WEBVTT - GMOs, Food and FUD 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.760 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, to 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.040 the podcast that looks at the future and says there's 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.560 a bright golden haze on the meadow. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.320 I'm Lauren Vocal, and I'm Joe McCormick. And I like food, 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.240 how about you, guys? Now? I hate it, against it, 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.960 none of it. Never never eat of Forward Thinking hosts 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.040 love food. Now I eat about every two hours. I've 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.559 got a weird preference about the food I eat. I 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:43.480 don't like it to be uh destroyed by fungus before 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.120 it gets to my table. Very odd. I like corn 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.360 fungus so or we a coach as we call it 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.760 in Mexico. Yeah, when't because when I have a nice, 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.920 yummy ear of corn, I hate. I don't like it 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.480 when like most of the little yummy fruity bit it's 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.560 are black and rotting. I can understand that. But they 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:10.800 taste like truffles. They're delicious. Well, I have an interesting question. Okay, 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.880 So imagine you're a corn farmer, all right, okay, and 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.200 you and you want corn. You're not You're not going 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.880 for this fungal infected corn. You know, you're you're a 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.640 weirdo like me, and you like your corn unblemished by 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:27.840 this mysterious fungal infection that's destroying crops everywhere. You've got 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.440 a few options, right, right, So you could use huge 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:34.360 amounts of chemicals and sides and stuff like kill off 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:39.080 anything that isn't corn essentially, or you could notice that 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.959 some other organisms have a natural resistance to exactly the 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.880 kind of fungus that's killing your crops. Well, but how 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.800 do how does that help you? Well, that's a good question. 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.960 Is there any way that could help you with your corn? 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.880 You take the corn and you take whatever organism it is, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.520 just rub them together. Actually, no, you have to put 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.120 them into a room, put on some Verry White. I 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.280 was thinking in a particle accelerator with Verry White. You know, 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.560 I've been in a particle accelerator with very It was 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.880 it changed my life, he felt the love I did. Actually, 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.520 all right, So what we're talking about is genetically modified organisms. Here, 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.560 we're talking about being able to take traits that are 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.600 inherent in one type of organism and then try and 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:23.639 apply them to a different type in order to make 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.200 them more robust in some way, or more nutritional in 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.880 some way. Right, it can be any kind of change 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.519 you want. Really, but the idea is genetic material from 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.440 one organism to another, or actually a synthetic gene. Also, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:39.519 that's true, that's true. It doesn't have to be You 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.040 can make it right. You can make a copy of 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:42.760 a gene that looks like it does a certain thing 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.000 and duplicated in some way. Right. The idea is changing 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:51.320 a an organism's genome to make it create the kind 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.320 of plant or animal you want. Right, And there's a 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.760 lot of controversy around this topic for multiple reasons. We'll 0:02:57.800 --> 0:02:59.880 get into all of that in this podcast. We'll talk 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:02.320 about that, but before we get into that, I'm just 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.120 curious about how this actually works. Okay, Well, first of all, uh, 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.600 you know, a gene, in case you guys forgot, is 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.880 a sequence of nucleotides. It's part of a chromosome. This 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.840 is generally speaking, something that ends up triggering a particular 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.239 trait in an organism. Keeping in mind, this gets complicated, 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.280 so some traits are actually the product of multiple genes. 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.960 Some genes can produce multiple traits, but in general, that's 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.800 what we're talking about is this this basic amount, this 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:33.640 basic unit of heredity. You can think of it that way. Um, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:38.560 and if we identify what a specific sequence of nucleotides does, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.000 what how it expresses as a trait, then you could 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:46.200 isolate that and perhaps introduce it into a new organism. 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.800 So how do you introduce it? Well, in the old way, 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.200 we would do this by introducing it. When you're talking 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.720 about actual genetic modification, you would do this usually through 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.480 bacteria or a virus. You would actually create bacteria or 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.320 a virus has the material you want inside of it, 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:07.880 and it would technically infect or transfect the target cells 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.760 that you want to have this new trait. But we've 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.200 got a different way, a better way, a really fast way. 