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kotoroshinoto

Quality of Foods / GMO/ Organic etc.

32 posts in this topic

you guys were having a lively discussion about this in the farming post, so have it out here

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Did you see what I said about us evolving to eat certain foods? Cause Im on a mobile so I can't really paste it here. Also, sorry for it coming out hostile, I sure didn't mean it like that :o

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not u, the bronygirl. Yeah, we did evolve with a certain diet, but evolution isn't stagnant, and we evolved as omnivores that are dependent on the effects of fire freeing up nutrients in the food that are hard to digest naturally.

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not u, the bronygirl. Yeah, we did evolve with a certain diet, but evolution isn't stagnant, and we evolved as omnivores that are dependent on the effects of fire freeing up nutrients in the food that are hard to digest naturally.

I'm confused, when did she become a part of this discussion? Besides, I'm the one who started this. Anywho:

Of course evolution isn't stagnant. It's actually very fast reacting. We didn't evolve to be able to drink milk after we started walking, but when we started milking cows and goats, most of us evolved to be lactose tolerant. Because the ones who didn't, died.

Comparing cooking our food to genetically modifing it is ridiculous though. What, do you think I eat my meat raw? No. Does that mean I agree with GMO's? No!

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I still don't see what part of GMO is bad, i mean, the proteins are inactive in humans, and it is used for higher crops, disease prevention, famine reduction etc. Please give me a reason why, and i will attempt to address the discrepancy.

We've been doing the same thing, just indirectly for thousands of years, i mean, apples used to be like the size of grapes.

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As a genetic engineer, I can say with complete authority that there is nothing inherently wrong with genetically modified foods. However, if you see anything put out by Monsanto Corporation, run and never shop at that store again. They'd put poison in babyfood jars if they thought the poison was cheaper.

But for those of us NOT working for Assholes Incorporated, we spend our entire careers studying and researching the reactions changing a gene will have on an organism. We don't release changes willy-nilly, just adding in random bits and tossing it out for public consumption. Plus even when we do put out new foods, they have to go through the same rigorous FDA filtering that any drug would, just to make sure we've got our shit straight.

For every giant-ass tomato you see on a shelf, there were about 20 more that got the tomato equivalent of cancer in a lab somewhere, and were chucked out with an exasperated sigh of 'we can't feed people this... welp, time to start over from scratch again'.

And incidentally, nearly every food you will ever consume has been genetically modified in some way, whether it was the kind that requires a lab or not. Ever eat an apple? It was cloned. Apple trees are very prone to mutation, and will change themselves drastically even generation to generation. When people stumbled by edible apples purely by chance, they soon figured out that only pollinating that tree with itself would yield an exact copy of it. Now, every edible fruit-bearing apple tree is a direct clone of one ancient ancestor of its type from idon'treallyknowhowlongago

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I'm confused, when did she become a part of this discussion? Besides, I'm the one who started this. Anywho:

I thought you were responding to my last post about hostility, I was directly responding to her.

Anyway I'm mostly on the same page as eternal on this.

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Eternal, i now respect you 10x more, knowing your profession.

Btw, monsanto isn't ALL bad, i mean, sure , they are dicks about copyright, but other than that, they spread a bunch of high yield crops to Africa.

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I still don't see what part of GMO is bad, i mean, the proteins are inactive in humans, and it is used for higher crops, disease prevention, famine reduction etc. Please give me a reason why, and i will attempt to address the discrepancy.

We've been doing the same thing, just indirectly for thousands of years, i mean, apples used to be like the size of grapes.

In your first reply to me, you put your argument in a spoiler, and I quoted that spoiler wig edited replies. Didn't you read it?

I'll say something very basic from my arguement before I go to bed though:

GMO's are bad because humans can't forsee all side affects of changing something in such a complicated environment. Some of these side effects will inevitably be negative and/or upset the delicate balance that is your body.

Furthermore, there is a big difference between selective breeding, which is choosing the most suited out of a already present gene pool and GM, which can mean taking something completely fucking unrelated and sticking it in something else to create a genetic Frankenstein. Is it new? Yes. Is it frikken awesome that we can take this gene and use it for this in this? Yes. But blowing something up is fun to, and awesome. Doesn't mean it should be done.

Further-futhermore, the argument of using GMO's to prevent hunger is throwing fuel on the fire instead of preventing it with proper education.

I'm really tired so that's as far as I'm going tonight, please read more of the pOst I made in the other topic, as I went much more in depth.

