Genetically Modified Crops

Absolutely Mishap - the forces of anti science appear to be on the rise.
Some good news though. EFSA - the EU food standards agency - have had a big crack down on food labelling that implies a health benefit. (But there is no proven health benefit)
The word "probiotic" has disappeared from the yoghurt pots along with many other confusing food labelling terms.
It is quite entertaining to see what they are coming up with bio-live, bio-pot etc

We have always messed with Mother Nature - we would have died out long ago if we had not.

The world is a war against predators and disease - and humans have used their brains to win each battle. Mother Nature is far from benign.

All scientific advance can be used for good or ill, and GM is no different. It has huge potential to feed many people; we can only try and fight against the exploitation of this scientific breakthrough by big business.

GM has been around in one form or another for a very long time in the form of selective breeding of animals and plants. It is just that now we can do it quicker and at a cell level.

The whole anti-science lobby is a worry - we should not condemn new advances before seeking to thoroughly understand them. This is why quality teaching of science in school is so important so that people can make informed choices and form opinions on the basis of fact.

Well said, jess.

Anyway, isn't "messing with Mother Nature" what humans do best? Seems we're always being told so.

Faye I have never here, or anywhere else, expressed support for Monsanto.
I think they are completely unethical and are giving GM a bad name and I am very angry with them too. So please don't imply I am sticking up for them.
I do feel sorry for scientists who are working on GM for the benefit of poor people and get criticised as if they, too, were sticking up for Monsanto.
I agree with when about mother nature. A huge proportion of babies and toddlers die if you refuse to "mess with mother nature". Nature is "red in tooth and claw" when it comes to the health of mothers and babies. I'd have been long gone if I had not had "unnatural" treatment for breast cancer.
I think it is a huge mistake to romanticise nature.
Wow! The list of canola myths is prodigious! A veritable myth-making factory at work somewhere. One wonders if this enterprise has anything to do with the soya oil industry or sunflower oil maybe, in the USA?

So, we can all agree that it's the inability of multinational companies to comprehend the meaning of Moral or Ethics?

And disagree that GM can be used for good if used carefully and considerately.

And I'm really glad that I can use rape seed oil. Although I don't mind it becoming a bit more unpopular as apparently the UK is now an exporter of rape seed and East Anglia turns yellow for much of the summer which makes a lot of people cough and exacerbates asthma - including me.

Speaking as the grandmother of two set of twins born with the help of IVF I say thank goodness for the scientists who messed with Mother Nature!

We can agree to disagree Faye

Greed usually gets in the way and you can't mess with Mother Nature.

Faye Monsanto's claims about drought-resistant crops should not be left to poor Indian farmers to test without financial support. If they aren't drought-resistant, that is Monsanto's responsibility to correct, not that of the farmers. I think we are probably agreeing about Monsanto, but I think there is a place for GM foods to provide safe, cheaper nourishment for millions of people....but not for them to be exploited in the development of GM crops.

When what are their claims regarding drought resistant crops about then. I have read in America they now have super weeds and use more pesticides.. GM crops don't look like a very healthy alternative with all those chemicals sprayed on them. No wonder there is an increase of people buying and growing organic fruit and vegetables.

Doesn't this article reinforce the argument that it is Monsanto's aggressive marketing mehods and inappropriate use of vulnerable farmers that is at fault? Hybrid and GM seeds have their value, but not in a country where farmers cannot afford the experiment, and drought conditions prevent the crop growing. On the plains of Idaho, they might be highly successful, but experimenting with poor Indian farmers is disgraceful. In the same way that formula baby milk has its place, but not where third world mothers cannot get clean water, GM seeds are not needed in India until they have modern irrigation methods and those farmers who agree to participate should be guaranteed subsidies in case of crop failure.

Nellie Here is a link about GM genocide.

Jess the poor are being ruined by Monsanto, not helped. Nellie the article is talking about India where a 1,000 farmers commits suicide every month. This is just dreadful. India is just one of many countries where farmers are being ruined by absolute greed.

Apparently the old strains of rapeseed oil were very bitter and contained high levels of euric acid, which is toxic, especially for young children. They selectively bred the plants to enhance certain desirable characteristics and suppress others. In effect genetically modifying the old fashioned way.

Faye I think it is the business and marketing methods of Monsanto etc that cause the problems rather than the products themselves though?

There is a lot of emotive scene setting in the article but very little about the potential scientific advantages or disadvantages of the new crops.

I do strongly object to the marketing methods etc employed by these big businesses. The non viability of the seed from these plants means that saving seed for replanting is not possible. Any F1 hydbrid seed you buy from a garden center is not guaranteed to grow true.