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:19.320 We shoot it with gene guns. I'm not joking. Gene 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:23.440 gun gene guns. Yeah, it's it's called it's it's called 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:29.000 bio ballistic transaction. That sounds or just ballistic. I am 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.599 totally making this is not being made up. I'm totally 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:33.760 telling the truth. Okay, So you you load up your 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.039 gun with d n A and use his app it 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:39.920 while you shoot it. It's actually it actually is a 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:44.120 kinetic reaction, not a not a PP gun. That's important. 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.800 That's an important distinction. Not p it's bang. Actually, actually, 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.960 really more frequently it's puff puff, because it tends to 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.000 be powered by air or some form of compressed gas. 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.280 So what's going on here is that you you take 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.080 the DNA that you want to insert into the cells 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.920 that are your target cells, and you coat tiny little 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.560 particles of metal. Often it's gold. We're talking like on 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:14.040 the micron scale, so really really small particles. You coate 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.240 that with the genetic material you want to introduce. You 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.520 put that into these essentially plastic cartridges. So in a way, 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:23.760 it almost becomes more like a shotgun than a bullet, 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:25.839 but I almost always hear it referred to as a 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:30.000 genetic bullet. Ah. Then you have these little air guns 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.640 and they actually look kind of like revolvers. They hold 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:38.200 multiple cartridges. You then pull the trigger. Compressed gas pushes 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:42.680 the little tiny pellets through that inject into the cells, 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.919 and that introduces the genetic material into the cells that 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:51.320 you want to to to transfact with this new genetic information. Yeah, 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.800 it's essentially holding up cells and saying you're gonna change 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.720 or else. Actually you don't even give them a choice. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.840 You just shoot them. Kind of crazy. Huh, you didn't 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:05.039 know that. I did not. But of course that tiny 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.560 little infection with that gun create can create a big 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.840 change in the final organism. It all depends on exactly 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.839 which genetic material you're talking about. In some cases the 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.000 change may not be noticeable. In some cases the change fails. 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.880 That you introduce a new type of genetic information into 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.279 the cell in the hopes of getting this specific trait 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.760 transferred from one organism to another, and it doesn't work out. 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.240 We've seen this happen with uh, some some attempts to 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:37.920 make different fruits and vegetables resistant to frost. So super 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.120 cold fish tomato, right, well, there that was That was 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.000 an example. There was also one where it was a 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.520 fish strawberry, I think fish apples or something that I saw. Yeah, 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.200 so I think I read the fish tomato didn't work. Yeah, yeah. 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.480 And that's the problem is that they were finding these 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.680 genes that they were hoping would mean that fruits and 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.200 vegetables would have this resistant quality so that they would 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.760 not be harmed by things like frost, but it turned 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.360 out not to work. So it's not While it's very 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.440 precise in the sense that we can very precisely insert 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.720 genetic material into target cells. It's not precise in the 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.400 sense that it is always going to express the trait 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.720 we we are hoping for. So there are two different 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.440 types of precision. Precision we're talking about here, um, But 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.560 it's you know, the I've actually watched videos of how 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.520 the gene gun works and it's pretty straightforward. I mean it, 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.640 it's you. You point this thing at the Petrie dish 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:34.880 where you've got the cells, the culture of cells that 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:36.880 you want to affect, and put whom you hit it. 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.160 Actually it's poof you hit it. That's pretty crazy. It's 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:45.280 pretty cool stuff. So if it works when you're inserting 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.600 this genetic material, that means that your new version of 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.120 whatever organism you're working with. And for the most part 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.760 we're talking about plants, we're talking about fruits and vegetables. Uh, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.880 then you're going to see that expressed in that generation 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:03.119 of plants, and depending upon how that gene has passed along, 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.400 it may end up creating more generations of that same 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:09.560 sort of strain of plant. So this is pretty cool. 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:11.600 What what what kind of things has this been used for? 