what are the chances of finding them in Geneva?

And your evidence that GM foods are causing obesity is where? The obesity problem has been around a lot longer than GM foods. Aside from that it is very easy to find organic produce here, it is sold in nearly all supermarkets, there are also smaller health food shops all over the place.

The obesity comment is pretty silly, really! A GM veg is really the least of an American's health worries! You must first commend them at least for eating any kind of veg at all - even if it's absolutely dripping with bug spray!

So, GM vegetables are causing obesity in America? I think not!

You should have no worries finding everything you need in Geneva. The bigger the city, the more variety. As far as I know, Zurich and Geneva are as big as it gets! Eating "Bio" is pretty in fashion in Switzerland. Good luck!

-- All supermarkets sell organic produce often tagged with a ladybird as
the symbol of eco friendly or organic produce also it's often tagged as
'bio'....

Plus you can get almost every thing for daily use from bog roll to
cosmetics to writing paper to washing powder etc in regular and
bio/eco
quality,the latter often a bit more expensive,but if money is no object
for you then why not buy this.
-- You can also get vegs and fruits grown after the demeter guidelines in
health food stores ( reformhaus)
-- Try weekly farmers markets,they are held in every town and villages
even
-- buy directly from a farmer, he usually sells what he grows in his garden
and more often than not they don't use too many chemical helps, on
top of that, many of the 'bugsprays,fertilizers and whatnot' that are
allowed in the EU and US of A are forbidden to use here!!
-- you can also get loads of soy based products in supermarkets,or Quorn
http://www.quorn.co.uk/ in switzerland sold exclusively in Migros under the name of CORNATUR,this covers all the meatreplacement products.

--no vegetarians are not looked at funnily,and the restaurants are even
getting more inventous with their vegetarian menus,in Zurich is the
world famous HILTL restaurant always worth a visit!


Almost every restaurant features some vegetarian ( mind you, not vegan ) dishes on it's menu,but sadly often bland and dull stuff,but there is hope yet

hope this helps

cheers
EE

Thank you EE for the info. I realise now it was a bit naive to think the Swiss would not have known about growing your own being the better option. I really enjoy the farmers markets here. I look forward to them there.

On the obesity levels, mentioned above, being connected to GM foods. Although there is little written on this, there is a great deal written on genetically engineered crops meaning infected food, bodies and ecosystems. As the obesity levels have rocketed since their introduction one can make a reasonable connection between the two.

The medical problems with genetically engineered insulin, which has found a connection between GM and the hormone levels in the blood after receiving it, is an indication of a connection to obesity which should not to be ignored.

It is considered the population have been duped by genetic engineers who look to forward their financual status by promoting it this way.

You can look up what scientists have said about the dangers of GM foods as I have done. The internet is full of it. Then you can make your own assumption.

I have made a simple comment on 'my belief' after reading a great deal on it, that genetically engineered foods have a connection to gross obesity.

Why is everything in your posts "obviously rampant" ? Are you hyperboled teenager ?
dave

How does consumption of a GM crop like say corn relate to insulin ingestion in the theory you read about?

Muze

Are you in some way connected to the promotion of ~GM foods?

As I wrote above, look under the threat of GM foods, then you can make your own assumption. As I have done.

Then it can be discussed.

What, no way. I take offense at even the idea. I was actually trying to give you a chance to tell us all what in your opinion the scientific reason is behind your claim. I am merely saying that no one here seems to respond in detail to your claim so far because you have not backed up the statement, so nothing can be reasoned about yet.

I am saying that I am not discounting the fact you might be on to something, but then summarize the crux of the scientific facts for us, as we don't have time to do all the reading you have already done, but you might regard this as an opportunity to share your new wisdom.

If you are convinced, then tell us how you became convinced. (I am interested in the science behind it, nothing else!).

Actually I have spent a bit of time this afternoon looking into this and I can't find anything at all to substantiate what you have said. If you post some links to back up what you have siad it would be most helpful.

Nice one. I've done a quick surf, and interestingly came up with a potato that absorbs less fat to enable chips to become a more nutritionally loaded food and less calorific food....the chips will no doubt be battling deep down in my stomach to achieve the upper hand over the obesity-generating genetic effects that englishgirl suggests.

dave

I tried to shut up because I don't want to start a flame war but here goes.

Science has little to do with the hysteria surrounding GM foods. It also unfortunately has little to do with science.

What science is about and which Englishgirl has failed to address is referencing objective data. Not personal experience, not my friend/mum/tofuburger told me.

Where is the data?

Any reliable data you would find on www.pubmed.com. Big database of big science pubs.

I am in neuroscience, not genetics. However, here is what I know about genetics. Most genomes are huge. Most individual organisms, including humans, carry thousands of chance mutations. Do they generally affect us? Generally no.

