Jim Hightower: Food for Thought

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 by Creators Syndicate
Food for Thought

by Jim Hightower


In this joyous season, friends and family come together to cook, share and savor nature's bounty. As we tuck into food and drink this year, we can be especially appreciative because — wow! — another scientific breakthrough has been made in food production.

"The benefit is something that can be identified just about by everybody," exulted Neal Carter, who helped produce this long-awaited advance for humankind. Is it a miraculous cancer-fighting food? No, bigger than that. Is it a richly decadent chocolate that helps eaters lose weight? No, bigger even than that. What we have here is — are you ready? — apple slices that don't turn brown!

Is this fabulous or what? Non-browning apple slices — another marvel from the biotechnology profiteers who love to mess with the genetic makeup of the world's food supply. And this is truly a global accomplishment. The science of non-browning was pioneered in potatoes by Australian gene-splicers, who licensed the process to Carter. He's a Canadian peddler of apple trees who hopes that American apple growers will now rip out their old-fashioned natural orchards and plant these biotech wonders of modern science, paying a nice profit to his company.

But it's going to be a hard sell. "Genetically modified," said the head of Washington state's apple commission, "that's a bad word in our industry." He's referring to the fact that consumers routinely reject foods they know to be altered. In fact, consumers are demanding more organic production, not stuff from a gene factory. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/15-5

[ixion]

1. Yep. The word is out. People want REAL food

not garbage, a.k.a. "Processed food product"

[zeemike]

2. It is the madness that comes when commerce runs wild.

The reason....people don't like to see brown on their apple that is sliced and left open to the air so let's invent one that does not....then every one will want it and we will make millions.
And this has been around a long time...years ago I remember seeing a piece on some program like 60 minuets about a group of people that had a grant....and it was to find out how they could manipulate their cereal to be more crunchy than anyone else....sense research showed that people liked crunchy cerial...they were caught up in a race to be more crunchy and who knows what they added to their process to make it happen.