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.880 Kind of traditionally over the past twenty years of tradition 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:19.160 that science has twenty years of tradition. Yes, well, we 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.600 mentioned the fish tomato and that the idea behind that 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.360 was it was an early sort of failed attempt, but 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.200 but they thought, hey, there's this northern flounder that can 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.960 live in really cold waters. Um what if we could 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.600 take genes from it and put them into a tomato 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.680 that would keep the tomato from from freezing in the cold, 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.480 which obviously damages its tissue and affects the quality of 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.520 the fruit. Um So, that didn't work so well, but 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.880 there were some early successes that did get people going 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.080 on the idea of GMOs. One of the first ones 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.320 was um so it really started in the nineteen eighties. 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:59.880 Um uh. In nineteen eighty three, scientists created a gin 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.160 metically modified tobacco plant. And what that was It was 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:11.720 resistant to the canamycin antibiotic and uh as I understand 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:17.800 that change has been important for later genetic modifications. Um so, 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.839 that was sort of a precursor to, for example, one 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.400 of the next big ones. The first one that was 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.920 to be widely commercialized was in and that was a 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:32.480 genetically modified food crop called the flavor saver tomato. Right, 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.000 I read about that one, yeah, spelled without oh s. 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.720 So it's like f l A v R s A 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.559 vr Okay, well, at least it wasn't spelled without rs 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:47.920 and be the Flavo Savo the flavor savor tomato. So 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.920 the idea went like this, you've got a problem with 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.800 tomatoes in that they're kind of delicate fruits. Right. Um, 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.760 they have a sort of peak ripeness where the flesh 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.920 is exactly how you on it. But it's really difficult 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.800 to time that to you know, pick them at the 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:06.800 right time and get them to the market at just 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.120 the right time so the consumer can get them at 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.800 their peak. Right though, the problem is that there's a 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.600 there's a particular protein that breaks down the pectin in 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:23.439 tomato cell walls. Right, it's called poly galacteronce. Polygalacteronce, I'm 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.760 pretty sure that was a herald of galactus. It's an 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:31.439 enzyme let's just say PG. Uh so uh yeah, the 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.679 the PG enzyme in the tomatoes was identified in the 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.880 nineteen eighties as what was probably responsible for breaking down 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.920 these cell walls and the fruit and which would cause 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.360 ripening and softening. Um, and so what the people behind 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.120 the Flavor Saver tomato thought, and that this was a 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.439 company called cal Jean. They were like, well, if we 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.240 can insert a gene into the tomato that produces a 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:01.839 sort of retroactive effect to do the opposite of this enzyme, UM, 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.600 we can slow the breakdown of pecton and we can 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.559 keep the tomato firm longer UM so that by the 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:14.600 time thereby reducing waste and improving sales and exactly. UM. 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.839 And so when this first came out, it was a 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.160 big deal. People were excited about it, and there was 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:24.559 there was a lot of demand UM it. Essentially it 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.360 did well in the beginning, but some people say that 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.560 it suffered from some sort of like media pr setbacks 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:37.439 after people started getting worried about what genetically modified organisms 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.280 might mean for the health and stuff like that. UM 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:45.640 and so ultimately it's sort of petered out. But UM 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.400 after the Flavor Saver tomato, we started getting a lot 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:57.640 more uh new GM crops, Like in we got roundup 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:02.120 ready crops and the roundup ready soybeans particularly, And what 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.520 that is is um so round up is a herbicide 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.280 UM that's used to eliminate weeds that get in the 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.160 way of crop development. Frequently. The way that this works 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.320 is that um, it will shut down a critical enzyme 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:17.640 in plants that they need in order to to grow. 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:22.400 And so um. But round up reready soybeans which first 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:27.199 showed up in they're resistant to the active ingredient and 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.880 round up which is called glyphosate. I think I'm saying 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.600 that right, um, And that that's the poison that would 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.240 kill these plants. But the roundup ready crops were resistant 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.079 to it, so you could you could spray them with 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.720 round up all day long and you'd kill all the weeds. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:45.280 But the plants that be fine. Um. And of course 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.040 now we've got a ton of stuff on the market. 