key2thecup Posted July 6, 2012 Author Share Posted July 6, 2012 I think his point was that the article makes the argument that there hasn't been enough testing to declare GMOs safe. That's different from the headline which uses the word "unsafe". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buddhas Hand Posted July 6, 2012 Share Posted July 6, 2012 I think we have to be concerned with all crop productions , this particular article explains part of what happens to some crops as the carbon levels rise in our atmosphere , Toxic Crops (06/05/2010) Comments Download mp4 Download wmv TRANSCRIPT NARRATION We've constantly fought a battle against weeds, disease, pests and drought when growing crops. But the security of our food supply is being threatened by a sinister new player generated by us. Dr Graham Phillips The next big food issue could be how rising levels of carbon dioxide are affecting our fruit and vegies. Now we know that plants love CO2 so rising levels of it will affect their metabolisms and it seems almost certain that for many foods the levels of nutrition will go down and for some toxin levels will go up. Both serious issues when you are trying to feed a world with an increasing population. Dr Ros Gleadow We're tracking worst case scenario with carbon dioxide at the moment and we need to predict what sort of things are going to happen in the future. NARRATION Carbon dioxide is crucial for plant growth. Plants breathe in CO2 and convert the gas into usable energy. Dr Ros Gleadow Plants use carbon dioxide. It's a carbon catcher and storage system so you think if there's more carbon dioxide they would just capture and store more. But in fact that doesn't happen. Plants do grow faster at elevated carbon dioxide usually, but not as fast as you'd expect. NARRATION Ros Gleadow has been studying the effects of raised C02 on plant growth. Dr Ros Gleadow Leaves of plants grown at elevated carbon dioxide have a lot less protein wheat, barley, rice, all of those in probably only 50 to 60 years time will have 15 to 20% less protein in them than they do now. NARRATION So why would a plant have less protein in a raised carbon dioxide environment? In the process of photosynthesis plants convert carbon dioxide into sugars using a protein called RuBisCO to capture the CO2 from the atmosphere. If carbon dioxide levels increase plants will need to produce less RuBisCO to capture the same amount of carbon dioxide. Less of this protein means a less nutritious meal. And the plant's extra resources can then be diverted in to protecting the plant. Plants protect themselves using spines and thorns or make themselves less appetising by producing toxic chemicals. Eucalypts produce phenols. Dr Ros Gleadow In about 50 years time or even 100 years time eucalyptus leaves will have trouble supporting arboreal herbivores like koalas because the phenolic concentration will be too high and the protein level too low. NARRATION Phenols are one way that plants protect themselves from animal attack but there is another way. Cyanide. Emeritus Prof. Howard Bradbury If an insect comes and eats the leaf then it immediately gets a nasty taste of bitter hydrogen cyanide so it goes somewhere else. So this is a really great mechanism for protecting the plant. And there's about 2,000 plants that use this mechanism including apples, apricots, peaches. NARRATION One of the biggest worries is Cassava. This is one of the main staple crops of third world countries and it also produces cyanide. Dr Graham Phillips This is a cassava plant. It is a small one the big ones can get up to 3 metres. Now the leaves can be eaten. They can be thrown into a salad as greens but the most important part of the plant as far as food goes is the root. Now that could be pealed chopped up and cooked. It could be turned into flour or indeed tapiaoca. Now the reason cassava is so popular around the world is the plant is highly drought tolerant. It requires very little water and can grow in extremely poor soils Dr Graham Phillips These propagate really easily these plants? Emeritus Prof. Howard Bradbury Yes they are very easy to grow and cassava from the agriculture point of view is just marvellous, that's why it's used so much. It's easy to propagate you just cut a little bit of the stalk put it in the ground and that's it and a week later it is all shooting. It's just amazing stuff. Dr Graham Phillips The problem is that its full of cyanide? Emeritus Prof. Howard Bradbury Yeah that is the problem with it. NARRATION Cassava is a staple food for much of the developing world. But if it is not prepared properly it can cause a serious lifelong disease called Konzo. Julie Cliff has been a medical doctor working in Mozambique since the 70's and has seen the effects of cyanide in cassava first hand. Dr Julie Cliff In Mozambique the disease that gives us most problems is a disease called Konzo and that's a permanent paralysis. And they get that when they eat too much cassava. The first time it happened was 1981. We went to investigate it and we got a message saying it was polio. But we soon realised it wasn't polio because the symptom was quite different. NARRATION Back in the lab Ros's group have been looking at how rising CO2 will affect the cyanide levels of cassava. Dr Ros Gleadow We grew cassava at three different concentrations of carbon dioxide. Today's air, one and a half times the amount of carbon dioxide and twice the carbon dioxide of today. And we found that cyanogen concentration in the leaves increased. Dr Graham Phillips So as we get more Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere these will contain more cyanide? Emeritus Prof. Howard Bradbury More cyanide yes. The yield from the roots which is the main thing, will go down. So that is the most worrying aspect. Dr Ros Gleadow I feel sort of slightly uncomfortable with having discovered something so bizarre that the plants actually made less tubers when we grew them at elevated carbon dioxide. But they did. It is all very highly balanced in plants, the ratio of the proteins and the toxins. When you grow plants at elevated carbon dioxide the plants are more efficient so