Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Rants and Stuff => Topic started by: Mr_Pleasington on October 06, 2004, 04:56:09 AM
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One of my supervising clinician's (John) beach house neighbors is a 22 year old guy who works at the organic supermarket. He's a beach rat, not well educated as he's addicted to the beach. Nice guy though.
Anyway, he comes over for a few drinks on Saturday night. He mentions how great it is at the organic supermarket and how wonderfully healthy all the food is. He was even drinking vodka mixed with some wheat juice stuff (how the heck do you get juice from wheat?). He's disappointed John will be leaving soon as he said we'd have to try the espressos at the market. He claimed what made it so good was that is wasn't homogenized nor pasteurized.
Huh? Rewind that.
I had too much to drink at that point to bring up that there was no legal way to get unpasteurized milk and that he was most likely mistaken. I instead, after choking a laugh, asked him how he steralized the milk since cowpox still exists in untreated milk.
Steam, he said. The coffee was steamed in the shop. Uh-huh. So the shop has an autoclave? Exactly how many ATMs are you inducing? What followed was an explanation of bacteria, how they survive, and how you kill them...and why Louis Pasteur was a genius.
He then complained that pasteurization changes the chemical structure of the milk and changes the taste. He specifically cited the increase of people who were lactose intollerant. First I had to explain that pasteurization doesn't change the chemical composition of milk nor the taste, that's why it has been around so long...it leaves milk as milk but gets rid of bacteria. Second, there hasn't been an increase in the number of lactose intollerant people. It's just that medicine now has been able to diagnose and treat a disease that we couldn't do anything for until recently. It used to be thought these people were just allergic to milk and couldn't drink it. Now that science has come along we understand they lack the enzyme to break down milk and we can give drugs that replace the enzyme.
Then he moved on to complaining about antibiotics in animals. Long story short, the antibiotics help the animals and keep the meat from getting infected. If there is any residue of this when we eat the meat, it passes right thru. There is no harm in this at all, in fact, it's a good thing.
Next we tackled genetically modified food and how horrible he claimed it was. Of course that depends if you're more against pesticides on your food or genetic engineering. We've been able to cut way back on harmful pesticides by engineering foods that are natually resistant to bugs, plus they produce way more food. This is the stuff that is helping starving nations. Call me crazy here, but I say less pesticides please.
Uh. Science has always had a problem with helping the layperson understand recent discoveries. The result of this is backlash that drives people to eat organic foods and try holistic medicines. People long for the good old days where we didn't need all these pills and treatments.
People, the 'good old days' sucked. I despise taking pills, but I don't want to go back to the world before antibiotics. There's a reason life expectancy has jumped up exponentially in the last century. I don't want to die from a cut I got on my hand while gardening like happened in yon good ol' days.
Medicine has responded to the holistic medicine craze in an appropriate way. We're putting the remedies to the test, the same way we test any other drug. Double blind tests where there is no bias. We're testing what the old wives tales and anecdotes have said for years and we're finding 99% of them to be completely false, in some cases causing further harm. The people who support holistic meds claim these trials hold no water because they don't believe in the science behind it. Trials aren't any crazy-science, they're just controlled studies to see what works. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Oh, lastly, any of you who use holistic meds and herbs and think that they're not drugs. Sorry, they are. Most of the drugs used today were at one time as natural as the holistic drugs claim. Now we've just found ways to synthesize them at lower costs so people can actuall afford them. So don't fool yourself, that natural remedy is a drug.
So there's a rant...
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Then he moved on to complaining about antibiotics in animals. Long story short, the antibiotics help the animals and keep the meat from getting infected. If there is any residue of this when we eat the meat, it passes right thru. There is no harm in this at all, in fact, it's a good thing.
Well I disagree with the practice of using antibiotics in animals as it tends to make bacteria more resistant to the antibiotic. Overuse of antibiotics has virtually made several types of antibiotic useless (sulfa drugs for instance)
The reason for lactose intolerence has more to do with the fact that humans are the only animals (or things for the more biblically minded) that drink milk past infancy. Well and the fact that lactose intolerent babies just died. No formula, no medicine so they died.
Now we keep em alive....
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Actually, the reason Sulfa drugs are useless is because so many people are allergic to them, not due to resistance. Resistance plays a role, but a small one.
Plus, any resistance gained by bacteria in animals doesn't really effect us. Not too many bugs in which resistance is a problem cross infect.
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Basically, I WILL retaliate with violence to anyone who tries to convince me that it's inherantly bad to eat cheese.
