How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
nytimes.com
How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
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Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#2Chipotle's "No more GMO food" announcement was the worst "great news" I'd heard in a long time. It was clearly just for PR and nothing else. It's good to see some sanity--this obsession with "clean/pristine nature" which has no rational basis has to stop.
Related TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/pamela_ronald_the_case_for_enginee...
Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#3If you would like to get deeply into the weeds on most important facets of the debate on GMO crops, this is the best set of articles: http://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/
Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#4The single issue is whether it is safe or not. Articles telling me how great it would be for poor, despserate farmers in third world countries as a last resort choice is really a fringe issue that is - I suspect - cloaking the point on purpose.
Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#5You wouldn't know it from the article but I thought the anti-GMO argument went something like: sorta different from natural breeding; long term effects unknown; moving anecdotes notwhitstanding, necessity is modest; crates some unappealing situations due to the scope and dynamics of food production.
Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#6You wouldn't know it from the article but I thought the anti-GMO argument went something like: sorta different from natural breeding; long term effects unknown; moving anecdotes notwhitstanding, necessity is modest; crates some unappealing situations due to the scope and dynamics of food production.
Can you fill in some of the blanks on why the necessity of GMOs is modest? Apart from things like "supporting the Ugandan cassava crop that would otherwise be devastated by diseases cured by GMO", don't most GMO strategies also drastically reduce other harmful chemical inputs to farming?
I'm not sure I understand the last argument.
Just curious; I know you're just explaining the argument, not making it.
Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#7The point I think needs making about GMOs is that they aren't really a category. That is, there aren't any true, important statements one can make about all GMOs, except for the obvious one that they are produced by genetic manipulation. But as far as their benefits and their dangers, they have to be evaluated individually.
So on the one hand I'm very concerned about Roundup Ready crops, not specifically because they're GMOs, but because I'm concerned about long-term glyphosate toxicity. On the other, as far as I can tell from a small amount of reading, Bt corn, "golden rice" (rice that makes its own beta-carotene), the non-browning apple, and now this Bt eggplant are all probably okay.
I think that failure to understand this point, that each GMO is sui generis and has to be approached individually, has two dangers. On the one hand, there is a tendency to oppose all of them indiscriminately, and of course we're already seeing this. But there's also a real possibility that once that blows over and GMOs get more accepted, we might get complacent and not check out new GMOs as carefully. I do think some safety testing is in order, though in many cases the modification certainly sounds safe. Beta-carotene is certainly a valuable nutrient, and AFAIK is hard to overdose on. The non-browning apple gets that way by having one of its enzymes (polyphenol oxidase) turned off -- what could be dangerous about removing an enzyme? The Bt mods deserve a little closer examination, as they are producing a new protein, and there seems to be the potential for allergic reactions in some small fraction of the population; but Bt is considered an acceptable pesticide for organic crops (it is a protein, after all, not some chlorinated petrochemical) so it could well be pretty safe.
(All that said, I do still support GMO labelling laws. People should be able to know what they're eating, even if they overreact to that information.)
Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#8One of the most rage inducing wikipedia articles you will ever read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice. People who block this stuff are nothing less than murderers in my opinion.
Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#9You wouldn't know it from the article but I thought the anti-GMO argument went something like: sorta different from natural breeding; long term effects unknown; moving anecdotes notwhitstanding, necessity is modest; crates some unappealing situations due to the scope and dynamics of food production.
I thought some of the anti-GMO sentiment is because some agri-chemical companies are just evil.
Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
#10If you would like to get deeply into the weeds on most important facets of the debate on GMO crops, this is the best set of articles: http://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/
Yes, let me second this. Nathanael Johnson does a great job in this series. I found it very informative.