DrJerryrigger
Well-Known Member
@Rex before he looked it up and anyone who doesn't know. GMO genetically modified organisms are not some scientists going in to a plant with tiny micro tweezers and moving a gene from one plant to another. THEY USE A VIRUS!! That is correct they use a virus to infect the plant they are trying to change and cause a genetic mutation withing that plant so that it is resistant to something else.
If that is not bad enough, they make something like soy or alfalfa "Round-up Ready." You know what that means? They can spray this alfalfa with Round-up to kill all the weeds around it, then the round-up is absorbed into these alfalfa plants, the alfalfa is given to cattle. The cattle are then given hormones and antibiotics to counter the effects of the round-up alfalfa and then you and I eat the cow.
Or we just eat the corn/soy/canola that they have genetically modified to be treated this way.
Trust me this is not some left-wing issue, I am a Libertarian this issue has nothing to do with which way you lean.
As for the term "organic" it means almost nothing anymore. I know I posted it in the beginning, because that is what people know. Organic basically means carbon based...but regardless if people want to spray insecticides all on their hops, go for it, I just think people need to realize what they are consuming. Maybe?
Well the virus is one way of doing it, there are other more mechanical ways. With the virus way, they kill off the virus right away, wile the plant is just a glob of cells on an agar plate (they just use antibiotics). The virus is not an uncommon one in nature, it causes scaring on trunks of trees.
Anyway, people see GMO's as a bad thing. I don't think it's so black and white. The round-up ready one, for example; it just has a DNA sequence from a plant that happens to be immune to round-up. The genetic differences don't make it less of a good food (in this case), the bad thing is that now; people can dump lots of round-up on it. It comes down to the farmer.
Then there are others like the new leaf potato (one of the first GMO's to go on the market). It has DNA that make the plant produce poison. I think only in the leaves, but if that DNA was put in spinach... On the other hand, people use huge amounts of pesticides on potatoes. If it's come from inside the leaves there is no run-off, and it doesn't get into the soil where the part you eat is.
I think GMO's can be a great thing; personally my main concern, is that the FDA is far too lax about testing. And these plants can be grown outside, where their pollen can spread to native plants. There are no simple answers here, and frankly it's not something that can be easily stopped. I've done a lot of research on the topic, and for less than $1000, I could make you a Cascade that glows in the dark.