From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Mon Jul 08 2002 - 15:18:47 MDT
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> Wrote:
>Many people seem to be assuming that there
>is no difference between GM foods and non-GM
>foods. If this were true, we wouldn't be wasting
>the money on GM research.
It's certainly true that GM can make food look and taste different from what
you are expecting but in most (not all) cases there is no way to determine
if the change was caused by modern genetic engineering or from a much
older genetic technology like crossbreeding.
>Golden rice is a different color than white rice,
>and has a different nutrient content and a different taste.
Interesting example. There is a test in this case, just look for beta
carotene the precursor of vitamin A, no natural strain of rice has the gene
to make it so you'll never get it from crossbreeding. The idea was to take
a gene from the carrot and put it into the most popular agricultural crop in
the would so a 10 ounce bowl of rice would contain all the vitamin A you
need in a day. 124 million people are deficient in vitamin A in the third
world, between 1 and 2 million people die from it each year, it is also the
leading cause of blindness in children. All in all golden rice seems like a
pretty worthwhile project to me.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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