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Scientists Successfully Decode the Genome of Quinoa (bbc.com)
Gr8Apes writes: Scientists have successfully decoded the genome of quinoa, a hugely popular "super-food" because it is well balanced and gluten-free. They have pinpointed one of the genes that they believe control the production of saponins (bitter toxic compounds that protect the plant from predators) which can facilitate the breeding of plants without saponins, resulting in sweeter seeds without having to process them. The scientists also believe that the genetic understanding now gained will allow them to breed shorter, stockier plants that don't fall over as easily, and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification. Furthermore, the researchers believe the genetic code will rapidly lead to more productive varieties that will push down costs. "We need the price of quinoa to go down by a factor of five," said project leader Professor Mark Tester, from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. "If we get to a similar price to wheat it can be used in processing and in bread making and in many other foods and products. It has the chance to truly add to current world food production." The study has been published in the journal Nature.
Quinoa is bloody convenient, but I've never been able to warm up to the taste. A version that didn't have the saponins in it would be a huge improvement. Ain't science wonderful?
So what? Someone already bred a low saponin Quinoa that immediately harvested by the birds. Maybe leaving in the natural pesticide that is easy to process is a good idea?
They probably would be considered GMO if people didn't mind starving to death.
That's because you are letting the rules of nature determine the outcome. People have been cross breeding for thousands of years and we know what to expect.
GMO = Man fucking about with genes that may or may not produce something good or bad due to a complete lack of long term studies (i.e. 50+ years).
It can be used to make pasta, so yes, you can slather it with cheese sauce, or marinara or whatever your favorite type of sauce is.
I can't even reliably pronounce or spell its name.
Nullius in verba
Now if only they can filter the rocks out of it
I've been eating Quinoa regularly for years & never seen grit or sand. Change to a better brand (looked for pre-rinsed varieties)
My pics.
" the genetic understanding now gained will allow them to breed shorter, stockier plants that don't fall over as easily, and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification."
WTF? Do they mean to somehow imply that breeding isn't creating genetic alterations? That's the whole point of breeding, which mankind has been doing for millenia. GMO = why humans are different than the fish which crawled onto land millions of years ago.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And how do you cook it ?
It's the GMO rice with vitamin A precursors. Sounds like it should have a different taste than regular rice.
Have they figured out a way to prepare it that doesn't taste like crap and hippy sweat? That would be news.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
quinoa, a hugely popular "super-food" because it is well balanced and gluten-free
Seriously, wtf? When and why did gluten become an evil boogeyman? Was there a recent research that found gluten causes cancer or something? Or is it just a new age hippie thing?
Gluten is just wheat protein. It's nutritious. It's how Roman soldiers were able to go everywhere and fight because they had a reliable, portable, long-lasting and nutritious food supply. Wheat is actually the first superfood.
Yes a tiny percentage of the population can't eat wheat because of celiac or wheat allergies. So what, peanut allergies are far more common and yet I don't see a lot of anti-peanut crusading.
Costco has really tasty pre-packaged packets of brown rice and Quinoa (under the brand Seeds of Change), that you can heat in five minutes,
I know what you are thinking. Pre-packaged? Brown rice? Quinoa? How could any of that be tasty?
Normally I hate packaged foods myself and always cook everything from raw. I've never liked brown rice, sometimes hated it, and while I like most Quinoa more, I only like it for particular uses.
But for whatever reason, these packets that Costco has are actually really tasty. Somehow the taste of the brown rice and Quinoa mesh together to make something very good, and something you can have with any protein instead of normal rice.
I imagine it's healthier too but I honestly do not care because I just find it tastier.
There's nothing un-pronouncable or strange in the ingredients either - brown rice and quinoa are the first two ingredients and it's just some spices after that.
Cook it in a skillet and it is great. The instructions say without water but I prefer cooking it as is, and you get some nice crunch in it. So tasty.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It tastes OK, but the additional arm it's grown on my back makes sleeping inconvenient. However, it's nice to be able to type and scratch my ass at the same time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's why we have pesticides
Some GMO crops gain insect or pesticide resistance due to the insertion of genes from totally unrelated organisms like bacteria. Definitely different than crossing two sexualy compatible plants with desirable features.
