I just wish people would stop labeling "GMO == bad" so we can continue tailoring food to our needs - like we have been doing for millennia. Except now we can be more precise about it.
Anyone who's ever tried to grow tomatoes will attest that the damn things shouldn't exist. They are just as yummy to pests are they are to us. Even the grocery store ones that are selected for production and looking good are very finnicky.
Tomatoes were the size of blueberries originally. People will rave about "heirloom" tomatoes (and some are delicious, currently trying to grow my own) but they are just as mutant as the bland supermarket ones.
I will fight back on anyone claiming GMO's are bad when the science is clear that they are not. Now you can argue that the ethics of certain companies like Monsanto is a problem. But GMO's themselves are not and are perfectly safe. They are how we are going to feed our growing population (and maybe even grow them more environmentally friendly).
I hate myself every time I buy something that proudly claims it is "Non GMO" as if that's a good thing. It is almost as bad as the organic craze (but at least Organic has at least some science behind it).
> Are you infringing a patent by selling your soybeans that contain a minor amount of contaminating Roundup tolerant seeds from your neighbor’s land? Are you infringing a patent by replanting those seeds? While you don’t intend to use or sell Monsanto’s crops, intention is not material to patent infringement. All that matters is the mere existence of Monsanto’s crops in your harvest.
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/the-patent-landscape...
Granted, GMO is not the only type of crop affected, but it has a greater overlap with those practices than non-GMO crops.
> Farmers worldwide increasingly find themselves unable to legally save, share, sell, or breed with their own seeds.
Not very much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food
From the perspective of science and consumers, there is insufficient evidence in the scientific and medical literature to support claims that organic food is either substantially safer or healthier to eat than conventional food.[7]
Well, don't overcorrect. Being a GMO does not make an O inherently bad, but that doesn't mean all GMOs are inherently good. Labeling something a GMO is just a descriptor which doesn't say anything about the particular modification that was done on said organism. It would be like saying you'll fight back on anyone claiming homemade clothing is bad when science is clear that it is not. Well, kinda depends on the creator and the quality of the result, right?
Many foods that you've spent your entire life eating are already fortified with vitamins like Vitamin D. This isn't a bad thing at all, and in fact you and the people around you are probably far healthier for it.
https://inspection.canada.ca/food-label-requirements/labelli...
But that's the problem, isn't it? It's not "we" tailoring food, it's 1-2 multinational corporations, intent on making your food supply dependent on them. It's not "our" needs they serve, but theirs. While their PR focuses on making food healthier, what they've done is make it more resistant to pesticide so more can be sprayed [1]. Going by what happens when they are fully free to engineer food however they like, we can expect them to turn the vegetable aisle into the health and taste equivalent of the candy/snack aisle.
Also, I'm not so worried about the method of GMO as I am who is doing the GM and for what reason, and no I don't think selective breeding is better if Nestle is the one sponsoring the breeding.
Remember - mutations happen all the time in nature. There's no difference between a seed that mutated 'naturally' and one that we modified, except for intent.
I agree, though. We should not only have more sustainable farming but also a more sustained food system entirely.
I don't know about them being mutants but they definitely look monstrous! They're a thing on the Mediterranean seaside (both in Spain and France for sure). I only buy these, they're yummy...
EDIT: BTW people don't despise genetically modified food for fun... They puke on it because the attempt at creating killer seeds that'd make sure to kill non-genetically modified ones while also making sure that everybody would have to buy the seeds from Monsanto and the like. I'll push for genetically modified ones if that's accompanied with very strong guarantees that people/companies attempting to corner the market like that will end up rotting in jail.
"But it's the same outcome!!!" most people who say this would not be so flippant about genetically modifying humans, even though it's "the same" as evolution.
In the past few years, public trust in GM crops has diminished due to false information and fear of the unknown. According to published work, only ~5% of consumers feel like they have a good understanding of GMO.
The problem is that genetic engineering is not limited to "first-generation" traits. As a matter of fact, most of the unrealized benefit of GM crops is hidden in second and third generation traits. These are traits which increase nutritional value or improve shelf-life, etc (Consumer-centric traits).
