http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/3035139.stm


The frozen chicken industry in Holland which ships over a thousand tonnes of chicken into the UK each week routinely pumps the meat full of water to make it weigh more thus swelling profits.

But to keep the water in, there is a magic ingredient - protein additives.
Suppliers have routinely been adding bovine, and pig derived protein to Poultry for over 12 years now.
Health and safety agencies in England test samples of poultry from suppliers by using a DNA test, or PCR as it's known. The PCR test is able to detect DNA from either bovine or pig sources, hence is able to determine whether or not the poultry has had protein added.
However the suppliers have moved the bar up a notch. They claim that they have developed a proceadure which renders the bovine/pig protein undetectable. This so called PCR negative protein can be added to poultry, and it won't show up in Govt tests, all of which the suppliers deny off course.
But the Panorama doc clearly shows secretely filmed footage of an undercover reporter posing as a representitive of a dummy investment company in a meeting with heads of leading meat suppliers from Holland, being told about PCR negative protein. The undercover reporter is shown lab tests showing how effective the PCR neg protein really is, and she is offered the option of buying it.

very scary. we are what we eat??....

:bugeye:

I'm more worried by the current US pressure on the EU to allow GM foods to be traded without restriction, for two reasons.
1) We have no (read, absolutely no) data on long-term exposure to GM foods.
2) GM foods cross-pollinate with normal foods. The end result is twofold:
2a) All foods become contaminated with GM foods, which have no data on long-term effects on human physiology
2b) One US company is allready sueing a farmer whose crop was cross-pollinated - for patent infringement. What's to stop them doing that to everyone???

I concur, this all worries me, Maybe we should take a leaf out of New Zealand's book, they have this weird practice of feeding their cows on .....GRASS!!!!!!. My god what next.

What I find a bit annoying is that here in the UK we have got a bad reputation when it comes to agriculture, BSE, Foot & Mouth etc, yet it seems that our European partners have got a lot more to hide than we ever had.

god yes. If you ever go to Holland......dont't eat the meat

...however , I feel they save the best stuff for themselves, and sell the crap to the Brits. Good old Britain...thy're too polite/stupid to complain.

whats up with these euros anyway? hypocritical crap. i think its a ploy to keep us exports out of the country. show me the studies that say this stuff is harmful. conclusive evidence mind you. this shit has the potential of ending hunger and one opposes it? what do i not know here? what am i missing?
africans are starving to death cos they follow these superstitious euro's

It's not perfect, bhudmaash, and I support the idea of GM food - but not the way it's being done. Long-term data is essential, because once introduced, this cannot be undone, and we've allready seen how badly such GM experiments can go wrong with the crossbreeding of african and european honeybees.

And personally spookz, I think that this sabre-rattling over GM foodstuffs is in response to the WTO giving the go-ahead to the EU to tax US steel imports to the tune of $4 billion annually.

well technically, the PCR negative animal proteins added to poultry constitutes genetically modified. What the do is degrade the original bovine or pork DNA so much that only one base pair is left, hence the source of the protein cannot be ascertained, thus those greedy bastards can carry on adding that crap to our poultry, and the PCR test won't pick it up.

EI:

And personally spookz, I think that this sabre-rattling over GM foodstuffs is in response to the WTO giving the go-ahead to the EU to tax US steel imports to the tune of $4 billion annually.

....money first, health later....:mad:

For example, a proposed EU rule that would require the labeling of food that contains genetically modified products or uses them in its processing would exempt wine and cheese, both major French exports that depend on genetic modification for their production.

but not the way it's being done. Long-term data is essential, because once introduced, this cannot be undone,

thats the american way bud. we use the general public for testing. if sufficient numbers die, we yank the stuff of your shelves and you can sue for trillions

I'm afraid Bhudmaash has it right, money first, health later. (unless you run a hospital, in which case they go together.)

Unfortunately, much as we would like to prove GM crops as more dangerous to health than adulterated crap we eat just now, we cant. That is partly due to the total lack of studies done in this subject. Just try and find some real health studies done on animals and humans eating GM food. But unfortunately it does seem that if they are made right, there is no real risk from them. If they are made right. And the pesticide residue doesnt get you etc etc.

But in the real world, the weeds get resistant to the pesticide, and genes spread into other crops, and moreover the farmer has to contend with last years crop reseeding itself on this years land where you are trying to grow something different, thus requiring you to hose the place doen with really nasty chemicals in order to kill everything off. Does that make sense?
A survey done a couple of years ago in the USA found that farmers thought that their GM soya had a higher yield, but actual real independent trials showed it didnt, because the gene that coded for pesticide resistance obviously affected the way the plant grew and processed energy.
Then theres the showcase, taht rice they have produced that is supposed to help reduce vitamin A deficiency. Except you would ahve to eat hundreds of grams of it to get any noticeable advantage from it. Far better just to take a pill.