However this is a problem with the ethics of the companies that produce these products. It does not have to mean that the science itself is not potentially of great benefit.

Also suicide rates in farmers in the UK have always been high.

cebmh.warne.ox.ac.uk/csr/resfarmers.html

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Sorry, link desn't work. Here's the relevant art of the article:

Canola oil comes from the rapeseed, which is part of the mustard family of plants.
This is correct, except that Canola oil is from a special variety of rape which is not chemically identical to the common rape plant.

Rape is the most toxic of all food plants
I could find nothing to support this statement. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica website, www.britannica.com, rape seed oil is native to Europe where it is used in cooking, in soap, margarine, as a lamp fuel as a lubricant and the seeds as bird feed. No mention is made of toxicity in Medline

Rape is a weed. Insects won't eat it. It is deadly poisonous.
No support found for these statements.

Oil from rape is hundred times more toxic than soy oil
No evidence could be found for this statement.

Rape oil is industrial oil and does not belong in the body
Rape oil appears to be used in industry as a lubricant but this is no argument to exclude it as a food.

Canola oil forms latex-like substances that agglutinate red blood corpuscles, as does soy.
No evidence could be found for this statement. According to Dorothy Long, Canola oil products have been on the market in Canada since the late 1970's and now make up 85% of salad oils, 45% of margarines and 50% of shortenings. I find it highly unlikely that this would be the case if Canola Oil was toxic to the red blood corpuscles.According to the official Canola statement there is no evidence for this. It is stated that" there is evidence from our research that linolenic acid in Canola oil gives rise to higher tissue levels of eicosapentaenoic acid that, in turn, gives rise to thromboxane A3, which has weak aggregating activity compared to the more common thromboxane A2". Thus Canola Oil should actually reduce the aggregation of blood platelets.

Rape oil causes blindness and antagonizes the central and peripheral nervous system. Deterioration takes years.
The official Canola statement comments "There is no evidence, to my knowledge, of Canola oil or rape seed oil having any adverse effect on vision or the central or peripheral nervous systems.

Rape (Canola) oil causes emphysema, respiratory distress, anemia, constipation, irritability and blindness in animals.
No evidence in Medline for this.According to the Canola statement, healthy human subjects were fed 75 grams of Canola oil for 21 days in numerous studies and no complaints of any kind were recorded.

Rape oil fed to animals in England caused Mad Cow Disease.
Experts agree that Mad Cow Disease was caused by a virus-like organism called Scrapie in sheep and that contaminated sheep offal was fed to the cows. I have never heard of this being related to rapeseed oil in any way. No Medline evidence for this.

Canola Oil is "Low in Erucic Acid"
This is true. Rape oil contains a fat called erucic acid. It constitutes 40-50% of total fatty acids in the oil. Erucic acid is "drastically reduced", "essentially eliminated" in the Canola variant of the Rape plant according to the Canola statement. The reason for this is that erucic acid stunts growth (according to Medline abstracts). Erucic acid was part of the so-called "Lorenzo's Oil" which was used to treat a genetic defect causing long chain fatty acids in the brain to accumulate.According to Medline, clinical studies did not support this use of Erucic acid. No information could be found that Erucic acid was toxic. Patients were treated with it for more than

The term Canola is derived from the words "Canadian oil"
This appears to be correct

Rape oil is also the source of the infamous chemical-warfare agent, mustard gas.This is totally wrong. Mustard gas or Bis(2-chloroethyl)sulfide is made by treating ethylene with sulfur chloride or dihydroxyethyl sulfide with HCl gas (Merck Index). These are highly dangerous reactions and can only be done by experts.
The confusion with rapeseed is because it belongs to the so-called mustard family of plants also known as the Brassicaceae.

Canola contains large amounts of "isothiocyanates" which contain cyanide, which can inhibit the formation of ATP, which keeps us healthy and young.According to the Canola statement, there is no evidence that Canola Oil contains isothiocyanates, at least at levels that produce physiological effect. There is evidence that isothiocyanates in food such as cabbage can stimulate so-called Phase 2 enzymes to excrete carcinogens from the body, i.e. protect the body against cancer. I am not aware of any evidence that these molecules can release cyanide in the body. If they could, we certainly would not be eating cabbage.

Canola glycosides depress the immune system. "The T cells go into a stupor and fall asleep on the job"
There is no known evidence to support this. On the contrary, the relatively high levels of omega-3-fatty acids in Canola Oil may play a role in stimulating the immune system (Canola Statement)

Canola glycosides interfere with the biochemistry in animals and humans. Their presence in rattlesnake venom inhibits muscle enzymes and causes instant immobilization of the victim.
There is no evidence for this. Rattlesnake poison contains small peptides that block receptors for neurotransmitters; this has got nothing to do with glycosides.

