How many of you guys here really, really enjoy cooking and planning meals?

[MossRoad]

Heck yes, GMO foods should be labeled.

What about foods that have been created by selective cross breeding? Virtually every vegetable that you buy at any supermarket in the country is a result of someone selectively choosing many different plant varieties based on their genetic traits, then breeding only those with the genetic traits they want in the new vegetable. What's the difference between doing it in the field or doing it in the lab? What about plant hybrids?

 

[OldMcDonald]

Life is too long to drink cheap wine.

I totally disagree. It is too short to drink bad wine. Cheap is not necessarily bad or poor quality, and expensive is not necessarily good. I could find you some €20+ bottles here that I would prefer not to drink. An Australian winemaker (that I regret I never met) by the name of Len Evans, and few will have heard of him, reckoned that every bottle of poor wine you have is one less good wine you could have had. He also said there is no such thing as a good wine, only a good bottle. Very true. I have averaged at least a bottle of table wine every day since August 1979 so have consumed a few. That was when I moved to Australia and wine was almost free compared to prices in Britain.

Here in Portugal there are some very palatable wines at about €1 a bottle and cardboard casks tend to be made of a slightly higher standard and sell at about €7 to 10 for 5 litres (6.66 bottles) so can be more expensive. It is possible to pay twice that. I recall my son and I making a "raid" across the border a few years ago and bringing back some very nice Spanish wine at 59c a litre. At your $10 to 15 I would expect a very good vintage from a well-known quinta and winemaker with the wine having been properly cellared and probably not available in a supermarket. I bought some better wines for cellaring (not immediate drinking) today and paid around the €3 mark for each bottle.

As I said, having a range of wines on the table does not mean you have to drink a lot, or spend a lot to obtain a great deal more enjoyment from the food, and that to me is the important thing. Wine is only to complement the food, we can live without it, but we cannot live without food. Those of us who put in a few hours of hard physical work each day need to eat well to be able to do so, so good food is of extreme importance. To be able to enjoy a suitable wine to go with that food is a personal pleasure and one I would prefer not to do without.

 

[OldMcDonald]

What about foods that have been created by selective cross breeding? Virtually every vegetable that you buy at any supermarket in the country is a result of someone selectively choosing many different plant varieties based on their genetic traits, then breeding only those with the genetic traits they want in the new vegetable. What's the difference between doing it in the field or doing it in the lab? What about plant hybrids?

I am not opposed to GM, but it really is totally different to non-GM cross pollination or animal breeding. Check it out, and I am not condemning you for not yet knowing the difference.

 

[IslandTractor]

OP here....I would really, really enjoy having a food and cooking forum. But as far as copyright issues...I don't think that would be an issue UNLESS the recipe directly attributed a source. A number of the ones I have posted elsewhere are a b*******d version of something I find in a printed book or magazine or from an online source.

And, IslandTractor...I have a good friend, a woman in her middle 50's who has a MAJOR gluten intolerance and it's not something she is imagining. Weird thing is, she has two sisters and a brother but none of them suffer from the same thing. I respectfully disagree with your suggestion about gluten intolerance being a fantasy.

I don't believe I said ALL gluten intolerance is a fantasy. Celiac disease is certainly very real. Certain populations, such as the Irish, have higher levels of gluten intolerance than most too. Controlled, blinded testing for reactions to gluten containing products certainly can separate the wheat from chaff but that is rarely if ever done by the self diagnosed. What I am saying is that there is a gluten sensitivity fad underway in the USA. Many (?most) of the "intolerant" people are self diagnosed and frankly are just naively jumping on a bandwagon. Food fads are nothing new and most dissipate with time. We'll see how much longer products like "gluten free spaghetti" and other fad based products stay prominently featured on the grocery store shelves. Of course before the gluten sensitivity epidemic can fade, something has to be invented to replace it. Nature abhors a vacuum.