Why? Probability. So if you manipulate one or two genes in an organism, the chance that it will affect other genes or the organism as a whole is minute, right? One or two over thousands. Small change, small probability. We can argue butterfly effect *at most*, but again, *we* are walking mutants and we seem to do just fine, mostly.

So, I think the GM story is a moral one, of not manipulating nature and so forth, which is...funny. My husband was pointing out the other day that a cow is a human invention.

Now here is where it is immoral to be against GM foods and I will fully state that I am for their development and use.

People, not the English and not the Swiss, and not the Americans, but other people in the world live off of subsistence farming. They make little cash. Food in their countries is more expensive than it is in the US.
These countries and people would benefit greatly from technologically advanced agricultural techniques. Because, without them, they starve, or at the very least don't eat enough. To play paternalist, as the EU has done, and claim that GM crops/foods shouldn't go to "third world" countries because "GMs are bad, mkay?" is cruel, misguided and contributes to people's death.

And I know that certain agricultural advances by Monsanto took people backwards but the fact is that increased yields => lower prices is a good thing for subsistence farmers. It's great for everybody actually provided uninformed people don't pen policy!!!

Another thing is that the people who seem to be making money off of this whole "organic" concept are organic growers who can charge more for a crappier product. Ok, it is not always crappier, but it is usually more expensive.

Insulin saves lives. People use it on a daily basis to remain functional. Pig insulin was ok, but synthetic is much better, cheaper and more sustainable. There may be a link between synthetic insulin and obesity because type II diabetics tend to be obese!!!

Correlation does not indicate causation and so on! Do we really need to post the latin fallacies here?

(I love the latin fallacies. and Bundnerfleisch)

Go on, you know you want to...

There has been a few earlier posts this afternoon that are really just wild assertions masquerading as fact designed to generate a reaction. No, in fact, implying that they act as a catalyst is to be too kind

If we're going to discuss this properly , let's have a bit or repeatability, and Popper ! Get yer peer-reviews out fer the lads, englishgirl.

dave

PS: To add a serious point to this, I was once discussing GM with a guy doing research in London on super-crop diversity. He was more concerned with the implications of common-mode failure when, years in the future there is minimal diversity....

A bump to this very old thread as I came across an article that though written from the medical/eating point of view does bring up a number of points about GMO foods now that they have been on the market for a number of years in certain countries. The author is a US based doctor that is very pro natural foods so you will see the position he has immediately.

CH still has I think 2 years of moratorium on GMO foods. My guess is that we will be voting again before the moratorium is up.

Link: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...1213_DNL_art_1

Yes on all counts.

In fact you'll find that Switzerland was one of the first countries in which organic agriculture caught on. I think it traces its origins back to the 1920s and at about that time an agricultural college was opened with the
specific purpose of researching and teaching about organic agriculture. That college still exists. Today, there are two labels available in supermarkets, IP-Suisse and Bio, with Bio being the stricter one. Demeter is even stricter, but not so widely found in supermarkets. Any decent health food or bio store will have it though. Demeter is basically the label for Bio-Dynamic.

Concerning vegetrainsim, you'll find there are quite a few vegetarians. Most restaurants will offer at least or two vegetarian dishes and there are even specislised vegeterian restaurants.

One problem with Monsanto and other GM peddlers is not that they want to "improve" things but that they are, for example, lobbying against labelling rules. If GM food is labelled as such then at the end of the day the consumer can decide. But if lobbyists work against that they are taking the consumer's choice away.

Plus Monsanto and co are too strongly in denial of their own shortcomings. Before any new strain is introduced they tell us nothing can possibly go wrong and won't, it's all thought out and foolproof. Then something goes tits up and they make out it has nothing to do with them.

So whether it is true or not, the picture that is coming across is that abunch of crooks are in control. Unless they can clean that up and start being honest and owning up and talking straight and purging out the bad weeds from their own lines. I think we shouldn't open the door any further

When this thread was started, folks were asking for research showing any negative impact caused by GMOs, implying that the scarcity of such research justifies an assumption that GMOs are harmless. This article cites some of the work done during the intervening five years, and — more importantly — asks the no less pertinent question: "Where is the scientific evidence showing that GM plants/food are toxicologically safe, as assumed by the biotechnology companies?"

Pst! Pssst! Obesity has sky rocketed since the Americans put a man on the moon. So, obviously the moon is making us fat.

P.S. Books are for research, the Internet is for porn.

...and the article (sorry, no pictures) references not only two books, but also lab study results (including one by Monsanto), and one researcher's review of more than 600 scientific journals (also suitable for research).

Texaner that comment wasn't aimed at you. The problem I have is how do you prove something is safe? You could give somebody some GM modified food stuffs over a long term and they could have unrelated health issues. But how do you prove they are unrelated?