Seeds of Conflict

[thesummerqueen]

That's BS too depending on how you eat, and how and where you shop and if you can grow any of your own food.

[Dawud]

100 years ago we didn't have anywhere near the access to nutrition we have today. People choose not to eat it, is all. Or they eat too well of fatty foods.

Sorry TSQ...

What I meant is that the vegetables and fruits themselves have less nutrients now....

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*was

[thesummerqueen]

Oh, really? I expect you have some science for that?

[Dawud]

I've seen a study and my biologist DR friend was telling me it too...

Go see for yourself if you like... If you really want Ill get you the evidence.

What would you like? A peer reviewed article or would a well known newspaper story covering it be enough?

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Do you have access to journals?

[thesummerqueen]

Link me the study.

[Dawud]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...ition-loss

Here's something to get you started...

[A_Nony_Mouse]

All concern about GMO is manufactured by crackpots. The US is the leader in the field. A great way to get rich is to sue a corporation that caused harm in any manner. I awaiting the first award against the produced of any GMO product for the harm it caused.

Europe is deep into a prove the negative mode demanding GMOs be proved safe (impossible) before approved.

For the most part the GMO products have leaped across hundreds if not thousands of generations of breeding for the gene. If a gene can be bred into a species what it the problem with doing it in generation.

I agree that sounds like speculation but google a mess of the stats on how many genes we, you and I, share with sea sponges and spiders and frogs. Those kinds of fractions also apply to soy beans genes and sponges and such. What are the odds that the same gene does not exist but is being suppressed by something else? And why go through all the generations of breeding when it can be done directly? There can be a huge multi-year effort or "lets see if it works." The latter is preferable.

But lets say there is some long term problem that shows up after years. Let us be honest about feeding people. While the unlimited growth by 2050 was once at 50B with no end in sight it is now a peak about 14B in that year and declines immediately afterwards. And in every year the peak number keeps decreasing.* But whatever number there are are going to keep wanting to eat. If they do not want GMO let them starve. You can lead a whore to culture and all that.

The above is entirely separate from the legal issues in the US regarding saving seed and spread of pollen across fields which is an entirely different issue.

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* We will probably be lucky to hit 15B which will have a certain fraction of the population able to do high end jobs. When the world population begins to decline from there the fraction of people to do high end problems like medical research will decline. The obvious solution of free higher education for the entire world can only be a stopgap measure and then only if someone can make it work.

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[Dawud]

What's scientific American like for you? Quite unreliable or fair? I'm not familiar with it...

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SciAm seems pretty rigorous after I researched it...

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U based in states or UK or like way down south TSQ?

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I mean Oz/NZ

[Dragonetti]

I think we subsidize grain and corn too much! Fruits and vegetables are expensive for the average consumer. We need to make healthier food accessible to all consumers.

Dawud - The article is written by EarthTalk writers, and not Scientific America.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...ition-loss

Here's something to get you started...

Did you read it?

They studied U.S. Department of Agriculture nutritional data from both 1950 and 1999 for 43 different vegetables and fruits, finding “reliable declines” in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C over the past half century. Davis and his colleagues chalk up this declining nutritional content to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits (size, growth rate, pest resistance) other than nutrition.

All studies show almost all Americans eat more protein than their bodies can use and thus goes out the anus. The rest all in the category of "RARELY SEEN" deficiencies. If the nutrition OF the people is not deficient who gives a damn what the individual contributors are? And if the deficiencies occur we have vitamin pills to deal with them.

In fact EVERYTHING in fruits and veggies comes in pill form if you do not mind watery stool.

AND for a country with an obesity problem why is anyone concerned with nutrition in the first place? With obesity we WANT malnutrition to get them back to a normal weight.

We do not want kids with swollen bellies from dusty countries but muffin tops have got to go.