Before you bash GM by bringing up Monsanto, super-weeds, or whatever, just think about the second and third generation GM traits which could solve major issues in the world (nutrient deficiencies, carbon sequestration, supply chain resiliency).
Plant molecular biologist with a background in genome engineering of high-value crops. AMA
Edit: I want to add a snippet regarding the uncertainties of "playing god". First of all, CRISPR is gene editing which is much different than foreign gene insertion via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. But even agro transformation has been occuring in nature without human intervention. These bacterium have the capacity to insert foreign genes into plant genomes and have been doing so on their own for quite some time. There are plenty of known gene-transfer events which happened without human pressure. Plant genomes across the world are littered with agro transfer genes. The only difference is now we use this mechanism to deliberately insert genes of interest for functional purposes.
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=sunscreen+margerine
The article presents evidence that Vitamin D doesn't cause good health, but instead is a biomarker of good health caused by sun exposure and thus, supplementation does nothing for most people.
That being said, vitamin d is a hormone and I'm not sure I want to be unable to figure out approximately how much im taking in.
Can't grow them all by myself and those Holland/Spain grown taste like nothing.
We should probably stop using synthetic fertilizer and large-scale monoculture system. But to truly address climate change and environmental degradation, you should really consider GM as a solution.
The most likely path to a sustainable food system incorporates GM crops but leaves behind the destructive framework which was built around the first GM varieties.(roundup ready monoculture systems)
could you be more specific ?
my current understanding is that the organic certification of food in America is a giant success story with many facets; that the negotiation on the meaning of organic for fruits and vegetables was relatively strightforward while the terms for meat products delayed the process and were difficult; that the organic certification has been a success in the marketplace, giving some farms a chance to get profitable with a higher selling price; that organic certification in California is also consistantly forged and that there is an enforcement challenge to curb forged organic certificates and brand marking.
Yes, I am interested to learn more about organic food, and I do buy organic food regularly and often, here in California.
Instead of spending money engineering food like this we could actually go outside without being slathered in sunscreen for about 10 minutes a day (depending on skin tone). That might even mean we get some healthy activities in that have additonal benefits while we're out there.
Edit: wow so much hate without any argument as to why this is better than existing supplementation, especially considering existing supplements have more stringent dosing. It's like I've somehow argued that supplementation is bad, when all I'm saying is this seems a waste of money if we already have adequate supplements.
I'm more excited about them reactivating some dormant genetic code that would make tomato spicy like their ancestors... what ever happened to that promise from some years ago?
More mostly water pale tomatoes like subway etc. Wonderful.
Try a eating a real heirloom tomato and if you are still interested in this franken-food I'm not sure what to tell you.
The wild ancestor of the tomato is the size of a pea.[0]
Creating a stably transformed plant is very difficult. A plant is made of b(tr?)illions of cells, and if you insert a "gene of interest" into one of them, it will exist transiently as each cell in the plant has its own cell line. So the standard way is to insert your gene into a cell and then induce/reprogramme it to go through the process of embryogenesis. This is critical because that single cell is the "parent" of every single other cell that will eventually compose the adult plant. Therefore, we can ensure the entire plant is stably transformed. Anything else is essentially chimeric.
The reason it is limited to big corporations is because of: market strategy, regulations, and IP. When the technology reached the point of commercialization, the early adopters decided on producer-centric traits because of: market value, ease of implementation, and ability to upsell.
When you are trying to sell a farmer something, you have to solve one of their problems. What does a farmer hate most? Weeds and other pests. So it's no surprise that the companies selling GM seeds are the same companies selling pesticides. In order to use their seed's technology, you also have to buy their pesticides. Now you've changed your whole farm operation to suit their technology and there's no going back. Gotcha!
It also turns out that getting these cultivars into the market is a big pain in the ass. The regulatory process to get a GM crop into the field and then onto the shelves is time-consuming and expensive... so again the big companies with money can make the investment. Finally, there is a lot of IP protection for these companies; from the seeds, to the chemicals, to the process of plant transformation.
