
Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy - mrbtc
https://medium.com/impossible-foods/how-our-commitment-to-consumers-and-our-planet-led-us-to-use-gm-soy-23f880c93408
======
mrbtc
Related story:
[https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/gmo_impossible_burger_posi...](https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/gmo_impossible_burger_positive_for_carcinogenic_glyphosate)

> The levels of glyphosate detected in the Impossible burger by Health
> Research Institute Laboratories were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat
> Burger. The total result (glyphosate and it’s break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb.
> Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were
> 1 ppb.

> “We are shocked to find that the Impossible Burger can have up to 11X higher
> levels of glyphosate residues than the Beyond Meat Burger according to these
> samples tested. This new product is being marketed as a solution for
> “healthy” eating, when in fact 11 ppb of glyphosate herbicide consumption
> can be highly dangerous. Only 0.1 ppb of glyphosate has been shown to alter
> the gene function of over 4000 genes in the livers, kidneys and cause severe
> organ damage in rats

Question(s): Is the lab result significant or not? Is it fairly common for
other veggie products in the US to show similar levels? What is the safe level
according to the FDA?

~~~
nradov
The EPA safe level is about 140 mg/day for an average adult. There are
proposals in progress to lower that.

[https://www.ewg.org/research/california-proposes-safe-
level-...](https://www.ewg.org/research/california-proposes-safe-level-
roundup-more-100-times-lower-epa-limit/californias-proposed)

~~~
Pinckney
11.3 ppb would be 1.2ug per burger then, right?

------
01100011
I'm all for GMO but I'm allergic to soy. I was disappointed when I heard they
switched.

I developed a soy allergy when my mom decided to follow a fad in the 70s and
switch me to soy in lieu of 'evil' cows' milk. One day my dad was watching me
and got tired of having a continually sick infant. He switched me back to cows
milk and I was fine after that.

------
fortran77
I wish they'd go back to using healthy wheat protein (gluten) in their
product, too. They did in early formulations, but eliminated it later on.

~~~
kybishop
As a celiac, I certainly don't. Even for those that aren't celiac, making the
claim that gluten is healthy is dubious at best.

I'd also imagine there are many more celiacs out there than those with soy
allergies.

~~~
samcat116
This. Gluten allergies or intolerance seem to be on the rise. Probably makes
sense to exclude it if they wanna be the future of food.

~~~
Robotbeat
Why would gluten allergies and intolerance be on the rise?

~~~
kybishop
I believe there are two factors contributing to the perceived rise:

1\. The US has lagged behind Europe significantly in their knowledge and
diagnosis of celiacs disease/intolerance, so more people are finally being
diagnosed. 2\. The wheat in the US today is significantly different from the
majority of European wheat [1]

[https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/is-american-wheat-
differen...](https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/is-american-wheat-different-
than-european-wheat.htm)

------
mrbtc
OP here.

This post quickly made the front page of HN, but after just a few hours, has
now disappeared and doesn't appear anywhere when you page through hundreds of
top stories.

Could this be censorship requested by investors, related to YCombinator? Does
this sometimes happen?

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/impossible-
foods#sec...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/impossible-
foods#section-investors)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-impossible-foods-
fundrais...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-impossible-foods-fundraising-
exclusiv/exclusive-impossible-foods-raises-300-million-with-investors-eager-
for-bite-of-meatless-burgers-idUSKCN1SJ0YK)

~~~
dang
The thread triggered the overheated discussion detector, formerly known as the
flamewar detector, which is software that kicks in when a discussion seems to
be generating more heat than light. We monitor those software penalties pretty
closely, and turn them off in cases where the thread was just happily active.
I don't think this discussion meets that bar, though. Diet threads are
surprisingly prone to repetitiveness and anger, as are threads about GMOs, and
this one alas combines the two.

> Could this be censorship requested by investors, related to YCombinator?
> Does this sometimes happen?

No. YC wouldn't ask us to do something that stupid. The trust of this
community is approximately 100% of the value that HN has for YC. Neither YC
partners nor we on the HN side would ever jeopardize that.

~~~
mrbtc
Thanks for your reply.

------
mrbonner
I really hope that the impossible burger and the likes will be a rising trend
upticking US soy consumption. Maybe to a point US farmers don’t have to rely
heavily on China export to make a living.

