BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.
Building Better Bananas (2012)
21–30 of 64 posts
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#22Considering the opposition to golden rice (sometimes violently [1]) to fulfill this role in other parts of the world, these bananas are probably DOA. So long as middle-class Westerners imagine someone somewhere might end up making a profit, they will prefer children in developing countries starve and go blind [2]. [1] http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2013/08/activists-des... [2] http://blogs.scientificamerican.…
Here is the deal, we simply haven't had the time to determine if this is safe. And anyone who says it is is lying, because that's simply impossible to tell at this point. We know that with our best intentions and cutting edge science, we created margarine, something to save the arteries of the world. Only to find out that we didn't understand the science well enough, and margarine was essentially the stuff causing the problem. So, am I willing to use people as an experiment so they don't have a vitamin deficiency? Not yet. I want to see far more evidence, and I want to see a lot more studies conducted over at least 10-20 years.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think "distribution" in this context is just a nice way of saying that poor people can't afford better food from elsewhere, they have to rely on what is cheap and can be bought from the local market. If they're already buying bananas as a staple food, then I presume that the fix would be for the government to go to the local growers and either give the better banana plants for free, or at a discounted rate, or some…
> I think "distribution" in this context is just a nice way of saying that poor people can't afford better food from elsewhere, they have to rely on what is cheap and can be bought from the local market. That may very well be the case. > If they're already buying bananas as a staple food, then I presume that the fix would be for the government to go to the local growers and either give the better banana plants for fr…
Plants are vary region specific, and banana's are far easer to cultivate in some areas than just about anything else. It also far less costly to distribute seeds than what the seeds make. More importantly, once you swap DNA your done it's a one time cost with no further development needed.
PS: Bananas will grow and fruit under poor soil conditions but will be less productive without deep, well-drained soil; forest loam, rocky sand, marl, red laterite, volcanic ash, sandy clay, or even heavy clay. The key element in soil type for successful banana plant growth is good drainage. Alluvial soils of river valleys are ideal for banana growing. Bananas prefer an acid soil.[3]
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#24BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.
I have the same thoughts about tomatoes. Tomatoes today have no flavor compared to what I remembered. It could be the flavor notes of childhood-backyard-summertime nostalgia, New Jersey terrior, and simply explained by the genetic modification such that tomatoes could be mechanically harvested weeks before they're ripe in the field. I'm a tomato luddite.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#25BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.
I have the same thoughts about tomatoes. Tomatoes today have no flavor compared to what I remembered. It could be the flavor notes of childhood-backyard-summertime nostalgia, New Jersey terrior, and simply explained by the genetic modification such that tomatoes could be mechanically harvested weeks before they're ripe in the field. I'm a tomato luddite.
Tomatoes, definitely! My brother works at a major shipping company and tomatoes are picked green, and then the trucks they are shipped in have an environment where they turn red.
You can really taste the difference when you go to a farmers market and try a fresh tomato! Make sure the top of the tomato is orange so that you know it's fresh!
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#26I was under the impression that hunger is primarily a distribution issue, not an issue of production. Gates implicitly states that the vitamin A deficit is mainly a result of a one-sided diet. But isn't the one-sided diet itself a result of a lack of alternatives? So, if alternatives cannot currently be distributed to meet demand, how would a new breed of bananas solve that? Don't they also have to get distributed in…
> I was under the impression that hunger is primarily a distribution issue, not an issue of production. What do you think the solution to distribution is? World-wide socialism, where all property is distributed based on need?
"Distribution", in this case, doesn't mean taking from the rich and giving to the poor, it means a combination of logistic and political issues.
Often times, there is enough food already being donated to address the immediate food crisis, but it's being intercepted by warlords who sell it back on the open market and pocket the cash. Or just the mechanics of getting the food out into remote areas without it getting spoiled or rotten or whatever.
So, distribution, in this case, is an Amazon-type distribution issue, not a political wealth-distribution issue.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#27The most important thing to recognize here is that bananas used as crops do not exhibit genetic drift (they are sterile). We clone new bananas from existing plants. Many of the bananas today, including the Cavendish, are thus very vulnerable to diseases like the fungus mentioned. Genetic modification is one of the few ways we can keep the bananas we like while adjusting them for more recent diseases and pests. The on…
It also seems like it would negate one of the biggest potential hazards of GMO applications - the accidental spread of damaging traits to native species through cross-pollination. IIRC the seeding ability was intentionally bred out of cultivated bananas because the seeds themselves were large, inedible, and comprised a significant portion of the fruit itself.
GE crops are designed to grow food for humans, not optimized to survive in the wild.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the same thoughts about tomatoes. Tomatoes today have no flavor compared to what I remembered. It could be the flavor notes of childhood-backyard-summertime nostalgia, New Jersey terrior, and simply explained by the genetic modification such that tomatoes could be mechanically harvested weeks before they're ripe in the field. I'm a tomato luddite.
Tomatoes, definitely! My brother works at a major shipping company and tomatoes are picked green, and then the trucks they are shipped in have an environment where they turn red. You can really taste the difference when you go to a farmers market and try a fresh tomato! Make sure the top of the tomato is orange so that you know it's fresh!
Bananas are often force rippened at the warehouse before sale, as well.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#29BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.
How old are you? We might actually be eating a different banana cultivar now than you did when you were a child. The situation with the Cavendish now (that it's genetically uniform and so is being easily wiped out by a well-adapted pathogen) has happened before; up through the '50s the main banana available in US supermarkets was the Gros Michel, but they were mostly killed by fungus, which prompted the switch to the current Cavendish.
Gros Michel bananas were apparently sweeter and had a different flavor, and I've heard anecdotally that part of why artificial banana flavoring doesn't taste much like how we find bananas to taste is that it was meant to imitate the flavor of the older, rather than the modern, banana. I'm not old enough to have had a Gros Michel, though, so I can't confirm that from personal experience.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think "distribution" in this context is just a nice way of saying that poor people can't afford better food from elsewhere, they have to rely on what is cheap and can be bought from the local market. If they're already buying bananas as a staple food, then I presume that the fix would be for the government to go to the local growers and either give the better banana plants for free, or at a discounted rate, or some…
I think "distribution" in this context is just a nice way of saying that poor people can't afford better food from elsewhere, they have to rely on what is cheap and can be bought from the local market. Depends on location, I think. In the United States, yeah, that might be the case, but in other countries (I'm thinking parts of Africa), it is a distribution issue, particularly when dealing with corrupt governments.
I am not sure if I agree, but in the case you are right improving the nutrition of all foods and making them disease resistant would certianly be a good thing.