Also feel free to reply, but keep in mind I won't be deploring back until tomorrow. Or rather, today :P

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But... we aren't just taking random pieces of DNA from random things, there is extensive research done before it is EVER released into the public, if you want to be so cautious on how we modify our food, surely you are as cautious with what you spend, how you use your time? My point is that the years of research, and extended trials, show no problems inherently, (yes, there is the fiasco about stupid farmers selling animal grade food, only meant for cattle, as human grade, just to make more money, but that is greed, not biotech) We are you know, 99.99% sure that GMO's are safe. Did we do this degree of testing with hormones and meat? No. kids are getting pubescence earlier, and cancer sooner. I believe a degree of caution is required, but not this much, not when we can make better crops quickly, and feed starving people, are you saying this is a bad thing? And lastly, on the Further-Further part.... You do know, that for a GMO product to get even CONSIDERED for trials, there is a great deal of research, theoretics, analyzing, and even Tenure needed to do it? I will read your post tomorrow, as it is almost 2 am here. (just remember, gen engineers, aren't monkeys playing with dna, we get a large education for it first lol)

Edit: I lied, i read it anyways, and well, i coincide i may have assumed a bit there as well, but the thing is, we cannot know if a crop lost disease resistance unless we try no?

Besides, by encouraging genetic diversity, we REDUCE the chance of blights wiping out our entire food supply, in fact, there was a Papaya blight a while back in Hawaii, and we would have lost almost all of our papayas due to the ring-spot virus, actually, let me link you something interesting http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/grocery_shopping/fruit_vegetables/14.genetically_modified_papayas_virus_resistance.html

In this case, we artificially modified the papayas to be resistant to the blight, protecting the livelihood of many thousands. If we can do this in that case, why not in others?

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Eternal, i now respect you 10x more, knowing your profession.

Btw, monsanto isn't ALL bad, i mean, sure , they are dicks about copyright, but other than that, they spread a bunch of high yield crops to Africa.

Look up how much they spent doing that, then look up how much they spend telling people about it.

When you get back to me with those figures, THEN you can give me your opinion of them and I'll listen

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I understand it was a huge PR stunt lol, i'm not that Naive XD

"Btw, monsanto isn't ALL bad,"

Good deeds are good deeds, not matter the motive.

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"Some of these side effects will inevitably be negative and/or upset the delicate balance that is your body. "

On the biochemical level we're not quite as delicate as you think. We're actually extremely robust compared to most creatures. We're not dependent on a specific food source and can eat MANY things that are toxic to other species because we either don't absorb the toxins or our livers have enzymes to process the toxins into harmless byproducts.

On the other hand, there is a REASON that we're seeing metabolic syndrome more and more, but that has more to do with empty calories and TOO MANY calories than anything else.

There IS something to be said for analyzing what our ancestors were eating, but don't assume that just because our ancestors were eating it, that it is necessarily the absolute best possible diet for us. Being omnivores, we could have been mistakenly eating a sub-optimal diet. It might have been a fairly good one, but not necessarily perfect. It deserves more of a look than that. SOME of our natural diet might actually be good and some of it could be improved upon.

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In regards to organic foods, I saw this on /. today: http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/09/0542216/scientists-say-organic-food-may-not-be-healthier-for-you

Granted, all it really says is scientists have to deal with a lot of variables but went ahead and drew conclusions... still...

As far as Monsanto is concerned, it's surprising I've heard about them, but I have and it's never good things. Like that if you are planting non-mon crops and your neighbor is, and your crops are cross bred with his (not intentional, just the wind carries the pollen over to your farm), they will sue you for copyright infringement. That's the gist of what I heard about them, anyway.

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In regards to organic foods, I saw this on /. today: http://science.slash...althier-for-you

Granted, all it really says is scientists have to deal with a lot of variables but went ahead and drew conclusions... still...

As far as Monsanto is concerned, it's surprising I've heard about them, but I have and it's never good things. Like that if you are planting non-mon crops and your neighbor is, and your crops are cross bred with his (not intentional, just the wind carries the pollen over to your farm), they will sue you for copyright infringement. That's the gist of what I heard about them, anyway.

yeah, and if I remember correctly, they make it so SOME of the plants are infertile (depends on company and crop species whether or not this is done) in the sense that the seeds from the crop, while being edible and fit for market aren't viable for the next season, you have to buy your entire stock from them every season.

This is however, a political & legal problem. It is the type of modification that we should NOT be allowing. GMO should be supplementing the genetic diversity of our crops, not be treated as a product that a company can have the intellectual property rights to prevent a farmer from using it. We should encourage crossbreeding and discovery of new traits as well as gmo, but with the way the big companies are using it currently, its beginning to actually LOWER genetic diversity because they disallow crossbreeding and heirloom breeds become unusable via crosspollination.

Also, their mention of many variables is to say that the variation between one plant and another had less to do with the organic or not and more to do with local conditions where it was grown/strain genetics/etc

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yeah, and if I remember correctly, they make it so SOME of the plants are infertile (depends on company and crop species whether or not this is done) in the sense that the seeds from the crop, while being edible and fit for market aren't viable for the next season, you have to buy your entire stock from them every season.