Overeating, yeah, but that applies to most everything.
mmmmm........cheeeese......
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I've decided that Pasterization is a good thing. Even after having lived in Europe where I bought milk in cartons that sat in the cubboard at room temperature and had a shelf life longer than mine.
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On a similar note (and at the risk of offending those on the board who probably ought to be offended):
People here in Utah, particularly Davis County, are voting this fall on whether we should flouridate the water. And I am amazed at how strong the opposition is! The American Dental Association says it's excellent for our teeth, and the American Medical Association says that it has no harmful effects -- so why in the world are people opposed to it?
My theory: because people are stupid.
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It's that dadgum gummit! Gettin' inta mah affairs again! They should just butt out!
I mean, I can understand Christian Scientists would be against this. But major opposition among people who believe medical care is a good thing?
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The stupidity! It burns!!!
I grew up with flouridated water. Tasted fine, I've never had a single cavity.
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The measure passed in Salt Lake about three or four years ago, but only by 5% or so. I was amazed.
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I too grew up with flouridated water, and my teeth suck. If it really does work I shudder to think how bad off I'd be without it.
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Well this is the funniest thing I've ever seen: I was trying to find out why people are so against fluoride, and I came across a site called www.nofluoride.com. They claim that the American Medical Association is against fluoridated water, and show a letter proving such. First, is the PDF file of the letter: http://www.nofluoride.com/presentations/AMA_letter.pdf
But if you look elsewhere on the site, there is a picture file of the letter: http://www.nofluoride.com/amaletter.htm
Compare the two. In the main pdf file, there's a big label saying "The AMA is not prepared to state fluoride is safe." But on the other letter, there is no label, and you can see the label was covering up the date of the letter: May 13, 1965.
This amuses me to no end.
Right above the link to the letter (from 1965) it complains that that pro-fluoride people use old studies to prove their points: <i>Studies from 50 years ago do not pass muster under today's standards for safety or effectiveness. Research from the same era also "proved" cigarettes don't cause cancer.</i>
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Next we tackled genetically modified food and how horrible he claimed it was. Of course that depends if you're more against pesticides on your food or genetic engineering. We've been able to cut way back on harmful pesticides by engineering foods that are natually resistant to bugs, plus they produce way more food. This is the stuff that is helping starving nations. Call me crazy here, but I say less pesticides please.
I don't know about this one Mr. Pleasington. I hate genetically altered fruit, for what happened to apples. I used to love apples, I would take them over candy. My parents used to call me the apple kid, but I never eat apples anymore. Why? Because now we rarely have natural apples, because so many apples are modified. The modified ones dont taste good, and I think the texture of them is even different. I can't stand them.
About fluorinating the water, would they have to up taxes?
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Genetically altering food does not effect the taste. Not at all, that's why its so popular.
If your apples don't taste the same there's a number of reasons it could be and you're just associating it with genetic modification. The change in taste could just be perception (fondly remembering how good they were when you were little and now they don't quite compare...like watching Star Wars now), a change in the wax used, perhaps they've had a few bad years....
The options are numerous. But it's not genetic modification. It simply doesn't change the way things taste.
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actually the problem with apples is that they gas them before shipping forcing them to change colors early. A lot like tomatos.
An apple from one of the many orchards in the Valley is fantastic.
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You know, Eagle Prince has a family orchard. I wonder if they do anything to their apples before selling?
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It isnt nostalgia Mr. P, I had an apple that they didnt mess with recently and it was so amazingly good. It might not be that the other apples are altered, but it sure seems like it.
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I can't tell you what it is then, Archon. But I can tell you, with certainty, it is not the genetic modifications.
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On a similar note (and at the risk of offending those on the board who probably ought to be offended):
People here in Utah, particularly Davis County, are voting this fall on whether we should flouridate the water. And I am amazed at how strong the opposition is! The American Dental Association says it's excellent for our teeth, and the American Medical Association says that it has no harmful effects -- so why in the world are people opposed to it?
My theory: because people are stupid.
Flouride was an illegal substance in Japan until about 6 years ago, the reason being is that if you drink several gallons of pure flouride it can cause cancer. Of course, this is comming from the people that won't eat burnt toast (or any slightly burned food) becsaue it can cause cancer as well.
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I was going to remark yet again how weird the Japanese are, but there's no point anymore.
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Here. Let's just post this instead:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041007/D85IANR00.html
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Where do you get these things?
