Genetically Modified Foods...

[Solly]

Really?

[C0ckney]

well it'd cost exactly the same as the nut thing, you noticed anyone going out of business because of that?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Osweld
GM foods are enviromentaly damaging.

Normally when you make a claim you have to prove it's true. With anti-GM folks they make claims and then demand someone else prove it isn't true.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Osweld
Yes, but they used methods that are more in-bounds with nature. Not that I completely agree with it, but atleast they wouldn't have much luck mating a pig with a tomato.

About two months ago there was a big anti-GM protest in Sacramento, CA when the US government held and international farming technology confrence there. GM was just a tiny part of the confrence but never the less anti-GM nutballs from the bay area flooded many of whom claimed scientists where trying to cross breed mammals with corn stocks and what not. NPR did a study and they found that as of the date the program was done (about two months ago) no such GM crops were on sale and none of the major GM comapnies had any plans to release such a product? Why?

The anwser is costs. It's easier and thus less expensive to transfer genes between plants which are closely related. NPR said that's why some 90% of GM plants consist of taking trait X from corn type A and implanting into corn type B. The remaining 10% consisted of things like the gene to produce vitimen C from a citrus plant and putting it into something like rice so as to combat malnutrition in the third world.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Mostly it's just uninformed nonsense from the fringe luddite groups.

Don't forget about the French.

They have been GMed before anything else, and the US dont like the result.

Seriously, in a recent report on the BBC, the Brits concluded that the GM profitability was not demonstrated.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Osweld
The spider-goats, or growth hormones in cattle being a good example.

I'm not sure what a spyder-goat is but growth hormones for animals has been known for the better part of a century. That's just giving and animal steroids like a weightlifter might take steroids. There's nothi9ng GM about that since not a single gene has been modified.

[Dinner]

BTW here's some great links about GM foods:

New Scientist MAgazine of the UK
-The concern of the UK's recently sacked environment minister is ideological, not scientific, says the head of Britain's top science academy. http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...?id=ns99993874

-Researchers create low-caffeine plants that they claim could produce cheaper and fuller-flavoured coffee. http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...?id=ns99993851

-A Danish crop trial suggests engineered sugar beet is more friendly to wildlife than its conventional counterpart. http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...sp?id=23861000

-Sub-Saharan Africa's first commercially grown GM crops produce bumper yields and save on labour in the AIDS-blighted region. http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...?id=ns99993473

-Increases in yields can be eight times those in rich nations, suggest field trials of genetically modified cotton in India. http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...?id=ns99993364

-Cattle genetically modified to produce high-protein milk ideal for the cheese industry are created in New Zealand. http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...?id=ns99993307

-Genetically-engineered onions lacking the chemical that makes eyes stream would not taste any different. http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...?id=ns99992935

How Stff works.com has a great synopsis of what GM is and how it works. http://www.howstuffworks.com/question148.htm

Reason.com has a great article on GM foods, their benifets, and debunks many claims the anti-GM folks have been making. http://reason.com/bi/bi-gmf.shtml

ornl.gov has a nice summation of the pluses and potential minuses from GM food plus examples of concrete benifets GM foods have already brought to the world's poor. http://www.ornl.gov/TechResources/Hu...si/gmfood.html

A UK government poanel concludes that GM foods are not harmful. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/gm/index.asp BTW here's a BBC article on the same event http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3007573.stm

The World Health Organization released this "20 questions on GM foods anwsered" paper which ends up being very supportive of GM foods. http://www.who.int/foodsafety/public...0questions/en/

Seriously I could keep listing links all day long but if you want you can just type in "GM foods" into any search engine. The end result is there has never been any evidience to show GM foods are harmful, there has been lots of scietific evidience to show they are not harmful, nearly all the world's major scientific & agricultural foundations have concluded GM foods is the only way we'll meet the world's growing food and nutritional needs over the next century, and most of the crap the anti-GM are claiming just isn't true.

[General Ludd]

many of whom claimed scientists where trying to cross breed mammals with corn stocks and what not. NPR did a study and they found that as of the date the program was done (about two months ago) no such GM crops were on sale and none of the major GM comapnies had any plans to release such a product

That they have so far contained their expirements to the labrotories doesn't make it exceptable. (If they have even done so)

Originally posted by Oerdin


I'm not sure what a spyder-goat is

It's goats with the silk-making gene spliced into them, that can create silk molecules in their milk.

[Imran Siddiqui]

GM food is merely speeding up the process that has gone on for centuries. Everything you eat is Genetically Modified in some way.