The simple and plain fact is that GM crops are totally unnecessary. There is no need for them, except to make certain large companies more money by getting a greater monopoly power over the food chain.

Bhudmaash, if you are in the UK, you should have gotten the Guardian on the last two saturdays, it has had small pull out sections on the adulteration of our food.

spookz,
That's the problem - GM foods cannot be taken off the market. They cross-pollinate and the next thing you know, you don't have the baseline cereals to replant, and then everyone's screwed.

first off, DNA isnt perfect, mistakes are made all the time.


and id rather eat a GM corn on the cob than a taco from taco bell. You think that the meat you eat from the Meat Factories are in any better than GM food? Whats so scary about GM food anyways? oh no the corn is just way too big! well, its shouldnt be that lax, studies should be done before any widespread introduction to the natural environment, if at all.

Oh please. All of this 'GM is dangerous' crap is complete bologne. I wont even get into, right now. There is a very good thread on the biology forum if you guys would like to get a word in.

But seriously, who here has a significant enough education in biology to say something like this. I'm talking hardcore, nucleic acids and proteins, knowledge of broad science enough of an education to make such a claim? It is an unfounded fear. These GM nay-sayers are the same people who would eat strawberries in the winter time to keep healthy. Bah!

i think people need to learn what it means to be genetically modified. Methinks people are just scared of the certain phrases...

Stem Cells! TERRORISM! Saddam! Nuclear! AHHH!!!!

Elbaz,
I happen to believe nuclear power is the best means we have at present for generating electric power - but that doesn't mean I think that Chernobyl was acceptable. GM foods are the same - great promise, but the implementation has got to be done carefully and with serious amounts of peer review. The consequences are too serious to do otherwise.

You think that the meat you eat from the Meat Factories are in any better than GM food?

That was the whole gist of the initial post. The meat from suppliers is crap, but GM foods' threat is a lot more clandestine and insidious.


i think people need to learn what it means to be genetically modified.


as I said:

well technically, the PCR negative animal proteins added to poultry constitutes genetically modified. What the do is degrade the original bovine or pork DNA so much that only one base pair is left, hence the source of the protein cannot be ascertained, thus those greedy bastards can carry on adding that crap to our poultry, and the PCR test won't pick it up.

how ?

http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/gmoquote.htm


more to the point, why do you feel such a need for GM fodds to exsist? You're not some starving ethiopian, you have a choice?

uh-oh , GM-food............

1.there is enough allready on this planet !but it´s often wasted because of silly US/EURO politics .
they want to keep the prices stable ,so they have to throw it away !

2.why shall people that don´t want such food bring a proof that GM-food is dangerous ?i would say vice versa !

3.did you know how sausages are made ?
you put lips ,assholes and all the other bowels in a mixer and mince them very well ;)
(no joke)


if you want to eat this food ---then eat it

EI - I agree, - we should closely monitor the development and implementation of GM. But I think that comparing it to something like nuclear power and chernobyl is in bad taste. It has its dangers, sure, but they are of a different kind, with consequences a lot less severe. Messing around with the configuration of a few nucleotides is a lot different than decaying the nucleus of radio active materials.

As for the more 'clandestine' and 'insideous' methods. It's true. GM is based around the market and will go in any direction that makes money. If you buy those low quality products, they will continue to pump 'em out. If you buy those disease and frost resistant strawberries when everything else is dead, that's what you'll get/

obviously more research is needed, thats the general consensus, but that site is just one side of the story, completely unreliable.

Elbaz,
You have no idea of the consequences of mucking about with changing genetic sequences - noone does yet. Comparisons with Chernobyl are perfectly legitimate, as Chernobyl was an example of poor implementation leading to severe problems.

no, no, I meant the effects , the effects on us, our health will be clandestine and insidious.

Originally posted by EI_Sparks
spookz,
That's the problem - GM foods cannot be taken off the market. They cross-pollinate and the next thing you know, you don't have the baseline cereals to replant, and then everyone's screwed.

yes of course. we are talking seeds not canned food here. i too concur with the general consensus;) more tests, more studies. we are replacing a food supply that served us for... for... well since the dawn of humanity;) with something new and different. caution and restraint should be employed

its too late for me tho. i live in america!

bye bye dear friends bye bye

What about the people of faiths who don't eat pork?

What about the people who avoid eating beef in fear of BSE?

I bet they ate chicken

Peoples rights are flaunted once again because of greed.

Umm...You see, EI, the Russians weren't that well prepared. In fact they were ignorant. They thought that it was all right to build their reactors out of wood (no kidding.) They laughed at north Americans for spending so much money pouring cement foundations and having walls 10ft thick.

They learned the hard way.

Scientists have a pretty good idea about the consequences of recombinant DNA. Now, I'm no scientist, but I've personally learned alot in the past little while. People who take insulin are using GM. Eat a tangering and you are messing with GM. As long as the bacteria don't escape - and even if they did - we wouldn't have to worry. As long as build up on a solid foundation of cemented research and not the brittle old wooden kind, chernobyl will remain a distant fear.