 

[IslandTractor]

I totally disagree. It is too short to drink bad wine. Cheap is not necessarily bad or poor quality, and expensive is not necessarily good. I could find you some €20+ bottles here that I would prefer not to drink. An Australian winemaker (that I regret I never met) by the name of Len Evans, and few will have heard of him, reckoned that every bottle of poor wine you have is one less good wine you could have had. He also said there is no such thing as a good wine, only a good bottle. Very true. I have averaged at least a bottle of table wine every day since August 1979 so have consumed a few. That was when I moved to Australia and wine was almost free compared to prices in Britain.

Here in Portugal there are some very palatable wines at about €1 a bottle and cardboard casks tend to be made of a slightly higher standard and sell at about €7 to 10 for 5 litres (6.66 bottles) so can be more expensive. It is possible to pay twice that. I recall my son and I making a "raid" across the border a few years ago and bringing back some very nice Spanish wine at 59c a litre. At your $10 to 15 I would expect a very good vintage from a well-known quinta and winemaker with the wine having been properly cellared and probably not available in a supermarket. I bought some better wines for cellaring (not immediate drinking) today and paid around the €3 mark for each bottle.

As I said, having a range of wines on the table does not mean you have to drink a lot, or spend a lot to obtain a great deal more enjoyment from the food, and that to me is the important thing. Wine is only to complement the food, we can live without it, but we cannot live without food. Those of us who put in a few hours of hard physical work each day need to eat well to be able to do so, so good food is of extreme importance. To be able to enjoy a suitable wine to go with that food is a personal pleasure and one I would prefer not to do without.

I agree with you. Cheap certainly doesn't always mean bad and expensive doesn't necessarily mean good either. On the other hand, perhaps we could ship you a case or two of Ripple Pagan Pink or Thunderbird or some other gawd awful wine cooler to sample. Vin ordinaire is perfectly acceptable to me so long as it is good. The very fact that such wines are consumed every day in regions like Portugal, Spain, Italy and France is testimony that they are indeed perfectly adequate. In the US, Gallo Hearty Burgundy has always been a good deal and even though I made fun of it earlier, there is actually nothing wrong with Trader Joe's "Two Buck Chuck" either (though sadly it is now Three Buck Chuck). I think Costco does a pretty good job of screening out bad wines too so I don't find it necessary to spend any more than $10-15 for a delightful bottle.

 

[IslandTractor]

What about foods that have been created by selective cross breeding? Virtually every vegetable that you buy at any supermarket in the country is a result of someone selectively choosing many different plant varieties based on their genetic traits, then breeding only those with the genetic traits they want in the new vegetable. What's the difference between doing it in the field or doing it in the lab? What about plant hybrids?

I agree. While I understand where the anti GMO crowd is coming from, I think their emphasis on genetics and labelling are misguided. What is of considerable concern is the impact of modern agricultural practices on the environment and on human health. That is more a matter of how pesticides and herbicides are used than what the genetic make up of the crops is though. Unfortunately it has turned out that the first successful GMO crops were based on Round Up resistance which permits massive use of herbicides to increase yields. What the anti GMO crowd ignores is that genetic modification can actually develop MORE nutritious crops (Vitamin A enhanced rice for example) and also crops with increased resistance to disease that will also enhance yields. The movement to label GMO foods will simply throw the baby out with the bath water. We need to change agricultural PRACTICES but modern techniques for enhancing crop genetics should be encouraged not harried.

I recently read a book by an organic farmer/geneticist couple at U Cal Davis. It gave a very informed and balanced view of the issues. I couldn't remember the title so searched on Amazon for "GMO" and after scrolling through the top 250 books on GMO found that 99% were basically rants against GMO. That is what the public is exposed to now. I personally agree with the rants against Monsanto and big agribusiness but that should really be distinguished from GMO.

There has been literally no evidence of direct harm to human health from consumption of bioengineered foods which has been going on for decades now. FDA, WHO, AMA and various other science driven bodies have all concluded they are safe for consumption. Modern big agricultural practices on the other hand are strongly suspected of doing harm. The public needs to make that distinction which, based on the hundreds of anti GMO books on Amazon, they don't currently do.