Your point?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Cross breeding and selective breeding aren't genetic modification. Genetic modification is splicing genes together that would not, or could not, occur in nature. Kinda like splicing jelly fish genes to corn to fight of the pine killing beetle or some such crap. Or, as in this case removing a gene to make something Monsanto can patent and profit more from while not really understanding (or perhaps they do but just don't care) the consequences of doing so.
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No matter how its prepared the taste is always there under everything else and I find it quite unpleasant.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Please, stop apologizing for this shit: "and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification."
A. No it can't, selective breeding and direct genetic modification end up with the exact same result, and are both "genetic modifications" by any reasonable definition of the term.
B. This is exactly the same as saying "and these benefits could be gained without the use of wifi!" or "without the use of satellites!" to make "radiation" schizos or flat earthers feel better about themselves. They don't deserve to feel better about themselves; they're crass, ignorant halfwits and don't need their idiotic beliefs affirmed anymore than they already are. And that goes for the stupid assed "gluten free" thing too. Almost no one on earth has celiac disease, and anyone that does can take care of that themselves.
At no point should scientific results be apologetic, the universe doesn't apologize for existing the way it does, and reporting how it exists should need no apology either.
Simply that some people feel that splicing these unrelated genes into food sources may introduce some poorly understood risk. Further, some feel that not enough research has been done or that the research isn't transparent enough to be comfortable eating those crops.
The process is different from natural cross breeding so it raises more concerns for some.
What part about it containing Saponins that are bitter and toxic didn't you understand?
And what gave the two of you the idea that eating glue was a good idea?
It was already done several years ago. Quinoa farmers didn't like it because without the saponins birds devoured the crops and yields fell dramatically.
Human decisions being involved is the very definition of what is meant when people say you aren't abiding by the laws of nature or some variation. And no, we don't know what to expect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The scientists also believe that the genetic understanding now gained will allow them to breed shorter, stockier plants that don't fall over as easily, and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification.
I guess plant splicing and selective breading do not count as genetic modification. Who knew? Must have meant direct genetic modification.
That's a workable issue. Plenty of foods have been bred out of more toxic wild ancestors, like the solanine removed from potatoes or the erucic acid removed from canola. Most plants did not evolve to have their roots or leaves eaten; domestication made them favorable to human consumption. Knowing how to make things better is the first step toward doing it.
Saponins I think are less of a concern, since they're usually pretty easy to wash off of commercially processed quinoa. I'd be more concerned with producing low oxalic acid varieties.
Yes you should be euthanized immediately because nobody should have to endure the unbearable shame of being you.
The point is to state things in a scary way and hope people mistake that for a rational argument. I hate those three tired tropes in the parent poster's comment. 'GMOs produce pesticides and resist poisons!' It only sounds scary to the uninformed.
First, all plants produce chemical defenses, aka pesticides. This is basic botany. An organism that can't run or swat back against the trillions of insects that want to eat it as to evolve defenses somehow. They use chemical defenses. Domestication has removed some of those defenses to make plants more palatable to humans, but that's how things work in nature. Some genetically engineered crops have a protein which kills certain types of pests. It doesn't affect humans. Hyping up that there is a pesticide in corn is just ignorant. Of course there are pesticides in corn, it's corn. Even your organic, all natural, 'Non-GMO verified' corn still has pesticides in it.
Second claim, about resisting pesticides, yes, some crops do resist certain herbicides. This enables fewer application of fewer herbicides with less need for soil degrading tillage. For all the hate this attracts, I've yet to see anyone say they want to go back to the old ways of tilling for weed control, which destroy topsoil and promotes fertilizer runoff, and of using a wider range of more toxic herbicides at different stages of crop growth. People complaining are more than free to propose better weed control methods instead of presenting basic realities of farming in a fearmongering manner with no proper context. If you can control weeds without herbicides, I'm sure farmers would love to cut that expense from their budget.
And on the topic of genes from sexually incompatible organisms, also already done. It's called embryo rescue, and it can be used to hybridize things that would not naturally be able to cross. No one complained when it was used to bring disease resistant genes into tomato. Genetic engineering is taking this a step further, yes, but merely stating that we are bringing genes in from different species is not making a point.