The research isn't gonna stop, and it's gonna keep on spilling into the markets. All that we can do is monitor it cautiously and act as ethically as possible.

and the do it every day ,stu
keratin in bread ,scrapings in yogurt ,steroids in meat,............

I know it goes on Wasi, but if there's nothing to hide then there is no valid reason why the exact ingredients of a product should be omitted. I still love sausage butties (even tho' your description of how sausages are made was sickeningly accurate :D ), but it is my choice that I eat them knowing exactly what they consist of.

Elbaz,
That's the same attitude that was exhibited when some dork tried crossbreeding African and European honeybees. (It's only one hive, what can go wrong? We've been keeping bees for centuries, we know it all!)

End result - a plethora of really bad "killer bees" movies, and a rather more serious infestation of hybrid bees. The problem is that the bees swarm and if a hybrid mates with a european queen, she produces hybrid bees thanks to some aggressive hormones and a reproductive process that wasn't understood. Given sufficent time, this is going to lead to the inevitable extinction of the european honeybee in North America, and it's replacement with a vicious and aggressive hybrid that is not as docile as the European bee - and which have already killed several people. Not through anafalactic shock, as happens once or twice each year, but by attacking a human deliberatly and stinging him/her thousands of times, normally going for dark spots such as eyes, nostrils, ears, scalp, etc.

This is the problem with GM - you get an unknown or poorly known result which may have the ability to reproduce more competitively than the baseline - which leads, with time, to extinction of the baseline.

Originally posted by bhudmaash
Keratin in bread??....thst's news to me!!

goog grief!..is there no end to the evil of these bastards!

..seriously, thats not good. Why the hell would you need to add keratin to bread for God's sake, and where is this keratin derived from???...hope it ain't from humans;)


i can only speak for some europe countries ( why should it be different in usa) ,but the keratin they use comes from china ( i learned that they get keratin from human hair ;) )
i forgot why they use it ,but it shouldn´t be difficult to find something about it via google

thanks a lot Wasi!!!
this morning,...some how I wasn't really feeling in the mood for my usual slices of toast.....;)


i forgot why they use it ,but it shouldn´t be difficult to find something about it via google

no thanks, I'll pass on that,...in this instance, ignorance really is bliss!!

In many way's I think we ourselves are to blame for this, we in the devoloped world seem to think that abundant and cheap (low cost) food is a god given right and is something that we take for granted.

On the other hand it appears to me as a 'non expert' that it is going to be impossible to feed the world population by using traditional food producing means.

( I know millions in the world are starving now, but that is down to politics and distribution, we currently produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet but is that because of the production methods that so many people are opposed to.)

ok,
It has been mentioned several times that GM foods may have the potential to solve world famine, at the moment it is doing only the opposite. Big companies sell GM grain to third world nations at cheap prices, however this grain is all modified in such a way so that it doesn't reproduce and more is needed next year to grow the same crop, thus only making third world countries more dependent on foreign aid.
There is a huge threat with GM foods! Not so much the possibility that it can affect humans physiologically, however the more competative breeds produced using genetic modification will eventually become the only ramaining of their species, dominating over the others. Eventually this will lead to the total extinction of that entire crop, imagine the whole world growing from identical grain all containing identical DNA, any blight or desease contracted will spread unstopably, no plant showing any more tolerance to it than any other, none being naturally imune and all being affected and eventually being killed of in exactly the same way. the end result we no longer have many vital crops witch we currently so depend on!
Also,
whats up with these euros anyway? hypocritical crap. i think its a ploy to keep us exports out of the country.
I'm not quite sure what you mean but: the euro is being kept artificially low at the moment, confidence is increasing and so is the value of the currency. in the long run the new system may prove very beificial for international trade
Aside from all this apart from there being stregnth in diversity as mentioned above, it is possibly the largest source of beauty, imagine if each member of the human race was the same, imagine the same for the environment in which we live. To me GM produce is the another end of something natural and beautiful and the begining of another human controlled element of the universe. As mentioned by aghart we currently produce enough food for the entire world it just doesnt get to where it is needed most, I think that the boundaries of humanity should be sinonymous with the limitations of our environment, exceeding these can only lead to planetary exhaustion and in a sense our own tendencies for self destructive action will eventually influence humanitie's extinction.

Big companies sell GM grain to third world nations at cheap prices, however this grain is all modified in such a way so that it doesn't reproduce and more is needed next year to grow the same crop, thus only making third world countries more dependent on foreign aid.

Agreed, futhermore if GM foods were conceived as a method of mitigating famine in the third world, which is a complete falsehood, then why is the majority of food in the US GM?

there should be absolutely no need for the population of the richest nation on earth to be consuming GM food, when the US's conventional agriculture yields are so high.