Remember the part about plant transformation and embryogenesis? Very few species can undergo the process reliably - at least we only have methods for a handful. And within each species, there are only a few genotypes that work. Currently, the only GM crops are corn, soybean, cotton, potato, papaya, squash, canola, alfalfa, and sugar beet. Companies can own a patent on certain cultivars of these crops. They also probably own the patent for whatever herbicide the plant is resistant to.
You might ask yourself: Why don't they find out what's different about the genotypes that work and the ones that don't? Well, we did! It turns out there are a few native genes called "developmental regulators" which we can overexpress to force a plant into embryogenesis. That technology is also patented.
However, there are novel methods coming out, and there are startups and small companies doing this: check out Calyxt and Inari.
More will come in the future, but it's an expensive endeavor with a huge upfront cost, overhead, many highly educated employees, and a long time to market. Ag and Food tech VC funding has grown from ~5B (2015) to ~55B (2021) so it's coming.
It will be interesting to see what value-added traits come out next.
I actually mean it, I'm really excited to see how we can mix and match useful genes from other plants or heirloom varieties into sturdy crops that can be shipped to grocery stores. Theres so much potential here.
I've grown store bought tomatoes. Last year we hardly bought any as the production was enough even though I have a tiny backyard.
There is some difference. Supermarket ones are a little bit more bland, and way bigger. But the difference in taste is minimal and you can only tell if you got them side by side.
However, if I compare supermarket tomatoes in the US vs supermarket tomatoes in Brazil, the ones in the US taste like water. They look different too (the brazilian ones don't usually look like a cartoon drawing, they are less 'perfect' visually).
If I could import seeds (not allowed!) I would, just so I could finally compare like with like (weather conditions, soil, etc).
They don't exist in supermarkets though and what I grow is not much. I only have balcony for that but I assure you, I enjoy every single one slowly and pure.
The only way to get good ones for sure besides growing them is buying tinned ones and probably on the market but I work and have no time to go to the market.
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-...
Regular exposure to sunlight, in amounts insufficient to cause burns, is probably very good for us. And why wouldn't it be? Life tends to find and use all advantageous resources at its disposal--so of course a diurnal animal with lots of skin collecting sunlight would have evolved all sorts of processes to put that sunlight to beneficial use.
Doctors still recommend vitamin D supplements.
As to why existing supplements are inadequate: well, because at the end of the day huge swaths of the population are Vitamin D deficient. Plain and simple. Those people should be taking supplements, but aren't. Many of those same people eat tomatoes regularly, and this will help them; it's like water fluoridation. You can moralize and lecture about individual responsibility or whatever, but a positive outcome is a positive outcome.
> The U.S. was historically iodine deficient prior to the early 1920s, particularly in the goiter belt region of the Great Lakes, Appalachians, and the northwestern area of the country, due to the effects of natural atmospheric processes. Following the successful implementation of salt iodization program in Switzerland, the introduction of iodized table salt in the U.S. during the 1920s significantly improved its iodine nutritional status. However, although recent national studies demonstrate that the general population is overall iodine sufficient, salt iodization in the U.S. is not universal, and certain subsets of the population, including pregnant and lactating women and their offspring, may be at risk for mild to moderate iodine deficiency. As such, a public health approach by the American Thyroid Association and the Endocrine Society advocate U.S. women to take a supplement containing 150 µg iodine/day beginning preconception.
https://www.sciencealert.com/vitamin-d-tablets-may-be-worse-...
You can buy organic all you want, but rest assured it is a luxury good and you are paying a premium for whatever peace of mind it gives you. The rest of the world doesn't have that luxury. Waging war against all GM crops could drive food prices beyond what's affordable. It also drastically reduces our ability to battle emerging pathogens.