they can grow really well. And at the same time allocate more of their resources to defence. NARRATION Cassava may not seem that close to home in Australia. But the principle of this research, and the shocking health side effects, should really be a warning sign for us all. Dr Ros Gleadow In Australia an important part of pastures is clover. And in Australia most of the clovers contain cynaogens, the concentration of cynaogens increases and the concentration of protein decreases in clover grown at elevated carbon dioxide. I think this illustrates the importance of really knowing what it is that we think might happen so we can plan for it. NARRATION Before rising carbon dioxide and toxicity levels had been linked, Howard had been spending his retirement coming up with a simple method to remove cyanide from cassava. Emeritus Prof. Howard Bradbury 2004 I worked out the method and here it is 2010 and its not being used anywhere hardly except the Mozambique health department has finally said yeah that's a good method. They're finally adopting it, it's taken them 5 years! Dr Graham Phillips So what's the method? Emeritus Prof. Howard Bradbury The method involves taking the dry flour and then you add an equal amount of water and then mix it up. The flour all swells up, they then take the wet flour and put it on a basket in a thin layer not more than a centimetre thick and the enzyme can then attack the cyanide compound and break it down and gradually liberate hydrogen cyanide, which is a gas. Dr Graham Phillips Gee it's a pretty simple method for detoxifying? Emeritus Prof. Howard Bradbury Very simple, yeah. NARRATION Howard's solution allows people to safely eat cassava and this knowledge will become more important if cassava becomes more toxic in a carbon rich environment. Dr Ros Gleadow I don't want to be a gloom and doom person. I want to think okay clover's going to become more toxic, let's develop other cultivars. If cassava's going to become more toxic, let's look at some other cultivars. Let's look at other ways we can deal with this problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazzle Posted July 6, 2012 Share Posted July 6, 2012 Breathing the air is dangerous. Should I walk around with an air purifier attached to my face? Oh wait those are dangerous too. They use "toxic herbicides and pesticides" let alone all the hormones and such in pretty much all the foods we eat. Damn, even the shampoo people use causes cancer. If they can feed more people that need the food it is better then having people starve to death. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Gilmore Posted July 6, 2012 Share Posted July 6, 2012 Way more foods are genetically modified than people realize. Most corn crops are genetically modified, and almost every product found in grocery stores contains corn in some form. I know this is a simplistic way of looking at it, but there is some truth to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dittohead Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 Yet Humans continue to live longer and cancer rates are in decline after all these "harmful" pesticides that have been used for decades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliboy Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 We were in Costa Rica last fall and visited a banana plantation. They spray the bananas every day, that's every single last day, without missing one. We only eat organic bananas now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Karlsson Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 Population Control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raph Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 Well, I just know that when I was in elementary school in the 90's, there was no one in the school with a deathly allergic food allergy, and there was only one kid with down syndrome. Now a days, it seems 1/10 have these issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McMillan Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 I cannot believe how many of you are perfectly ok with GMO's. It is really quite frightening. Why would you want to encourage shovelling chemicals into your body? Yes there are tons of things out there that are bad for you but your very source of energy and LIFE shouldn't be contaminated. Personally I buy organic for just about anything I can. I ensure my meats aren't drugged up with anti-biotics or steroids. What have I found from doing this beyond the food I eat tastes leagues better? Number one, my IBS is near symptom free. Here's a great speech by Jamie Oliver on food. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Ambien Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 What a horribly sensationalist title followed by a pointless article. Looks like the media did its usual fear-mongering once it got a hold of a science piece. The gist of what the title actually should have been is "More research needed on GMOs. Herbicides and pesticides = bad for human consumption" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyledude Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 "Organic" doesn't mean a thing when the entire planet is poisoned. No matter what we do, there's always somebody peeing in the swimming pool. Having said that, the only people I've met who are pro-GMO have obviously had far too much Roundup in their diet. Drinking the Monsanto kool-aid apparently causes brain cell death - which is exactly what you'd expect from eugenicists. Just the fact that they refuse to label it as GMO is outrageous. If it was safe to eat there wouldn't be an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VICanucksfan5551 Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 But it sure sounds official and irrefutable putting the word "scientists" in an obvious anti-GM slanted propaganda piece. This "report" is sponsored by an environmentalist organisation whose website only posts pro-organic, anti-GM news. But since they used the word "scientists" I'm sure there's no need to be a sceptic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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