Neil DeGrasse Tyson Drops Mic On Comments Criticizing Hulu For Showing Food Evolution Documentary

[progressoid]

Film and entertainment news site Deadline Hollywood announced last week that Hulu has acquired rights to the Food Evolution documentary, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy and narrated by celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Deftly navigating the fraught debate over our food system—a debate that often casts GMOs as a scapegoat for myriad perceived ills of modern agriculture—the film is both “acclaimed” and “highly controversial” according to Deadline. “The doc is significant for a couple of reasons,” the story explained. “First, it is one of the most controversial and contentious docs on the food industry because it delves into the positive side of GMOs on sustaining the human food supply, and second, it received a rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating.”

The GMO debate is fraught for complex reasons. A metaphor for real and perceived food system ills, the acronym, which stands for “Genetically Modified Organism,” is linked in the public conversation with monoculture, pesticides, chemicals, obesity, and the transformation of life forms into intellectual property. In reality, genetic engineering is a set of breeding methods among an array of techniques that allow breeders to achieve desired traits in plants. Knowing if a whole food or ingredient is "GMO" doesn't tell consumers anything about its nutritional profile, whether or not the plant is patented, its environmental impact, or any other substantive information. As I discussed in October of 2016, perhaps the most common menace summoned when “GMO” is uttered: Monsanto.

...

In response, another commenter offered a correction: “Monsanto didn’t fund this. The Institute of Crop Technologists did. It’s the trade association for crop scientists. This is quite literally a documentary funded by crop scientists frustrated at the disinformation about GMOs.” In fact, the film was sponsored by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), a non-profit society of over 17,000 professionals involved in food science and technology.

In his trademark measured fashion, the film’s narrator Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is known for his science “mic drops,” showed up to intervene.

Fascinated by the intensity of this brief comment thread. Allow me to offer four observations:

1) Just because you don’t agree with something, doesn’t make it wrong.

2) One of you wants to end your subscription to HULU over a documentary you have yet to see. Just let that sink in.

3) The documentary is not specifically pro-GMO, it’s pro science. That fact is clear and present from the opening minutes onward.

4) And just for reference – 2016 Revenues: Exxon $205 billion; General Motors $165 billion; Archer Daniels Midland $62 billion; FedEx $50 billion; Whole Foods Market $16 billion; Monsanto $15.7 billion.

Respectfully Sumbitted (sic)

Neil deGrasse Tyson, New York City

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2017/09/25/neil-degrasse-tyson-drops-mic-on-comments-criticizing-hulu-for-showing-food-evolution-documentary/#b4e9c59503e3

[comradebillyboy]

1. As long as my steaks are gluten free...

[progressoid]

2. You can season it with some GMO free salt if you want.

Of course there aren't any genes in salt, so being non-GMO is even more meaningless.

[comradebillyboy]

3. As an added bonus the salt is cholesterol free.

[pansypoo53219]

4. my uncle got a bunch of fancy pants $$$$ salt(bargain bin).

most were SOOOO nasty.

[progressoid]

5. Someone gave me some Martha Stewart gourmet salts for xmas a few years ago.

Once it gets into my soup, it all tastes the same to me.

[Igel]

6. Once saw bottled water.

It was labeled low-carb, gluten-free, and GMO-free.

It was more expensive. It seemed to sell reasonably well.

It was water. Just water.

The education system really failed those consumers.