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Inspirational Thoughts

Education > Are Today's Headlines the Result of Yesterday 'S
 

Are Today's Headlines the Result of Yesterday 'S

Are today's headlines about fish and fowl the result of these practices/seed/etc>


5 Crazy and New Genetically Modified Foodsposted by Samantha, selected from Planet Green Dec 19, 2010


By Sara Novak, Planet Green
Who would have known 20 years ago that so many of the foods that we
eat would be produced in a lab rather than nature? Scientifically
designed seeds are becoming a larger than ever portion of our diet and
for the most part, it’s difficult for the consumer to even realize it
because of a lack of labeling. According to Sustainable Table,
about 200 million acres of farmland worldwide are now used to grow
genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The most common GMO crops are
soybeans, which represent 63 percent of all GMO crops, corn at 19
percent, cotton at 13 percent, and canola at 5 percent.

The list of seeds, and later foods that have already been modified
also include alfalfa, tomatoes, chicory, flax, papaya, potato, rice, sugar beets, and squash. The future of our global food supply is laden
with seeds, and most recently animals, modified for human consumption.
You may be surprised to see what’s on the horizon.

None of these have been approved yet by the FDA, but with what we’ve seen so far, who’s to say that they won’t be in the future.
1. Super Chicken Eggs
New biotechnology is being used to develop genetically modified
chickens that produce compounds that can be harvested from the eggs.
The compounds in the eggs can be used to fight a range of diseases from
diabetes, to viruses to tooth decay, according to Jacqueline Jacob and Richard Miles – Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. According to the BBC,
UK scientists have developed genetically modified chickens capable of
laying eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs.
While these additives may be beneficial on their own, I think most of us
would prefer to know what medications and drugs we were taking, rather
than getting them in the form of an egg. Let alone all the side
effects from feeding people all these extra additives.









2. Non-Browning Apples
According to Food Safety News,
Okanagan Specialty Fruits of Summerland, British Columbia, a
biotechnology company, has submitted an application to the U.S
Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
for market approval for a GMO apple that doesn’t brown after being
sliced. The apple doesn’t brown because the gene that produces the enzyme polyphenol oxidase (what
actually turns the apple brown) is silenced. The apples still brown but
just not as quickly. What’s next, avocados that never go bad and pears
that never get brown spots? Crazy stuff.

Related: Are you Ready for the Genetically Modified “Frankenapple”
3. Fast-Growing Salmon
Unless you’ve been hibernating for the past few months, you’ve heard
about this one and with good reason because salmon would be the first
GMO animal approved by the FDA for human consumption.

According to Ars Technica:

These genetically modified Atlantic salmon have two
foreign DNA sequences inserted into their genomes. One encodes a growth
hormone from Chinook salmon. The other is the on-switch used by an
antifreeze gene from ocean pout, an eel-like fish found in the
Northwest Atlantic Ocean. When placed alongside the growth hormone,
this on-switch makes the salmon produce the growth hormone in cold
weather when they otherwise wouldn’t. Importantly, the GM salmon do not grow larger than regular salmon; they just achieve their size in sixteen to eighteen months rather than three years.


The FDA isn’t evaluating the environmental concerns including
pollution, waste, mating, and concentration of disease that go along
with Aqua Bounty’s approval, just whether it’s safe for human consumption and it’s way too early to know that either.



4. Hyper-Producing Seeds
Scientists are working to manipulate DNA to create hyper-producing
seeds, specifically plum tomato seeds that increase the yield by half. Zachary Lippman and his team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, produced a
strain of hyper-productive tomato seeds by altering the command gene
that tells plants when and how many flowers to generate, according to
the New York Times. He’s also thinking about the modification in melons and soybeans.

5. Enviro-Pigs
Christine over at TreeHugger wrote that Canada has approved limited production of animals dubbed “enviropigs™,”
pigs that are modified to produce 65 percent less phosphorous in their
poop and urine. Pig farms are notorious for producing a world of
waste, three times more excrement than human beings do. Lloyd wrote about a Rolling Stone article entitled Pork’s Dirty Little Secret which reported that an
estimated 500,000 pigs at a subsidiary of pork giant Smithfield generate
more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of
Manhattan. The stream of waste is loaded with phosphorus which causes
the growth of excessive algae in lakes and streams which in turn, sucks
the oxygen out of water and kills off all life. But even still,
scientifically altering a pig so that it’s less polluting seems
counterintuitive to me.

Read more: https://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-scary-and-new-genetically-modified-foods.html#ixzz1AH7Vv6IK


Related: Frankenfish


More on Conscious Consumer (378 articles available)
More from Samantha, selected from Planet Green
(31 articles available)










Read more: https://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-scary-and-new-genetically-modified-foods.html#ixzz1AH73jiAe


Related: Are You Eating Genetically Modified Foods?

posted on Jan 6, 2011 9:05 AM ()

Comments:

I'm going to start living out your great words: live, laugh, love! I don't do enough of the laughing and loving.
comment by solitaire on Jan 8, 2011 6:55 AM ()
And I am going to share more things I come across that brings a smile to my lips, and joy to my heart, and a giggle that makes my tummy jiggle

L.L.L. Ana
reply by anacoana on Jan 8, 2011 7:53 AM ()
Ana, loved your reply to Randy's comment. That's just how I feel -- thank you saying it so well.
comment by marta on Jan 7, 2011 7:13 AM ()
I feel caught between two worlds. The scientific one is producing "better" foods (certainly true with rice, in my opinion), risks notwithstanding. The other world is "leave will enough alone" pure foods. I'm all for improvement, yet selfishly grow my own foods, no preservatives or GMOs added. Time will tell who wins the battle.
comment by solitaire on Jan 7, 2011 6:26 AM ()
In my reality... home grown, home made... keep it simple and pure.
Eat for what your whole body needs, not just the taste buds.
Most of all attitude, live,laugh,love.
Thank you for your visits and comments, always appreciated and enjoyed
reply by anacoana on Jan 7, 2011 7:03 AM ()
Ugggh.
comment by marta on Jan 6, 2011 7:41 PM ()
My choices are changing as my body changes. Many things my body used to tolerate it can not long deal with now, guess I've changed along with foods and how they are processed.
Have a good day, thanks for stopping by.
reply by anacoana on Jan 7, 2011 7:07 AM ()

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