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:54.920 Sure yeah, I mean Lauren, didn't you know something about that? Yes, yes, Um, 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.760 there are many other crops that are using um that 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:03.679 that glyphosate tolerant sort of sort of um genetic kick. 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.080 But um. A lot of the corn that is sold 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.920 not fresh in the US. It's sold either for feed 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:14.600 or for processing into other products, many, many, many other products. 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:16.559 If you've ever read up a little bit about what 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.600 corn goes into, it is essentially everything um and uh 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.120 else right right sure, um. So a lot of the 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.000 corn in the US is engineered to create proteins produced 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:33.560 by m a particular bacteria, and that that bacteria um 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:38.280 will will kill insects when they ingest that protein, and 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.559 so by splicing it into this corn, the corn kills 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.560 insects when they ingest the corn. Pretty nifty for for farmers, 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.679 but again something that people tend to worry about. Um. 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.920 Most sugar beets that are raised for table sugar um 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.400 are also herbicide resistant. There are lots of new things 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.600 coming out as well. Um, well, mean, you know it's 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.440 it's you've also got h cotton Seed is normally inedible 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.520 to humans, but by fussing around with it just a 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:09.640 little bit, you can you can get rid of the 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:11.880 bit that makes it poisonous to us, which is also 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.840 what makes it poisonous to lots of critters. Same thing 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:17.719 with canola oil. Some of the new fun things that 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:19.960 are coming out, and by and by fun things, I 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.520 mean potentially a little bit terrifying. Um, let me guess, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:29.400 Let me guess human corn hybrids with human intelligence. That 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.360 would be terrible in the South. They would just pop 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:35.320 heat alone. I'm I'm I'm pretty sure that there is 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.560 a documentary called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes that we 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:43.320 might want to reference and but one project that's been 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.280 in the works for a while something called golden rice. 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.440 And this is um. It's it's fortified with beta carotene, 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.440 which which gives it a yellow color, hence the term 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.040 golden rice. Um. But this this is modified with genes 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:59.240 from maize and a really common soil bacteria. And okay, so, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.800 so the human body needs beta carotene in order to 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.720 make vitamin A, and you need to make vitamin A 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.640 in order to not go blind. So that's that's a 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.240 pretty This is a genuine issue in in lots of 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.360 third world countries, right, there are a lot of places 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.440 that have real problems getting access to vitamin A, and 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.160 so there's vitamin A deficiencies in many parts of the world, 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:22.560 right right, this is one of the reasons why people 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.240 will tell you to eat your vegetables. But this, but 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.360 this golden rice could could give people way enough vitamin 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.400 A or way enough beta carotene to create vitamin A. Well, 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.720 I'm to understand. I think it's still in testing, right 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:38.440 it is. It is still in testing, right, this is 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.080 figuring out what it's capable of. This is the sell 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.440 right right, This is the hope. Um. But but you know, 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.720 even even that is is causing a little bit of 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.640 consternation within within. Yeah, there was a just this month, 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:54.440 just a couple of days ago, I believe we are 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.240 recording this podcast in August, and a bunch of GMO 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.560 protesters stamped out a whole field of golden rice in 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.800 the Philippines and the Philippines one of the test grounds. Yeah. Actually, 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:11.280 so there were field trials of this rice, the golden rice, 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.680 going on in the Philippines, but apparently a group of 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.920 about four hundred farmers came in and just tore up 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:21.320 the fields in protest. So what were they protesting precisely? 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.760 Do you know? Well, let's see, I've got a quote here. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.600 This is from the New Scientists article about this um 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.720 So they're quoting a farmer named Willie Marbella. What he 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:36.240 said is the golden rice is a poison. That's that's 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.360 pretty tough. I thought there was going to be more 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:44.120 to it. That's the whole quote. Well, that's that's extremely 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.240 well thought out. Well, no, I mean not to totally dismiss, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:52.440 but I mean they're there are multiple reasons why GMOs 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.320 are controversial, and some of them are some people have 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.440 concerns about right, and there there are some reasons that 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:03.360 are based upon either ignorance or misinformation about GMOs. Then 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.920 there's some that