This is however, a political & legal problem. It is the type of modification that we should NOT be allowing. GMO should be supplementing the genetic diversity of our crops, not be treated as a product that a company can have the intellectual property rights to prevent a farmer from using it. We should encourage crossbreeding and discovery of new traits as well as gmo, but with the way the big companies are using it currently, its beginning to actually LOWER genetic diversity because they disallow crossbreeding and heirloom breeds become unusable via crosspollination.

Also, their mention of many variables is to say that the variation between one plant and another had less to do with the organic or not and more to do with local conditions where it was grown/strain genetics/etc

Honestly, you know that stereotype of the huge looming evil corporation more concerned with pinching every last penny than the welfare of the many many people they trod on to make them? Well that's always existed for as long as there have been assholes, but it was always just individuals or a small wealthy group. Monsanto brought that to the corporate level and changed that stereotype into the version we hear of in the media today. If corporate scum are all deceptacons, then Monsanto is fucking Megatron

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If corporate scum are all deceptacons, then Monsanto is fucking Megatron

Careful with your punctuation there eternal XD that could be either amusing or very wierd.
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As far as Monsanto is concerned, it's surprising I've heard about them, but I have and it's never good things. Like that if you are planting non-mon crops and your neighbor is, and your crops are cross bred with his (not intentional, just the wind carries the pollen over to your farm), they will sue you for copyright infringement. That's the gist of what I heard about them, anyway.

I approve of Monsanto's product(Allows less herbicide to be used, by applying it directly to the plants), and hate their marketing strategy ("Use our stuff or we'll sue you into bankruptcy")

Also, if you think about it, corporations have a way bigger incentive to make sure their food is safe than the FDA or other government agencies do. If, say, Tyson chicken starts poisoning people, people will stop buying Tyson and they go bankrupt. The FDA on the other hand (even those bureaucrats responsible for ensuring the safety of Tyson chicken) will suffer no penalties from this. For example, Omaha irradiates all ground meat products, and I think several of their regular cuts. It's perfectly safe, and does absolutely nothing to the taste. "But Rgamer," you say, "Didn't the wise, all-knowing FDA require that of them?" Nope. They did it on their own, to get a leg up on the competition. And because irradiated meat can be safely shipped in non-refrigerated trucks, train cars, etc, so if the refrigeration unit fails, the meat is safe as long as the package hasn't been opened. All a private company trying to keep or grow their customer base. The same incentives apply to the makers of GMOs. If a GMO starts poisoning customers, that company's bankrupt.

On the subject of the human body's supposed need for a toxin free, ultra-high quality diet to be in optimal health... I assure you, most of those Olympic athletes ate conventionally-grown food most of their lives. The human body has a insanely capable detoxification system, capable of eliminating the harmful effects of many natural and unnatural toxins. For example, did you know that organic tomatoes are more toxic than conventional ones?

I also hate the term organic, because to me it means carbon-based. On the plus side, it's a wonderful way to confuse people, telling them that I eat all-organic.... while eating out of a bag that is conspicuously missing an organic label.

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The thing about Organic and natural... they have absolutely no controlled meaning, i could have a soft drink full of artificial preservatives, and Sucralose, and still call it both names...

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The thing about Organic and natural... they have absolutely no controlled meaning, i could have a soft drink full of artificial preservatives, and Sucralose, and still call it both names...

Just for clarity:

Sucrose: Fructose + Glucose ; naturally found in sugarcane and sugar beets. Extracted, crystallized, ground, and sold as "sugar".

Sucralose: Appraently a term for artifical sweetenters now. I like it.

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You misunderstand, Sucralose, is a slightly modified Sucrose, in which, producers substitute three of the Hydroxyl groups with Chloride. This creates a chemical, that tastes like Sucrose, but isn't absorbed by the body. Ergo, Non-caloric.

Sucrose is a disaccharide, that is what most companies call Sugar.

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The switching of 3 hydroxyl groups w/chloride ions sounds fascinating. And yeah, I know. It's glucose bonded to fructose = sucrose. At least, that's what they told us in AP Bio.

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Yup :D It's also like twice as sweet, And now, Off to Bio-engineering class, talk to you fellows later.

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The switching of 3 hydroxyl groups w/chloride ions sounds fascinating. And yeah, I know. It's glucose bonded to fructose = sucrose. At least, that's what they told us in AP Bio.

in this case they're not ions anymore as they actually are participating in covalent bonds where the oxygens would be. (the bond IS somewhat weaker than some other bonds normally found in organic compounds, but its not an ion)

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Yeah, but I just finished AP Chem last year, so when I hear "Chloride" I think Cl-.

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