That paper was published in 2012. In 2014 (my wife's first pregnancy) no major pregnancy supplement included iodine, and my wife's doctor said it was unnecessary. The only supplement I could find without an outrageous amount of iodine while still being quasi-reputable was a Whole Foods-branded, 225mcg kelp-based pill. (Not USP or similarly certified, but I figured/hoped a large, brick & mortar retailer like Whole Foods would perform some vetting of their supplier and reliability of the product.) Circa 2015-2017 major pregnancy supplement makers, like Nature Made (USP certified, sold at Walgreens, hospitals, etc), quietly added iodine.
The problem with the older conventional wisdom is/was that eating habits have changed: 1) people began eating processed foods and restaurant foods (especially fast food), most of which do not used iodized salt; 2) home cooks, especially those following TV cooking shows, began using kosher salt, which is not iodized; and 3) the medical community was admonishing everybody to consume less salt, so people were less inclined to use table salt. These are also compounded by the fact that the most commonly eaten vegetables, e.g. soy and those from the Brassicaceae family (broccoli, kale, cabbage, etc), are goitrogenic.
Another major and far more important food supplement is niacin. Widespread supplementation of cereal grains began in the mid 20th century. More recently (1990s in the U.S.) folate was made a mandatory supplement in cereal grains. The difference between these and iodine is that packaged foods, most prepared foods (fast food, restaurants using normal supply chains, etc), and the most commonly used home ingredients still contain these supplements. Whereas outside of pregnancy (i.e. fetal development), inadequate iodine is still (arguably) a creeping problem for children. This is sort of similar to vitamin D--eating habits are changing (e.g. less milk consumption) and we need to find new routes for supplementation to reach people, especially groups most at risk.
On the plus side, in relative terms the iodine "problem" is relatively small and mostly only visible at large population scales. And despite the hype over its importance, I suspect the same is true for vitamin D deficiencies--not nearly as impactful to public health as niacin and folate. But if people keeping selling this idea of food supplementation as somehow adulterating, polluting, and contaminating food, these problems are only going to grow.
https://www.sciencealert.com/vitamin-d-tablets-may-be-worse-...
Especially in-season they're often in the (great value) 'tomato selection' punnets that at least Waitrose and M&S offer. (The rest are a mix of whatever their buyers found reasonable, typically mostly small cherry and plum.)
I'm absolutely not claiming they're the best, they're not, but the value's great (~£2.70/750g iirc) and there's flavour. Anything cheaper is flavourless crunchy crap IME. (And plenty more expensive too, I don't really understand, but I suppose the unpredictability of what's in the punnet is helpful/a saving to them, so it can be made cheaper to consumer? :shrug:)
Here's an interesting article from McKinsey & Co. about how agriculture is one of the least digitized industries and the benefits it could gain from innovation.
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights...
Note that even if the number of mutations is small between two cell generations, they carry over to offspring. The neighbor's "naturally grown" seed may have hundreds or thousands of mutations compared to your seed, without any human intervention required.
CRISPR can theoretically change large sections. But we have just as much trouble as nature has trying to mutate while not killing the organism, or otherwise stunting its development or causing other issues. It's safe to assume most changes will be small in that context too.
But the vast majority of the time (even in these comments) that people talk about GMO's being bad they are claiming the science is wrong, its bad for your health, etc etc etc.
Almost no one talks about the issues with the corporations. Which is a very real issue, but that issue should not be used to paint GMO's as bad on their own.
But labeling or banning them is not the solution. Considering the major health benefits (and environmental, costs, etc) that these improvements can have. Better laws about what these corporations can and cannot do is the answer.
Frankly, the public has been lied too to think that GMO's are bad for them.
On the other hand, most people do not take Vitamin D supplements, even if they should.
Nobody is going and injecting apples with vitamins though.
Environmental: moving away from herbicide resistance traits and focus on yield, crop improvement traits, and crop protection. The current business model of GM is designed to force farmers to buy herbicide from the same supplier as the seed. It's a double money grab.
Moving away from herbicide resistance traits will improve environment by reducing monoculture and evolutionary pressure on weeds.
