How to tell what produce is Genetically Engineered (GMO)

[rkng_1999]

Understanding PLU numbers





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10 Part Documentary on GMO


To follow the remaining parts, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheyAreKillingYou#g/u

[Randall]

great find!

[rkng_1999]

Here's another forwarded by davincij5:



I was trying to find something in YouTube that talks about and links GMO to dying bee colonies; and they talk about it in this video.

Another reason to stock up on heirloom seeds.

[rkng_1999]

Click in the image to enlarge for an easy read.

The attachment Monsanto.jpg is no longer available

[rkng_1999]

[Randall]

GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism.

While it is common knowledge for a general understanding of traits and inheritance, subjects like recombinant DNA require a bit more study to appreciate the advances in science and also understand the outrage and corruption in business that went with it.

Following is a quick-and-dirty rundown of genetics and how GMO came into being:

Every living organism has a specific code base that gets copied into every single cell of their being. That codebase is contained in the DNA. It is the unique blueprint that makes you, you.

The codebase is created at conception by taking code from each of parents and writing a new DNA for the progeny (children).
This is how traits get passed from one generation to another.
That could be hair color in dogs, size in a tomato or freckles on your cousin.

In 1865 a book was written entitled Experiments on Plant Hybridization by Gregor Mendel. This book outlined the experiments performed by Mendel of pea plants in his green house. This was the foundation of understanding how these traits can be controlled in plants and became the foundation for plant hybridization.

You could control if the plant would be tall or short, or had green pods or yellow pods. In turn, by extending this thinking to other species, farmers eventually started breeding for desirable traits in their plants.

Producing hybrids can be -going, as you have to wait for plants to reach maturity before they can placed in a controlled-cross to grow the desired progeny. You also have to seek out plants that have those desired traits. Finding a drought-resistant bean plant, can't mate with your snow peas. There are limits.

With genetic engineering, you find the traits you want and then cut that code out. Then you insert that code into the organism that you wish to have that trait.

During my undergrad college work, using alkaline lysis we could cut out traits for resistance to penicillin and then insert into e coli cells, thereby creating an organism that you might not have ever come across in nature.

Useful applications of gene manipulation have led to herbicide resistant crops, drought resistant crops, crops that ripen predictably and products that are durable for mechanical harvesting and transport.

There are side-effects not studied, or ignored that cause the public backlash by scientists and nutritionists.

GMO foods have been found to introduce new protein chains that have been studied to be in relation to new food allergies cropping up.
When you find a trait that exhibits the characteristics you want, you cannot possibly test for any possible impact beyond the conditions you are studying.

This is where the ugly business and politics gets into it.
There have been numerous court cases involving large corporations that pushed their products into market without testing, or by bribing or by suppressing data.

Some landmark cases that you can google:
-Killing of Monarch butterfly by pollen of GMO foods, Monanto, 2000
-Monsanto guilty of bribing Indonesian officials, fined $1.5M USD
-racketeering charges against Monsanto 2006 over Aspartame
-2009 Federal Judge Says USDA Illegally Approved Genetically Modified Sugar Beets

For further reading:
-Facebook: Millions Against Monsanto Campaign
-www.mindfully.org
-www.theecologist.co.uk