Honestly, I get why people think some of these things are scary, but I do wish they would spend just a little time reading up on the matter from reputable sources before assuming they see the flaws that scientists and farmers do not.
GMO = Man fucking about with genes that may or may not produce something good or bad due to a complete lack of long term studies (i.e. 50+ years).
That's a ridiculous standard. Do you also hold that Wifi and microwaves should undergo a half century of testing?
When someone can explain to me an actual reason as to why genetic engineering is fundamentally different from all the other similar things which occur in nature, then I'll consider advocating a half century of testing. However, the anti-GMO crowd has had over two decades to make their case to the scientific community though, so I'm not holding my breath.
In this case, good on the hipsters though. Supporting the cultivation of 'new' species is how you increase the biodiversity of the food supply, which brings all sort of benefits. It is great to see more research and funding going to the support and promotion of less commonly cultivated crops.
Now if only we could get them to stop saying things like 'these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification' as if genetic engineering is a bad thing.
This is about making the uncategorical claim that quinoa tastes good and is good for you after the summary just got done telling us that neither was the case. Now so far, you've made the case that quinoa after processing need not taste bad or be bad for you, but you've stopped before making the case that it tastes good and is good for you.
Considering what one strain of plant or animal can do when in the wrong environment. And those are naturally occuring plants and animals. Just look at the Burmese python problem in Florida or invasive weeds like purple lustrife or kudzu if you don't believe me. I think it's a reasonable assumption that a GMO can pretty much destroy an environment if it's not controlled. GMOs add an entirely new risk as they often times allow for genes that wouldn't normally be available to be available to entire groups of plants and animals.
As opposed to WiFi and microwaves which are an understood and controllable risk.
As far as the scientific community, these are people being paid to do these experiments, you seriously think they're viewing things objectively? Just look at the atomic bomb, those scientists new that it was a bad idea, but there wasn't much choice as the Germans were also trying to develop the same technology. Or, the many lives that have been ruined through various medicines that weren't completely thought through. Heroine is a pretty good example of that one.
Bottom line here is that, the scientific community hasn't been listening as they're being paid by corporate interests that aren't responsible when something goes pear shape. The labeling hasn't been on these products to allow people to make a meaningful decision about what to put in their bodies.
Lastly, it's kind of hard to make a case based upon the theoretical risks when the people engaged in the research assume that they're not going to screw up. I don't think that people would be engaged in research if they thought there was a realistic risk of doing severe damage to the world around them.
Yes, cross breeding is genetic modification. When you breed, you mix genes from different varieties, sometimes even different species, and select the genetic combinations which are the most favorable. Breeding absolutely is modifying the genetics. True, it is different from genetic engineering, but you are still making modifications. This is why the term 'GMO' is a rather poor term.
Or, as in this case removing a gene to make something Monsanto can patent and profit more from while not really understanding (or perhaps they do but just don't care) the consequences of doing so.
Plenty of plant varieties are patented and sold for profit, genetically engineered and not. No one gets on Zaiger Genetic's case over pluerries, or UoM's case over Honeycrisp (the patent has since expired), or complains that Driscoll's breeds patented berries. If you don't like that, I don't see you offering to pay the salary of the people who keep the food supply afloat in a world with ever evolving pests, pathogens, and environmental stresses that you never consider because we do our jobs well enough that they never affect you.
Your accusation that genetic engineering is not well understood is just outright patently false. It is used as a valuable tool in basic research all the time, and on the applied side if anything, there's too much regulation on GE crops. It's gotten to the point where most publicly funded genetic engineering work never sees the light of day.
the summary just got done telling us that neither was the case
What? It says nothing about it being good for you or not, nor does it say it is not good tasting. There are methods for making chocolate less bitter and sometimes the less bitter versions are preferred, but that is not the same as saying dark chocolate tastes bad.
If you want vitamin A (and a whole bunch of other nutrients), eat some liver.
That's not really the reason. I mean from my own personal point of view a better reason to be against it is because big corporate interests want control of seed, including patents on growing these crops, even going so far as to make sure they're infertile so the farmer always has to buy seed from them.