It's just so exhausting for me to communicate with someone like yourself, who simplifies a complex issue down to "unrealistic" because of its complexity. I have personally generated multiple GM varieties and spent a substantial amount of time researching horizontal gene transfer in the environment. If you think we can feed the world's growing population, mitigate and resolve climate change, and quickly address new pathogens in our crop system, *without GM crops*, then let's see it. Let's see the data which supports non-GMO as a viable equal yield. As a viable solution to emerging pathogens.
I would love to have a meaningful conversation about this, but you are certainly indoctrinated into a way of thinking about GMO which doesn't align with reality. See: "Frankenfoods" in your original comment. You choose a disparaging way to describe GM varieties as a way to amplify your negative opinion about them. Look up Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer and you will learn that the mechanism used to deliberately insert genes has already been occurring in nature for thousands of years.
What's funny is you didn't even answer the very first question I asked you: What does organic mean to you? Because organic is a half-baked term with a dozen definitions used as a marketing tool for product differentiation. Organic labels mean nothing, are based on varying parameters, and are assessed by a slew of certifying bodies with questionable ethics.
Basically, if you take crop like corn as an example. Say our example corn has been genetically modified to resist various pests. However, you cannot just go and plant an entire field of said corn and expect it to be pest-resistant forever.
What farmers are supposed to do is plant non-pest-resistant corn crops for every n number of GMO corn corps in the same field. So, any given row of corn would have something like a non-pest-resistant corn plant after every 4 GMO corn plants.
This causes the said modified corn to retain its pest resistance for longer amounts of time, and the non-pest-resistant crops serve as honeypots for the pests. (You know path of least resistance and all).
However, doing this technically hurts the yields of a farmer's crops and more yield = more profit, thus many farmers forgo this practice. Even if done correctly, I still do not think it works forever, but it does slow down the microevolution of said pests -- at least hypothetically.
Not sure if that is correct, but I would love to know either way.
Pest-resistant (kills bugs) and Herbicide-resistant( makes the plant robust to chemicals which kills weeds)
You're right about refuges, they only slow things down. To truly prevent resistance genes in pests from appearing, you need multiple modes of action. This was used effectively in HIV treatment. The virus was developing resistance to AZT treatment alone, eventually new drugs came along and patients were treated with 3 or more drugs at once. Multiple modes of action makes it too hard for the virus (or pest) to adapt in time. We don't really have multiple modes of action in plants yet, but one day, maybe?
The person you were replying to was describing herbicide resistant crops, which are sprayed (sometimes oversprayed). This isn't so cut and dry as they describe though. Things like glyphosate are much milder compared to older herbicides and GMO crops encourage things like 'no til' agriculture which greatly improves soil quality. So we're still spraying, but it's better, and has ecological benefits.
"These rebels argue that what made the people with high vitamin D levels so healthy was not the vitamin itself. That was just a marker. Their vitamin D levels were high because they were getting plenty of exposure to the thing that was really responsible for their good health—that big orange ball shining down from above."
Having 'enough' vitamin d without having toxic levels of vitamin d is a sign of good health, but being deficient or having too much causes bad health.
The article says vitamin D supplements are useless as evidenced by numerous studies.
> ... vitamin D supplementation has failed spectacularly in clinical trials. Five years ago, researchers were already warning that it showed zero benefit, and the evidence has only grown stronger. In November, one of the largest and most rigorous trials of the vitamin ever conducted—in which 25,871 participants received high doses for five years—found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke.
People don't care about their health.
This is all well and good if you live in california, but residents of alaska go out into the sun without their skin covered a lot less depending on the season.
What about vitamin d supplementation for people who cannot regularly go out and expose their skin to the sun?
>participants received high doses for five years—found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke.
Again, the issue isn't "does high vitamin d cure cancer", its "does low vitamin d cause issues, and do you have enough", as I already said.
But lacking vitamin d can cause illness, and too much vitamin d can cause illness. I never claimed it cured cancer, heart disease or stroke. You're arguing someone else's argument that has nothing to do with what I've said.