By the way, this is the book I was referring to earlier: Amazon.com: Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food (9780195393576): Pamela C. Ronald, R. W. Adamchak: Books Very well written and balanced.

 

[tcreeley]

What about foods that have been created by selective cross breeding? Virtually every vegetable that you buy at any supermarket in the country is a result of someone selectively choosing many different plant varieties based on their genetic traits, then breeding only those with the genetic traits they want in the new vegetable. What's the difference between doing it in the field or doing it in the lab? What about plant hybrids?

Doing hybridization of plants in the field involves using other plants in the same species. That's selective breeding. We do it with animals.
GMO's in the lab involve splicing in new DNA from sources that are not from the same species, ie bacteria that has been modified to be round up resistant, etc.. If it is noted that a particular organism has traits that would be useful - its DNA is analyzed and the desirable portion identified. It is copied and induced to grow in some new form. It is later transplanted into the DNA gene sequence of the plant they are trying to alter. GMO corn is corn altered genetically to be resistant to round up. Then they spray the field with round up. The weeds are killed and the corn grows. But the corn contains DNA that is not from corn, The question is- can this genetically altered substance be eaten safely by people. Monsanto says yes. Others wonder.

GMO labeling provides one with a choice, the same way that labeling milk as "does not contain growth hormones" provides a choice. Likewise listing ingredients on a food label also provides choice.

Just as I am able to buy organic - I want a choice in what I buy. Lately I am seeing GMO free labels and I choose accordingly.

The GMO folks are just scared that there business would perish overnight if people knew what they were eating and feeding to their children. (On a side note- high fructose corn syrup is being relabeled "fructose", -wonder why!)

 

[IslandTractor]

Doing hybridization of plants in the field involves using other plants in the same species. That's selective breeding. We do it with animals. GMO's in the lab involve splicing in new DNA from sources that are not from the same species, ie bacteria that has been modified to be round up resistant, etc.. If it is noted that a particular organism has traits that would be useful - its DNA is analyzed and the desirable portion identified. It is copied and induced to grow in some new form. It is later transplanted into the DNA gene sequence of the plant they are trying to alter. GMO corn is corn altered genetically to be resistant to round up. Then they spray the field with round up. The weeds are killed and the corn grows. But the corn contains DNA that is not from corn, The question is- can this genetically altered substance be eaten safely by people. Monsanto says yes. Others wonder.

I hate to be on the same side as Monsanto but in this case they are correct based on all available scientific data. GMO corn is safe. I don't believe there has been a single GMO product that has caused harm to humans or animals. It is the use of pesticides and herbicides that is causing potential health problems and definite environmental damage.

Remember that genes just code for proteins and that all proteins in food are basically digested the same way and broken down to amino acids. There is a hypothetic danger that a gene introduced into corn could produce a protein that a rare individual could be allergic to but that is really a pretty remote risk. Much greater risk of accidentally contaminating corn with peanuts during processing for example.

 

[TomSeller]

GM, but it really is totally different to non-GM cross pollination or animal breeding. Check it out, and I am not condemning you for not yet knowing the difference.

This is true. The main issue I have with GMO franken foods is when they are modified to be resistant to herbicides. That means they can then be sprayed with Roundup yet still be harvested. Roundup is absorbed by the plant, and you eat it. Do you want your kids eating roundup?

 

[MossRoad]

I am not opposed to GM, but it really is totally different to non-GM cross pollination or animal breeding. Check it out, and I am not condemning you for not yet knowing the difference.

How's it different? Selecting genes in a lab or selecting them in a field, its still manipulating one thing to get another thing.

Here's a link to an article in this month's issue of National Geographic to a story about why do many reasonable people doubt science. One of the things they discuss is genetically modified foods. Its a good read.

Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science? - National Geographic Magazine