Alright you have me on bitter. I just equate bitter with bad tasting, but toxic?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Results of GMO: Organisms with a mixture of genes from other examples of the species, or at worst, phyllum. No animal in your plant, or vice versa so far. Very predictable, and you could even make it such that every plant was genetically homogeneous, although it wouldn't matter much since most all cultivars come from controlled sources, so reuse is less an issue.
Results of breeding: Organisms with a mixture of genes from other examples of the species, virii, and sometimes other pests (Seriously, viral DNA is a thing, even in the human genome). somewhat unpredictable due to transcription errors and crossing over of chromosomes in sexual reproduction.
Seriously, take a basic college level biology class, and maybe read up on genemod. No, most fiction does not count. Try articles on CRISPR, or reading anything of the sort in Nature.
Well I think it's because Glue-ten sounds bad so it must be...
Well, beer is both bitter and toxic, but we love it, anyway.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
They are, you are just assuming that there is a silent "direct" or "artificial" inside the phrase "genetic modification". That's kind of expected since this stuff tends to get discussed in emotive instead of rational terms.
Harvest the birds too, they'd taste great with a side of quinoa.
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This is about making the uncategorical claim that quinoa tastes good and is good for you after the summary just got done telling us that neither was the case.
I eat quinoa occasionally, and I like both the taste and the (cooked) texture. I can grasp why some people might not like it, but that's true of a whole lot of different foods and beverages.
It seems rather silly to be making definitive claims about the taste, one way or the other, based on a Slashdot summary.
#DeleteChrome
It's about the flavor.
So you don't know, you have no idea what you are talking about. But, GMO SCARY and everyone should think that.
Is that your position, or was there nuance I missed ?
That's an incredibly absurd argument that could be applied to wheat, rice, shellfish, meat etc. Lots of foods either don't taste nice or require processing to be considered edible and safe for human consumption.
http://fiziksel-durumu.com/cho...
The BBC article isn't clear about it, but the bitter saponins are in tiny, thin shells that are around the individual quinoa seeds. The bad-tasting saponins protect the quinoa from birds.
You can get rid of the coating, but it's messy - the shells go all over the place, and they're hard to clean up. (Maybe I do it wrong.) After you remove the coating, you cook the quinoa, and it tastes good.
You can buy quinoa whose saponins have already been removed (ready to cook), but a box of that quinoa is more expensive.
You're an idiot. You truly are. You clearly have no background in this field. I mean, GMO doesn't even necessarily mean swapping in a new gene. It could also be knocking out an existing gene. Second, you act like GMO is dangerous when hybridizing and artificial selection can have the same result if not worse than any GMO ever cooked up to date.
Kindergarten
O Rly?
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/world...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I don't really mind the taste, but it gives me terrible diarrhoea. Before anyone says I'm preparing it wrong, nobody else in the family seems to have the problem, including the kids. Luckily they've got bored with it so we don't have it so often now.
Disclaimer: totally not a hipster.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How is "gluten-free" an advantage outside of the ignorant hipster circlejerk?
New-agey people think we should all be gluten free, not really any evidence that they are right. That aside, Quinoa is a lot healthier than wheat or rice and has a higher protein content, it's not just empty carbs.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
That's because you are letting the rules of nature determine the outcome.
Guess what? Genetic engineering is also subject to "the rules of nature" to "determine the outcome." It is not some magic wand that suddenly results in a new organism. The rules that determine whether particular genetic modifications are lethal (to the plant) or effective (change the phenotype), and whether effective modifications are "safe" (do not result in phenotypic changes that are toxic to humans) or not, are a complex system of interacting regulatory networks. How the DNA modification takes place is irrelevant to the outcome. It is foolish to assume that random genetic variation followed by selection (aka "breeding") is any safer or more controlled than directed and specific modifications to the genome. Is is also foolish to assume that the "safeness" of any phenotypic change to an organism is context-independent or immutable. See, for example, the increasing prevalence of type II diabetes, which is only now leading to concerns over past breeding-practices that produced then-desirable sweeter-tasting (ie: more sugar) and easier-to-digest (ie: less fiber) varieties of common staples (rice, wheat, corn, etc).
