The Big Picture: Feeding Edge

[Psycho Cat Industries]

The same can be said for almost anything and yet we strive for innovation do we not?Whenever we have something new,there will always be someone to pick on it.In our nature,we reject that which we do not understand,and you can't really blame people for being paranoid.If you need an example then look at what people think of our gaming industries and the people who play those games.All stereotypes and miscalculations from misunderstanding.

 

[Logic 0]

Does that mean I can't enjoy frank n' beans without knowing it was done with normal science?

 

[kickyourass]

Is it weird that I could tell he was eating a carrot right away?
Anyway, I love genetic engineering, I mean how the hell else am I going to get my catgirls?

 

[SpcyhknBC]

Thank you very much Bob for this. Speaking as someone who is currently studying this field, it's great to see someone actually dispelling people's fears. Now, where did I put the DNA to make those living bagpipes?

Also fun field in this vein, synthetic biology, or the making of biological toys, like bacteria which can solve sudoku.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/18/e-coli-bacteria-solve-sud_n_785494.html

hey can you answer to this guy?

As a chef, I get a lot of information about GMO's.

And frankly yes, just because its altered does not mean is dangerous. The only cause for concern is that when you alter food slightly over generations the body adapts to it. And hybridizing and husbandry combine the genes of the same species.

GMO's can have very harmful side effects, but it is by no means assured. Simple scientific testing can determine its saftety.

The REAL problem is that this testing is not done, and the FDA does not even require biotech firms to tell them if their food is genetically modified.

Im pretty sure he's spouting bullshit, and he has little to no actual knowlege of the field, but just wanted to make sure.

I'm not sure if you're talking to me, or the other guy. Anyways, I don't know that much in regards to FDA regulations dealing with genetically modified food, but I have never ever heard of genetically modified food adapting to the body over generations causing problems.

For example, many strains of corn have been genetically engineered to be resistant to certain chemicals. As part of ensuring that this gene does not transfer to other plants, these strains of corn cannot produce offspring, they are sterile. The only way for genes to transfer from one species to another in plants (I do mean plants, and they can do this and do do it quite regularly) is for pollen from one to fertilize the ovum of another. These strains do not pollinate, so each year, the farmers must buy a new batch of seeds from whichever company makes the corn strains. Because the plants can't reproduce, they can't evolve, therefore there is no adapting.

I have heard of organic plants evolving new toxins which may be poisonous to humans in a few generations, but I have yet to seen any hard literature in this area, so I'm hesitant to proclaim this as fact yet.

And so you know, my qualifications are a BS in Molecular Biology and I'm currently pursuing a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics.

 

[Nyquisted]

Hey Bob, just like too say, I really enjoyed this episode.
There series seems to have progressed from your rambling in the second episode.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Jack_the_Knife]

What I perceive the general controversy surrounding GMO food isn't so much playing God with whatever we eat, but rather the industry practices that come with it, like questionable business practices(e.g. Monsanto and their terminator seeds, other companies and their vaguely organized crime-esque activities, etc.), a rise in outbreaks like e. coli that seem to originate from genetically modified foods(whether causation or just correlation is the bigger question), animal cruelty(obviously an individual's stance may vary), and environmental impact, among other issues.

I mean, the obvious benefits are that we're able to feed people all over the world(or at least industrialized nations) rather inexpensively, we're able to enjoy all kinds of food all year round and we're safeguarded against disasters with pest-resistant crops or pest-destroying practices.

There's a fair and fascinating general overlook of this in the documentary Food Inc. and I think it's pretty fair to both sides of the debate, but with the obvious and outright stated sympathies towards the organic market.

 

[teknoarcanist]

You want food horror, Bob? Thanksgiving turkeys that are selectively bred now to the point where they can't even have sex to create new turkeys because their thighs are so large. They're artificially inseminated in order to create more food, and they're pumped full of steroids and drugs to make them grow as large as possible, and they spend the majority of their lives in cages, wing-to-wing with more turkeys than should conceivably fit in one cage, knee-deep in their own shit. Their beaks are broken at birth so they can't kill one another or themselves, in the endless state of terror and distress that is their lives.

