The Big Picture: Feeding Edge

[thereverend7]

Funny thing is, I recently grew a patch of "Kaleidoscope Carrots" (yes thats the actual name) in my vegetable garden. The colors include white, orange, purple, and yellow. They all taste the same to me though.

 

[dragonburner]

GMO's aren't just produced by selective breeding or switching traits on and off. Some GMO's have traits added to them like tomatoes with antifreeze. WTF is that? Is that good for you? I'm not sure, but I don't think I want to risk it at all. Selective breeding isn't exactly the reason I am worried about GMO's. I am worried about shit being added to my food.

 

[Necromancer1991]

Hey modified food is all well and good, but I have my doubts about modified beef (for all I know I'm eating mutated cow)

The thing is I grew up on a farm eating food that I know came out of the ground, the main reason people get sketchy about this is the fact that they don't really know what "Genetically Engineering" food entails. That being said I always test food with my hamster (and yes that my poor justification for the following video)

 

[Crazy_Dude]

Thank you moviebob this will help a lot in arguments with my father or mother. Who thinks their "biological" food is way better then those foods that are tempered with in the lab. While in reality its just speeding up the process. Instead of taken tens of years and hundreds of generations they just activate/deactive a few genes and grow new crops. This will take (A wild guess) a week to do.

Its just saving time and in result our foods are a lot healther for you. The media as always stirs things up about pointless discussions. Its better for you its not bad and you have already been eating it all your life.

 

[SunyiNyufi]

It's in middle of the night here...and I don't have any carrot at home...damn you Bob, give me your carrot!! >_<

 

[Negatempest]

Hello escapist and Movie Bob,

Long time watcher/reader, first time commenter.

While I do find the fear tactics about GMOs annoying and eat them all the time without concern for myself, I think you addressed the argument very poorly. There are actual concerns about GMOs and you didn't address any of them, sticking to the "science = good" argument.

For example, health concerns aside, GMOs do damage the diversity of the ecosystem and the plant species in particular. This means that all of the crops can be wiped out by a single disease. (see Irish potato famine.) Secondly as a crop, GMOs mean that a corporation can claim ownership of a species of food (like trademarking carrots).

Wait, this is the potato famine of 1840's right? Where the irish grew dependent on a specific crop and once it was nearly wiped out alot of people starved? Doesn't that have less to do with GMO and more to do with NOT depending on one specific crop and having more diversity?

As for the trade marketing of foods....we have trade marks on nearly every noun and that has more to do with economics that GMO. They are similar but completely different. Heck we as people pay for everything that would keep us alive except air.

How about the fact that GMF Co's are now making it impossible for farmer's gm crops to be reused in their next hjarvest? Traditionally farmers wouldn't need to buy seeds for their harvests ... with GM foods they have to keep buying from Santos each and every year ... and due to patents there is no cheap alternative.

Not only this but if your farmer uses gm foods and you don't? Well the cross pollination process will take care of that! So instead of one farmer with gm crops in an entire community, within one harvest all farmers downwind of the bastard will have to start using them too, or sell up their land.

Tell me again how this is a good thing?

Bob does a pisspoor way of presenting the problem by not even addressing the problem ... As well as not understanding the basics of medicine, yet conveniently talks about defibrillation despite the fact that no amount of joules from a defib is going to help a non-beating heart beat once more ....

But w/e ... people can make mistakes ... but GM foods are noot like animal husbandry ... afterall animal husbandry was about fertility ultimately, GMF co's are about infertility ... making it necessary to buy only the company's seeds.

This will drive up prices, not reduce them ... and frankly nothing good can come from it.

Good thing? Far from it. Never is this a good thing, but at the same time this isn't new. Chances are most of the stuff we have now is because of old promises, patents, paperwork or whatever you want to call it, of the the past. But again I notice what angers you and quite a few of us as well isn't the Genetics side of the issue but the economics of it. In short, be mad at the law/government not the scientists.

Should I blame the woman who now owns the sun or the ****ing government that allowed her to own it?

 

[rokkolpo]

Thanks Bob, I've learned something new.

Keep it up.

 

[V Gray]

all though I'm not one of those people who are bitching about this. my philosophy on food is, the less humans had to do with it the better. Were not masters of our domain as we like to believe, we're way to new at genetic engineering, and companies always screw with quality if it means it'll save them a few bucks. In short Humans are Fuck Ups.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Yay! We (dutch) made carrots! Also: BEWARE! Be nice to us or we'll make all foods orange!

I think the carrots are not orange enough, you did lazy job. Now do it all again!

Back to topic...

This sums up what I been telling people for ages.
Now I cna just refer them to this video, tell them to close that greenpeace webpage and shut up until they have something proper to say.

"I is bad because of the capitalism, corruption in governm..." You stop it right there, show me a picture of some government official genetically manipulating carrots to cause addiction to kids so they would eat more vegetables or shut up...

 

[Mangue Surfer]

... I wanna my five minutes back!

 

[whitemoth]

Any time someone chooses who they're having sex with, that's genetic engineering. Animal husbandry is one of the oldest technologies in existence. Genetic engineering is just natural selection made practical.

 

[Sexy Street]

For a couple of reasons SOME genetically modified foods are dangerous.
In the case of having a food produce its own pesticides this was shown to have significant damage on the human body (such as potatoes that produce their own pesticides). These are the genetically modified foods that people are usually referring to when they say "Frankenfood". Any genetically modified foods that do not cause a problem are fine, and the people who complain about ALL of these genetically modified foods really are just riding a bandwagon.
So... just look out for those potatoes.

 

[Swifteye]

Huh. and I just got done making a carrot souflee. When I hear the term frankenfood I think of the first time I heard it which was during the super size me documentary. In that documentary they attributed frankenfood as all the parts of an animal we wouldn't normally eat being fused together into some meat blob.