That's because you are letting the rules of nature determine the outcome. People have been cross breeding for thousands of years and we know what to expect.
That's completely false. We've only had the slightest inkling of what to expect for the past 150 years, and we've only really started to know what we were doing in the last 30. For thousands of years, we we just blindly mixing like with like and hoping for the best, with no predictive understanding of what was actually going on under the surface. The old methods were slow, in multiple definitions of the term. "Slow" and "safe" are not synonymous.
They are, you are just assuming that there is a silent "direct" or "artificial" inside the phrase "genetic modification". That's kind of expected since this stuff tends to get discussed in emotive instead of rational terms.
Selective breeding could be considered artificial genetic modification. Intentional irradiation as a stressor could be considered direct genetic modification.
Clearly.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you want vitamin A (and a whole bunch of other nutrients), eat some liver.
Liver not only tastes far worse it is full of cholesterol and is part of the body that absorbs lots of toxins. Liver has the highest concentration of mercury, lead, and other harmful heavy metals of any part of the body. Pesticides eaten by the animal in the feed also tends to concentrate in the liver.
Liver tastes bad and is very bad for you. Quite the opposite of quinoa which tastes good and is good for you.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
You may have learned in your high school biology class that sexual reproduction is the only or primary method of introducing genetic variation within a species, but it really isn't. Genetic variation very frequently comes from other sources. It is no accident (or malfeasance) that one of the methods for introducing genetic modifications into plants uses a bacterium (Agrobacterium) or, for that matter, that naturally-occurring human viruses are frequently used to introduce mutations into human tissue-culture cell lines. Microbes are ancient and everywhere, and they are responsible for a lot of cross-Kingdom genetic exchange.
Those alterations have to already exist in order for breeding to get anywhere.
No, they don't. The process is just slower for non-GMO breeding. Random mutations can cause the plant to produce new chemicals that may or may not be harmful. In one case, you end up with oranges becoming blood oranges, in another you end up with a potato with way too much solanine.
Just to add to this. Humans may have accelerated the process of cross-Kingdom genetic variation by bringing organisms from very different geography and ecological context together, but that doesn't make it "unnatural." Breeding is also an acceleration of a natural process, unless you think hundreds of varieties of corn all grow in neatly ordered rows to facilitate cross-pollination in the wild.
You're right, all this breeding is messy and leads to unexpected results. What we need is fully regulated reproduction, all the better for community, identity and stability.
Scientists Successfully Decode the Genome of Quinoa
Ugh. I know this is a primarily a tech site, but why can't we make more of an effort to use the actual scientific terms instead meaningless stupid phrases.
It's kind of like saying "Company develops new method to talk to computers" instead of "Company develops new programming language, Rust"
"Scientists sequence and assemble the genome of Chenopodium quinoa (aka "quinoa")"
There, much better. Heck, that's lifted almost word-for-word from the actual scientific article, so it's not like it requires a ton of effort.
The taste of liver is personal. Some like it, some don't. Dietary cholesterol has almost no effect on serum cholesterol. Most of the cholesterol in your body is actually produced by your own liver, and this production is adjusted based on how much cholesterol you eat. If you eat more, your body produces less to compensate. On top of that, cholesterol isn't as bad as people have claimed, it only becomes harmful if you already have inflammation and oxidative stress in your body. Measured values of heavy metals in farm grown animal livers is not higher than same metals in potatoes and carrots, while providing many more nutrients per weight. So, by eating a small piece of liver compared to a big bowl of vegetables, you actually get less heavy metals. Makes sense, because they feed these animals very similar food as we eat ourselves, grown from the same land.
Or how is it that you missed those news? Are those tomatoes even still on the market? I doubt it.
You're probably thinking of the Flavr Savr tomato. That one made the news, but involved the silencing of an enzyme involved in fruit degradation. It had nothing to do with what I was talking about. I was referring to things like the breeding Solanum lycopersicoides into cultivated tomato. These sorts of things happened a bit earlier, but I recall no fanfare or protest when for example the Plum Regal tomato containing the Ph-3 genes for late blight resistance from Solanum pimpinellifolium hit the market.
Besides, they are actually using genetic modification, they're just doing it by selective breeding instead of modern laboratory methods.