Alcohol in Canola Oil shut down the immune system
There are no free alcohols in Canola Oil (Canola statement). Academia and Government continue to bamboozle the public with stories of "safe" science and cheap food through the use of poisons.There is no evidence that Canola Oil contains any poisons.

I understood Canola Oil, which is from a variety of rapeseed developed in Canada, is perfectly safe. Myths about it being unsafe are de-bunked in this article:

www.cansa.co.za/facts_myths_diet_canola.asp

I'm really not well informed at all about the science of GM, and consequently have no meaningful input here, but following this thread has piqued my curiosity to follow up the links supplied. So in these dog days of Christmas, it's been a refreshing and informative exercise.

I agree Faye that Monsanto etc are an unscrupulous lot. They have also fuelled an "anti gm" lobby - as opposed to an anti Monsanto lobby.
The trouble is that we have perfectly valid, government funded research into GM strains that will make crops more pest resistant etc and that research is being attacked by those who think all GM is a bad thing. As I said above, we have Monsanto to thank. I think that like many scientific discoveries it can be used for good or evil. There are many good ways in which ethical science and organisations can use GM to help the poor.
Rape Seed oil is not an evil product Faye. We have no genetically modified rape seed planting in the UK. We grow a lot of it. None of it is GM.

Interesting articles in Aljazeera. Will Monsanto destroy Mexico's corn. Or another article about Indian cotton. Dirty White Gold - Suicide Economy. Far from helping the world's poor the multinational companies are making a profit out of them.

I am totally against GM food and I believe the multinational Bio-tech companies are ruining natural resources and millions of farmers livelihoods. Five million Brazilian Farmers have won a lawsuit against Monsanto. Thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide after using genetically modified crops. I would not want to rely on these companies for my food in the future and strongly believe multinational companies should not be have a monopoly, whether it is privatising water or distributing seeds for crops that humans need to survive.

I noticed Jacey further back in the thread mentioned Rape Seed Oil, other name for it is Canola Oil and is a genetically modified crop and considered a toxic weed.

What a good idea nfk. I often realise, too late, that I didn't need to buy new, when I could save saved so much by getting something either second-hand or via Freecycle.

Oh, when you said bread and sugar, I remember coming home from school and being given white bread sugar sandwiches. I remember the crunch now - delicious! We lived in a two up, two down terrace, but mum kept half a dozen hens in the yard and rabbits, and dad had an allotment.

We do have far too many possessions, we've downsized so buy far less stuff and my new year resolution is not to buy any new clothes for a year. There was a lady on the radio who has vowed not to buy anything new - ever, so I'm going to try for a year. Reuse and recycle! May have a go at wine making.

nfk it depends indeed on what standard of living people want and expect.
Getting rid of all animal husbandry might be a start. The energy economics - the food chain - mean that you need a lot more land to produce meat protein than plant protein.
You would have also have to wind right back on the materialistic society we live in.
I remember the 50s. Cold houses with one coal fire per family and the air pollution that created. Very few possessions or clothes compared to today. Small minority had cars. We spent a much bigger percentage of the weekly budget on food. Chicken was something that we only had at Christmas as a special treat. A lot of calories came from bread and sugar. And that was in one of the richest countries in the world at the time. Oh and schools were equipped very basically and in hospitals there was probably good nursing but medicines and treatments were pretty basic.

But there IS enough land for humane farming. Provided people accept that a chicken shouldn't cost the same as a Starbucks skinny latte and muffin. Poor education and media pressure means many put food low down on their list of priorities. The right mobile phone, Sky tv packages, or the right make up take presidence. Therefore they drink imported milk of inferior quality from cows chained to stalls never seeing grass or daylight. Danish bacon and pork from pigs kept in stalls so narrow they are unable to turn or lay on their sides.

We recently bought a free range, slow grown chicken. It cost nearly £12. But it gave 8 adults and 2 children a generous roast dinner, salad for two next day and with the addition of a couple of bacon rashers a 4 helping pie. Then there was soup from the carcass and 4 dogs dinners from the scraps. We bought it as we like the better flavour but a non organic RSPB freedom chicken would have been cheaper but still have a decent welfare standard. Fast grown intensively reared water plumped chicken is false economy.

I think the problem with the "organic/sustainable farming" argument is that it is just never going to produce enough food to feed big cities, mainly full of people on lower incomes. The market for the products of organic farms etc are expensive because of the way they are produced and also they take a lot more land than more intensive methods. They rely on having relatively affluent middle class people to buy these products at a premium price - which allows the farmers to make a living. Same market as can afford to turn (our) noses up at GM or mass produced.

Bags that's an excellent link.