 

[muller93]

G.E= Genetic engenering ( thats why i speld it G.E)
-------------------------------------------------------

G.E is much used by companys to make the food biger and cheaper. Now thats nothing wrong with that at all BUT thiere is a huge side effekt what they spray on the food.

Exampel
you make the cow bigger and beefer, put it in a heard with all of the others ( i wont go in on how horribel the small living space the cows have) the cow gets sick cus of all of the G.E it recives so you make it better with penasilin. The cow get fucked by a bull and a new calf is born then the cow gets slaguterd and the meat gets prosesed to "clean the meat" with diffrent chemicals, all bactira dies but the stuff that was spread on is still thiere.

Now you eat it and you get parts of all that in youre body, sure it migth not kill you but when youre kid is born its* will have that stuff in its body and when it keeps eating it will get sick and snice all burgers contian small parts of penasilin the bactira is now immune to it when doctors try and "heal him"




* Children are an IT!

and thats my big picture

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Hello escapist and Movie Bob,

Long time watcher/reader, first time commenter.

While I do find the fear tactics about GMOs annoying and eat them all the time without concern for myself, I think you addressed the argument very poorly. There are actual concerns about GMOs and you didn't address any of them, sticking to the "science = good" argument.

For example, health concerns aside, GMOs do damage the diversity of the ecosystem and the plant species in particular. This means that all of the crops can be wiped out by a single disease. (see Irish potato famine.) Secondly as a crop, GMOs mean that a corporation can claim ownership of a species of food (like trademarking carrots).

Wait, this is the potato famine of 1840's right? Where the irish grew dependent on a specific crop and once it was nearly wiped out alot of people starved? Doesn't that have less to do with GMO and more to do with NOT depending on one specific crop and having more diversity?

As for the trade marketing of foods....we have trade marks on nearly every noun and that has more to do with economics that GMO. They are similar but completely different. Heck we as people pay for everything that would keep us alive except air.

How about the fact that GMF Co's are now making it impossible for farmer's gm crops to be reused in their next hjarvest? Traditionally farmers wouldn't need to buy seeds for their harvests ... with GM foods they have to keep buying from Santos each and every year ... and due to patents there is no cheap alternative.

Not only this but if your farmer uses gm foods and you don't? Well the cross pollination process will take care of that! So instead of one farmer with gm crops in an entire community, within one harvest all farmers downwind of the bastard will have to start using them too, or sell up their land.

Tell me again how this is a good thing?

Bob does a pisspoor way of presenting the problem by not even addressing the problem ... As well as not understanding the basics of medicine, yet conveniently talks about defibrillation despite the fact that no amount of joules from a defib is going to help a non-beating heart beat once more ....

But w/e ... people can make mistakes ... but GM foods are noot like animal husbandry ... afterall animal husbandry was about fertility ultimately, GMF co's are about infertility ... making it necessary to buy only the company's seeds.

This will drive up prices, not reduce them ... and frankly nothing good can come from it.

Good thing? Far from it. Never is this a good thing, but at the same time this isn't new. Chances are most of the stuff we have now is because of old promises, patents, paperwork or whatever you want to call it, of the the past. But again I notice what angers you and quite a few of us as well isn't the Genetics side of the issue but the economics of it. In short, be mad at the law/government not the scientists.

Should I blame the woman who now owns the sun or the ****ing government that allowed her to own it?

That's a lousy argument ... perspective is always important ... If a person is making drugs you go after them. If a company is extorting people for money, you tell the victims to stfu, sit down and accept it?

These scientists helped create the blueprints for the 'terminator' gene in GM foods ... they knew what they we're doing ... same way Nazi war criminals knew they we're experimenting on people, or how Japanese 'scientists' of unit 516 knew that watching people being vivisected was inherently wrong. Testing the effects of accelerated frostbite-thawing on infants ...

GM food company scientists forcing millions of once stable farmers and their agricultural communities into paying lucrative prices for food they used to have no trouble producing for free ... ?

Eventually, I would hope, Humanity will do the same to these people as history has done for the Nazi and Japanese war criminals.

If you can't take responsibility for your own actions just because you're being paid by a government or company then it's just an excuse for your evil nature. Why do you think scientists such as Oppenheimer became so depressed later in life? They knew what they did was ultimately wrong.

And have no second thoughts about it, this terminator gene is going to be just as bad, if not have a much higher deathtoll and social cost to the quality of life attached to them as Stalin's camps, indentured servitude and slavery in the US or any one of the genocidal attritions suffered by any number of nations now and throughout history.

You're looking at the Imperialistic use of genetics to limit freedom of trade and the ability for self subsistence...

These scientists should be seen as criminals against the collective good of Humanity. These corporations hunted down and brought to justice for their complete lack of morality and ethics.

 

[PH3NOmenon]

Dammit Bob, I've been telling the carrot story for a year now.

I'm going to have to find another funfact about science now, if you're going to make it common knowledge!

 

[PowRightInTheKisser]

wierd how GM crop is bad but injecting cows with steroids is all gravy

i agree with GM crops and at the same time i dont. i've heard tell that the body adapts to these "perfect" crops. so if anything were to happen to civilisation (im not threatening anyone) we'd be a bit screwed

 

[Ashcrexl]

Yay! We (dutch) made carrots! Also: BEWARE! Be nice to us or we'll make all foods orange!

I have to say this may be one of the funniest comments I have ever read. it made me lol in public which is something i rarely do.

 

[Dark Knifer]

I didn't even know this was an issue. People actually get scared of this? This is pretty common knowledge I thought, I had no idea people even went on about this subject like this...