This is where your turkey comes from. The same is true of about 75% of your chicken, about 80% of your pork, and about 40-50% of your beef.

A super-cow for your troubles.
http://www.cavehumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/super-cow.jpg
(That big tumor-ish looking bit is the tasty part )

A dumpster full of discarded male chicks for your time.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/theproducers/library/male-chicks-crop.JPG
But who needs em amiright?

WALL-TO-WALL, BEAKLESS, SELF-MUTILATING MEAT-UNITS, ON THE HOUSE!
http://liberationbc.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/battery_cage_01.jpg
Just lookit their adorable little faces :3

And it goes on, and on, receding into the distance . . .
http://www.treehugger.com/20100519-chicken-factory-farm.jpg
It's like the Matrix up in here. Except now WE'RE the awesome robot overlords! Yay...for........us?.........waitnoshit.

So yeah. It's not so much Franken-Food as it is Dante's-depiction-of-hell -Food. Given that, I think a little outrage and controversy just might, erm, be...a tad called-for.

Hell, if the visceral stuff doesn't do it for you and you want some REAL Orwellian nightmare fuel, wiki Monsanto or go watch 'Food Inc.' Even beyond the obvious moral/ethical outrage (granted, varies from person-to-person) there's problems with this at the levels of food safety, enabling political corruption, etc.

 

[Namewithheld]

Anyone who bitches about GM crops needs to read about a guy named Norman Borlaug.

Whose that?

Well, he's just a guy who single-handedly saved almost a billion people. How? By finding new and better way to grow crops, AND to find new kinds of crops to grow.

Finding ways to make food cheaper and more plentiful is one of the best ways to save lives, and I fully support anyone and everyone who does it.

 

[Safaia]

As someone who works in a grocery store and watches people spend $2 on cucumbers on a regular basis I just want to shove this video in their faces. I still stand by that organic foods is the biggest sham of this generation.

 

[Kumomaru]

Er, defibrillation isn't used on dead people, that's an extremely common misconception. It's used on people whose heart rates have become erratic, it stops the hearts and gives our natural pacemaker a moment to (for lack of a better phrase) 'get it's bearings' and get the heart pumping properly again.

 

[righthanded]

Bob, when you celebrate a carrot, bred for it's aesthetics, you ignore the fact that foods aren't being selectively bred for their nutritional content or even taste. When Monsanto holds the patents on everything you consume, there might be a conflict of interest in delivering sustenance and delivering profit to share holders. I trust a corporation to do everything in its power to generate revenue, including flooding a market with foods that grow fast and heavy without providing the nutrients necessary to sustain life.

From the company that brought you agent orange comes: everything you eat!

Yeah, it's not a conspiracy, bob, it's business. And businesses aren't in it for the consumer.

 

[Hashime]

Skeptiod has a good podcast on this: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4112

 

[Redd the Sock]

Well first off, don't put to much faith in the term "franken" whatever, or at the very least, the next time you hear the term, see if the person using it at least knows Frankenstein was the doctor not the monster, then see how much of the book and or movie they know beyond the 3 most commen elements: doctor animates corpse, reanimated corpse kills girl, villigers seige doctor's home. I think most people have more experience with Herman Munster than even the classic film, let alone the book.

Second, there's a genral distrust of science, and not just from relgious nuts. By its nature, science is about saying "we were wrong, and this is right" often contridicting itself voer time. Just think of all the things once good for us later revealed bad, from all meat diets, to lead paint, to DDT. Factor in mushroom cloud images and one of the most common story elements being someone falling due to their own hubris, and you get a recipe for people afraid to move forward lest we suffer the ill effects unforseen by an overeager scientist. Sometimes you even get a more tangible example. Do you think that the internet would have grown at the rate it did if corporations foresaw movie, music, and game pirates?

The issue itself, well, overall I'm not sure, but then, the C- I got in 10th grad biology encouraged me to take physics so my thoughts wouldn't have much qualification behind them, but between growing populations, rising meat prices, and a neverending hope that someone will discover the genetic sequance to make fattening foods healthy without sacrificing taste, I'll side with the tinkerers for now.

