Lets Look at Modern Wheat

phoenix said:

This is off topic but if many of us had left it to nature we would be dead.

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Statistically speaking, the chance of any of us being born at all is so small, that none of us should be alive at all.

Again off topic at least to begin with.

I always find the whole interfering with the laws of nature debate quite interesting. A commonly accepted theory is that a definition of the laws of nature is the same or equivalent to what would happens in the universe when any physical process is just allowed to continue without any external interference.

In that regard all life interferes with the laws of nature so for example an un-living rock can't do anything to its surrounding environment yet even the most simplest bacteria is manipulating and interfering with environment it finds itself in i.e its interfering with the laws of nature because if it wasn't there that interference to the bog standard way the universe would behave wouldn't be occurring. You can even use that fact as a definition of what it means to be alive i.e. something that can manipulate its environment and interfere with nature.

As someone who finds the above a quite compelling explanation then I like to look at the issues of people interfering with the laws of nature from the other way round and see it as its how whatever you are doing to "interfere" is being applied not the fact that you can interfere .

So for example in the context of the thread (somewhat) GM is just a branch of the Bio Engineering industry. The application of Bio Engineering can be used for both good and bad things so in the GM context I would agree that a company who purposefully bio engineers a plant who's seeds are sterile and have to be bought year after year by poor farmers is a bad application. On the other hand how can something like the developing technology of gene therapy treatment for Cystic Fibrosis which like GM manipulates "stuff" at its genetic level (in this case applying GM techniques to human children) be a bad application if its the only way of curing those children who have it as Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic defect that drugs can't cure? Likewise a GM version of a bio fuel crop so that global warming can be reduced is another example of a good application of the technology.

So to me its nothing to do with it "interfering with the laws of nature" as all life does that it is simply recognizing that how we apply that interference is what matters.

GraceK said:

I realise we've gone too far to halt overnight, the medical and food industries interference with food and it's manipulation of people's diets.

Schools also take part in this manipulation when they churn out the 'healthy eating' policy and brainwash kids into thinking they MUST eat this or that or they won't be healthy. There are kids who can't tolerate gluten, wheat, fruit, sugar, chemicals - yet the 'healthy eating' advice is the same. When they're adults, the NHS gives the same message as we with diabetes know. The old saying "One man's meat is another man's poison' is very, very true.

I noticed many years ago that lots of kids were eating chicken because chicken was being pushed as being a healthy, low fat source of protein. Noodles was another favourite. Why? Because chickens can be produced in great numbers and can be sold very cheaply so they make a good source of food for low income families. Chicken today tastes NOTHING like the chicken I ate as a child. Back in the 50's every chicken I ever saw for sale was yellow, not white, it was fresh not frozen for God knows how long, it wasn't pumped full of chemicals to preserve it and it wasn't half full of water. It was succulent and had flavour. Today's chicken tastes like cardboard to me. But the sad thing is that my grandkids generation will not know any different. They won't have the natural unadulterated foods to compare with. My daughter in law doesn't even know what a chicken looks like, she thinks it comes ready cooked, sliced and pre-packed. She'll turn her nose up when we walk past the cooked chicken deli counter but she'll buy what I call the 'clinical version' stuff. And that's the way the food industry wants it. The less we're educated about what REAL food is, the more likely we are to buy their **** and not ask any questions.

In just one generation - we've lost a hell of a lot of REAL FOOD RIGHTS.

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I was taken back by the color of fresh kill farm chickens recently.

The taste is nothing like the mass produced, hormone injected chickens today.

I agree w the poster: the smaller, less watery natural free range chicken is succulent.

Let's not forget about the insecticides that are engineered into the plants we eat and are slowly killing us off. But isn't this part of the big plan to drive down the Earth's human population? We were dying from all sorts of stuff in the past and are still dying like flies today. What's to expect from the Star Trek generation that grew up expecting to eat computer-simulated food one day?