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Ok, so I went to the dentist today, since about a third of one particular tooth was discovered the other day to be absent, presumed gone. Incidently, it was simply a case of chipped enamal, but while I was there, he said I had good teeth, and asked me where I grew up, claiming they must add fluride to the water.
I pointed out that he was right, but thought best not to mention that the taste of the stuff is so disgusting I filtered it out before drinking.
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EUOL I find that less weird than the flouride thing. That is comprehensible, because I knew plenty of Americans who have that fear (There's a name for it, by the way).
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I can't tell you what it is then, Archon. But I can tell you, with certainty, it is not the genetic modifications.
I admit to being very curious how one can state with such certainty that genetic modifications do not change the taste of fruit. At first glance it is not obvious to me that it wouldn't.
Curious not confrontational.
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I can't tell you what it is then, Archon. But I can tell you, with certainty, it is not the genetic modifications.
I demand to know how one can state with such certainty that genetic modifications do not change the taste of fruit. At first glance it is not obvious to me that it wouldn't.
Confrontational not curious.
:P
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Are you mocking me? >:(
Defend yourself!
Ow, let go of my arm, I was just kidding.
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/me morphs into Sean Connery
I suddenly remembered my Adams... " I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondle."
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Everyone knows that fluoride is a communist plot to corrupt our precious bodily fluids. And by the way, I did learn to stop worrying and love the bomb.
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Of course I like talking to you Dimitri. Are you drunk Dimitri?
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I demand to know how one can state with such certainty that genetic modifications do not change the taste of fruit. At first glance it is not obvious to me that it wouldn't.
Confrontational not curious.
:P
Simple, I'm a scientist. I've got my bachelor's in biology and I've focused on genetics since high school (we had a great high school program). Genetic engineering was something I was always curious about and have done a ton of reading and lit review. Since plants are the vast majority of subjects at this point, and I come from an agricultural background, I got to know quite a lot about modified plants.
So I know what I'm talking about here.
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But mankind has been using genetic engineering for thousands of years to change how plants and animals taste and increase yield. Husbandry is effectively genetic engineering where you breed out bad traits and in good ones, its created meatier, fattier cattle, plumper strawberries, corn that doesn't scatter its seed and stays on the cob getting fatter and sweeter.
I can see where altering certain genetic traits could change the taste or texture of a plant. Tomatoes for instance have been genetically altered in the last 5 years to have thicker skins so they don't bruise as easily. If I remember correctly they altered the gene that creates pectin in the fruit. Excess pectin can alter the flavor and texture of a fruit. Now there's talk of adding a gene that fish have (one that creates an antifreeze like protean) to keep tomatoes from freezing to make them more cold tolerant.
The big problem with genetically altered food is that it is more homogeneous and less likely to be able to resist blight or disease it also requires more nutrients and fertilizer to grow in the long run because of what we are engineering it to do. Why, because a lot of it comes from the same seed or group of plants. American high yield wheat is a good example, we ship its seed everywhere at a premium cost, because it yields' more seed per bushel than any other plant. African farmers like it for a season or two, but then find it cant grow in their soil (because they cant afford mechanized fertilized farming), then they find that they cant grow other crops they had been able to grow after traditional african grains. The super wheat sucked all the nutrients out of the soil.
But your right most genetic engineering would do little to change the taste of produce and meat. I would hesitate as a scientist to say that it wasn't possible.
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I didn't say it was impossible, it's just the kind of thing that doesn't happen because they want to avoid it.
The goal is to make more resilient fruit (that needs less pesticides) that still tastes the same. The reason its so widespread a practice is that it meets that goal. If the food tasted differently it wouldn't be successful.
I see what you're getting at about breeding/husbandry, but that's not the same as genetic engineering. Scientists are adding genes that aren't in the food to begin with, not just breeding to get the best of the genes that are already there. We don't really have to worry about shallowing the gene pool and making plants weaker such that one disease could wipe them all out because we're not breeding them as such. Species and plantlines are staying seperate, it's just that new or modified genes are being added.
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yes and no, because those crops are more desireable for farmers to grow and replace traditional more heterogenous crops (over a region anyway) that they would have grown in the past. There is not enough genetic diversity in the bioengineered produce to protect it from blight.
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No, as stated above genetic engineering does not shrink the gene pool.
The crops that are genetically modified are the crops that people have grown for centuries. They've been bred for quality for years and years. To these crops we're adding/modifying genes. This is not the same as inbreeding. Different species are not being weeded out because they were already weeded out (pardon the pun) decades ago.
You're mixing two different concepts here that don't go hand in hand (though they have a common ancestry).