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
Unless, of course, the reason you are interested in growing Golden Rice is because you cannot afford liver. Golden rice was not developed to be a commercial product, which is why the patent licensing fees are completely waived for non-commercial plantings. It was developed to help rice farmers in the poorest countries to produce their own Vitamin A rich crop and thus prevent their kids from going blind. Liver may be a great source of vitamins, but if you cannot afford to buy liver, then that becomes completely irrelevant.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
People who can't afford liver aren't reading slashdot, so they won't see my comments. Where I live, liver is dirt cheap because nobody wants it.
I don't drink alcohol.
I suppose if a summary just got done pointing out the unhealthy and less tasty aspects of any of those things and then someone uncategorically said they tasted good and were good for you, I might take exception at the statement then, too.
Quinoa is 70% Carbohydrate. Wheat and Rice are about 80% Carbohydrate. In addition Quinoa only has a few percentages higher protein than Wheat and Rice.
Most people who make statements like yours don't know this and spout mindless nonsense they heard someone say without any personal understanding of what they are talking about. Quinoa like any other grain has very high percentages of Carbohydrate. If your goal is to avoid Carbs you should avoid grains entirely and get the carbs you eat from Vegetables, not grains.
That was paste
Delicious, yummy paste
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The scientists also believe that the genetic understanding now gained will allow them to breed shorter, stockier plants that don't fall over as easily, and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification.
So with no genetic changes at all we will get different plants? Don't these people know that selective breeding IS genetic modification? No? Well why the hell not? Are they morons? Yes? Why the hell are we listening to them talk about science then? It's Slashdot you say? What difference should that make? Really? So these people read stupid news stories and then comment on them? Wait, what? They don't even read the stories? Wait, what?!? They don't even read the summaries of the stories?!? Well what the fuck do they talk about? Oh.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The patents are expired.
AC, we have these things called plant patents. #1 is Luther Burbank's Freestone Peach. It's all downhill from there.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"What part about it containing Saponins that are bitter and toxic didn't you understand?"
First, they're not all bitter nor toxic or people would eat asparagus and other vegs containing massive amounts of it.
People have been cross breeding for thousands of years and we know what to expect.
Lies. Cross-breeding can result in poisonous plants, and the random nature of it makes it harder to control than GMO. Also, there is more stringent testing on GMO plants before they can go to market, even though 'natural' cross-breeding can result in dangerous plants.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
How is "gluten-free" an advantage outside of the ignorant hipster circlejerk?
There is a growing number of people with celiacs disease and with nonceliac gluten sensitivity. I wasn't able to find reliable numbers for nonceliac, but 1% of people have celiacs. There is no wide spread agreement on the increase, aside from better testing. My wife is celiacs and it is a major PITA. Many bread type items that are gluten free suck, so any more options there would be great.
A cup of brown rice has 5g of protein. Quinoa has 8g. That's quite a significant difference. Almost twice. White rice would have even less protein.
It also doesn't take into account all the other nutrients in Quinoa.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Additionally... Quinoa is a complete protein, it has all the essential amino acids, you don't have to mix it with a lentil or bean to get a complete protein. This is something important for someone like myself who, for medical reasons, has to limit more meat intake.
Quinoa also fares much better than rice on the glycemic index.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Lies. Cross-breeding can result in poisonous plants [boingboing.net], and the random nature of it makes it harder to control than GMO.
That's a pretty strange statement, considering a lot of lab-conducted GMO research is way less "high tech" than most people think. Often, it just involves taking a sample and blasting it with some form of radiation, or some chemical bath, to cause it to mutate. That's about at random as it comes. And even intentional attempts to splice specific genes involves a lot of trial and error. Once you have something you think is good, though, you just breed like with like.
TL;DR neither method of producing new species is particularly scarier than the other.
Breakfast served all day!
A edible cup of BBQ pork ribs (actual delicious meat) has about 38g.
I'm all for working on this goop though, food has to eat too. Should make good pig food.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So how do we give this to all vegans? Can we convince them all to eat some shit that will cause it? Perhaps we could genetically engineer Tofu...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
yeah, because natural DNA mutations are safe? Like you know, cancer.