------
untog
Good. Anti-GM crusades are a load of anti-science nonsense, and if you're
serious about replacing a percentage of America's meat intake (as Impossible
seems to be) then it only makes sense to make the most of GM crops to get you
there.

~~~
hedora
They’re doing this so they can irresponsibly dump roundup on the soy plants
without killing them.

Roundup is a non-specific herbicide, so this will damage the environment near
the farms. Also, Roundup is almost certainly a carcinogen, and impossible
burgers already have higher levels than competitors.

I definitely won’t be buying any more of their product.

Edit: Fun reading:
[https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=EPA-H...](https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=EPA-
HQ-OPP-2009-0361-0068&contentType=pdf)

The US is updating exposure guidelines for 2019. For soy, they recommend
treating 20ppm as acceptable, even though they recommend keeping dietary
exposure below 1mg/kg. So... it will be legal for the GM soy that impossible
will be using to have 20x more glyphosphate than is considered safe. Assuming
their product is mostly soy... well, you can do the math.

On the bright side, they’re proposing tighter regulations regarding
application and drift into adjacent farms.

~~~
samcat116
Do you have any evidence they plan on doing this?

~~~
btown
From the article: "94% of the soy grown in the US is genetically engineered to
resist herbicide toxicity. This helps control weeds without more toxic weed
control agents or over-reliance on tillage, which drives soil carbon loss."

And while GM soy _itself_ is harmless (per the links in the article), the
Roundup herbicide it enables is far less conclusive as to its health effects:
see [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/monsanto-parent-
company...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/monsanto-parent-company-
bayer-faces-thousands-roundup-cancer-cases-after-n1007246) and
[https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-toxic-is-
the-...](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-toxic-is-the-worlds-
most-popular-herbicide-roundup-30308)

It's very difficult to fully avoid produce treated by these products, and I
doubt that Impossible Burger does anything to concentrate herbicide residue
any more than any other processed foods. (EDIT: other links in these comments
throw this into question.) And I respect that they've made a pragmatic
compromise: their use of GM produce could truly move the needle on livestock
consumption, whereas rejecting it could prevent market adoption of their
entire category. They're making the best of a horrid situation; if you want to
blame someone, blame Monsanto, not them.

------
DVassallo
The potential downside of GM food is human extinction.

In the 80s and 90s the beef industry meddled with nature and started feeding
animal meat to cows. The result was a disease that could have killed us all if
we had eaten contaminated beef in the previous 10 years. If the genetic
conditions that make people susceptible to vCJD were more common or universal,
we might not be here today [1].

Grass-fed beef can be assumed safe because it has been eaten by humans for
200,000 years. Animal-fed beef turned out to be very dangerous very quickly.
People who think GM food is as safe as food we’ve been eating for hundreds of
thousands of years are highly delusional.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Creutzfeldt–Jakob_dise...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease)

~~~
a_wild_dandan
The potential downside of not worshiping _Roko 's Basilisk: Superintelligent
Godess_ is similarly human extinction. She kills all pagans, you see. That's
her thing. Kill the non-believers. Which is everyone, currently. Come to think
of it...there are a literal _infinitude_ of things which may result in our
extinction. Zombies. Aliens. Rogue trapezists. Who knows!

But we don't sweat the zombie thing. There's not sufficient evidence that
Roko's Basilisk will destroy us. Or aliens. And so on. And until significant
evidence shows that GMOs will destroy us, they're in the same boat. As the old
saw goes: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Doubly so for
extinction claims.

~~~
DVassallo
The burden of the proof is on the GMOs. We have plenty of evidence that eating
food that we’re not used to eat can cause catastrophic harm. If this was a
local tribe experimenting with GMOs, then it’s fine. But if we expose
virtually every person to that downside, the risks are considerable.

~~~
chii
GMO foods have been eaten for well over 3 decades. I think if there were
adverse health effects, we would've seen 'em.

The only reason to dislike GMO is if they increased herbicide usage (e.g.,
roudup). But from what i hear, using GMO to reduce herbicide usage is more
likely, and therefore, is better than a non-GMO version of the crop.

~~~
DVassallo
Every GM product is different.