 

[Aerakade]

God I love movie bob so much.

 

[Urh]

http://www.gene.com/gene/news/press-releases/display.do?method=detail&id=4160
Alright, I'll admit I got the dates wrong. I should have known better seeing as I'm about to write a final exam on the topic in a couple of days. Still, 30 years is a pretty long time. And I'm actually a student to someone who worked in the lab that harvested the pig pancreases used to produce the majority of the Western world's insulin (located in Winnipeg, the more you know).
Also, I did NOT claim this is 100% safe. I'm well aware of the limitation of the technology, primarily the fact that the mechanisms for gene expression and regulation aren't fully understood yet despite how long they've been studied. While we still have a ways to go, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not safe to consume GM foods. It just means we need to be smart consumers.
Finally, DO NOT bring up Chernobyl. That was caused not by the technology but by the people using it: http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.pdf
Nuclear power is safe provided you don't screw around with safety protocols, so stop using it as the baseline for the evils of technology.

I was not "using it (Chernobyl) as the baseline for the evils of technology" (one thing that really gets on my tits is when somebody accuses me of being a Luddite, deliberately or not). I was, in fact, trying to cite Chernobyl as an example of the problems that arise by the irresponsible use of technology (and we appear to be in agreement here). It is my heartfelt opinion that science is purely amoral in the truest sense of the word (which is to say that it is neither "moral" or "immoral") as it is merely a tool, like a hammer - the "morality" lies in the person wielding the tool. As an (oversimplified) example - you can use a hammer to build a house, or you can use it to cave somebody's skull in. If the hammer is used for the latter purpose rather than the former it is not the hammer that is evil.

I think that genetic engineering, if used sensibly, can indeed be a useful tool. In my opinion the trouble is that our understanding of biology is still rather lacking for us to safely use genetic engineering with confidence. We shouldn't be hysterical about GE, but we sure as shit need to be vigilant, wouldn't you agree?

 

[saintchristopher]

All this video did was remind me of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes." So, thanks for that!

 

[geierkreisen]

Genetically engineered crops are the most heavily tested crops. They are regulated by the EPA, USDA, and the FDA. The EPA regulates them if there is a pesticide involved, the USDA for how they are grown and how it will effect the environment, and the FDA for food safety. It takes millions of dollars of testing and many years to be able to be approved as a commercial crop.

Dead wrong. Since the GECs were first introduced there has been a lot of pressure on governmental institutions and quite a few revolving-door politicians/lobbyists/assholes happily switching between the big agri-corps and the EPA and FDA. Asking too many questions has been deemed as counterproductive to the ability to compete on a new market. When negative studies existed they were downplayed, even kept secred until whistleblown.

The documentary you should watch as an introduction to this topic is:
'The World According to Monsanto' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvGddgHRQyg)
'Le monde selon Monsanto' in French (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqICu69I8VU)
'Monsanto - mit Gift und Genen' in German (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDrvFiRwWP8)
by Marie-Monique Robin from 2008.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

So uhh... who else is dying to call that cyborg tomato "Terminato?"

I think it's a great name.

 

[Killerbunny001]

Congrats, great episode. I agree 100% but it`s hard to make the general public understand this. I have no idea why but some people will not listen to reason on this one.

 

[Xirema]

Bob makes a lot of good points, but I think he glossed over (what I consider, in my skewed perspective) the biggest issue that I (and other people similarly insane) have with GMO's, which is that it's not limited to merely expediting the natural Darwinian evolution of a crop.

A consequential amount of Genetic Engineering in this field also goes so far as to splice together DNA from two separate entities, which in some cases aren't even the same Domain. (The biggest I've heard is fish combined with plants to get stuff like cold resistance and insect resistance.) This, to me, seems like something that could actually be a fair source of concern, especially since the regulation in this area (like almost all other areas of food science in general) is pretty lax.

That said, it's nothing that proper testing couldn't safeguard against, and if anything serious does happen, it'll be corrected pretty quickly.