There's also all the hereditary diseases floating around in the human gene pool because modern medicine allows those people to grow up and breed.
Just because you let sexual reproduction take its course, doesn't mean the offspring won't be genetically defective.
Be it breeding, selection, splicing- it is all genetic manipulation.
Trying to redefine a popular phrase or word for the sole purpose of fooling the ignorant masses does not change the popular meaning, and that is all that is happening here. To anyone and everyone outside of the scientific community, GMO refers to the direct manipulation of genes, and cross and/or selective breeding are the breeding two compatible organisms, and has since the first gene splice was announced. All you are doing is trying to muddy the waters in the same way the corn industry are in trying to get HFCS to be included as sugar on food labels just to get people to eat their inferior, and oftentimes damaging product.
If you ask me, there is too little regulation on genetically engendered crops. Without long term studies, at least two generations, if not more, there is no way to know the long term effects on the human body and by the third or forth generation, it may be too late to reverse. Just look what the low fat, high carb, put HFCS in everything diet has done to us. You really think GM (or GE for the better informed) crops don't have the ability to screw us up even more?
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Well, they did not 'hit the market' in Europe. .i guess they are strictly speaking not forbidden. ...
On the other hand tomatoes are a story of misery anyway, you can not buy tasting tomatoes since decades
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That doesn't make any sense either. If someone says chicken tastes good I don't leap to the conclusion they're referring to eating raw unplucked chicken. I make the reasonable assumption that they're talking to its taste after it has been appropriately prepared for human consumption.
I just rinse it, then toast it in the pot with some oil. That gets rid of the bitter taste. After its toasted, you add the water. No mess. It'd be great if this all leads to lower prices. It's a great substitute for brown rice, and cooks a while lot faster.
It's a great substitute for brown rice
Anything is a good substitute for brown rice. Dog biscuits, mouldy cheese, sawdust, literally anything.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Liver tastes bad and is very bad for you. Quite the opposite of quinoa which tastes good and is good for you.
Any argument which ends in "quinoa tastes good" is logically flawed.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A quick rinse with hot water before dumping in the rice cooker is all that's needed to rinse off the saponins. Doing that before packaging would be messy and expensive I imagine.
I perused the ~275 comments here, and didn't see anything about this, so here goes:
The main reason you'd want to focus on quinoa is its productivity. Sure, it's about 1/4 of corn right now, but corn is the most modified and perfected crop on the planet. Quinoa and amaranth are in the beet family, which for whatever reason (probably C4 fixation + a lot of adaptability) sets some records for edible stuff per acre, especially with limited irrigation. There's strains of quinoa and amaranth that produce close to 2 pounds of seeds per plant. Anything with remotely that potential ought to be worked up sooner or later. So, right now, a farmer can produce maybe 1 ton/acre of quinoa compared to 3.5 or so of corn, but that number is going to go way up. Since the C4 pathway is the main reason corn is so productive, I'd expect quinoa yield to be on par with corn sooner or later.
You are aware what "we" means, don't you? And I did say speak for yourself, not what is this beer thing you are talking about.
You can add people to your foe list for not liking the things you like, but I don't see the point.
It's about someone making a statement that's inappropriate considering what proceeded it, and hinting as to why in a manner I find amusing.
Let me know when you have successfully cross-bred a tomato with a fish.
And tell us all about it, especially "who did what to whom".
I JUST found out that quinoa made **potato** chips taste SO MUCH BETTER... that they taste like the original **potato** chips! Potato chips seem to have been born and grown with me... So now I totally prefer quinoa based **potato** chips, but have only found them in one store, chain store, and they are like three times the cost of an equivalent bag of potato chips. So I would actually expect them to go out of the market soon, because I already tasted them ONCE. This same thing happened with SUPER-DUPER-DELICIOUS apple made **potato** chips: only one store, better tasting than anything else, three times the cost because I had to buy three bags to satisfy myself, AND I CAN NO LONGER FIND THEM.
Good for you, but the conversation was about golden rice specifically. The availability of liver where you are to people who can afford it is off topic. Regardless of who is reading it.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Which funny enough is way more risky than genetic engineering.
Maybe it will take another lenape potato to teach people this lesson.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?