are not. You can't just dismiss them 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.080 because there are some actual concerns that we do need 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.960 to think about. And not all of them are pure 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:15.760 food science, right, Some not all of them are all 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.720 about nutrition or uh scientifically based. Some of them are 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.800 economic reasons why people have objections. So it's a complicated issue, 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.560 but we're gonna kind of cover some of that. We're 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:30.800 gonna try and do that now. One of the things 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.800 I would I would argue at the very top is 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.480 that a lot of the people who have that initial reaction, 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.639 this idea that this is unnatural or that we should 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.880 not do it, need to realize that this, this way 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.760 of manipulating organisms is something that's been part of human 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.480 history for pretty much as long as we've had agriculture. 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.720 That that is, that is literally what agriculture is. It 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.760 is messing about with with crops to make them more 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:02.520 probable to give yourself food security. Right, Manipulating the genome 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.240 of a plant is nothing new. We've been doing it essentially, 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.639 We've been doing the same thing with sloppier methods for 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.480 thousands of right, Um, you know, grafting two kinds of 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.560 citrus together to make a stronger plant with the kind 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:18.159 of fruit that you want to eat off of it, 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.560 or creating cultivates of a particular plant to create wildly 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.480 different plants. For example, even in the twentieth century, just 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:31.400 like a mutation breeding, So they subject seeds to radiation 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.359 to try to cause them to create a mutation like 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.959 seedless fruit. If you've ever had a seedless watermelon, our 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.760 seedless orange, you are eating something that has been you 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.800 know that its ancestor anyway has been irradiated. Well, And 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.000 what I was going to mention is that if you 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.600 if you want to go back to the whole cultivation, 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.159 I mean this is this goes back thousands of years. Uh. 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:57.840 If you've ever eaten broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, or Brussels sprouts, 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:00.640 you have eaten various cultivates of all all the same 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.360 wild cabbage plant that's found in the Mediterranean. Those none 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:09.240 of those plants existed before humans essentially began to mess 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.919 with this wild cabbage to make sure that they were 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.920 growing the specific type of traits that they wanted so, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.880 I mean, granted, if you're a former president the United States, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.240 you might have some words about broccoli. But I enjoy 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:27.000 all of these vegetables, and uh, you know with it. 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:28.920 Before were doing a lot of research, I wasn't really 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:30.880 aware of how I knew they were related. I didn't 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.280 realize they were all just from the exact same ancestor 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.720 but had been cultivated to grow into different forms. Oh well, 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.600 so few of the foods that we eat are really 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.920 resemblant of the I would argue the natural strain. None 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.400 of them are corn. The corn we eat now, even 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.119 the totally organic corn looks nothing like the corn it 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.800 came from years and years ago, which this tiny little 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.919 nubby thing or like more like what we would can 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.399 starting grass. And for those of you who are not 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.160 in the United States, well, maze, since since your corn 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:11.080 in our corner, are that we use the term differently? Yeah, 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.439 the natural the bananas you you true stored there, I mean, 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.919 not like naturally occurring bananas. There are lots of different 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:22.960 strains of the banana genus around the world, but none 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.879 of them are that banana that we identify as the 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.560 yellow sweet banana now, which by the way, is not 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.000 as tasty as some other forms of banana. There are 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.600 other forms of banana that are so much better. Once 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.280 you fry a plantain in large, I think that it's 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.960 hard to beat it for tasty factor in organic large. 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.240 Once once you run run around in Hawaii at night 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.399 so that they don't catch you. Uh yeah, the problem 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:51.360 is making a getaway tough because all those peels very slippery. 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.400 Oh that's another one. Hawaiian and papaya. If you've basically 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:57.560 ever eaten a papaya from a grocery store, fresh papaya, um, 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:00.240 that that came from Hawaii. That is genetically model find 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.880 because they weren't able to grow them to a point 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:09.080 where where they could be sold. And but um Okay. 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.280 So people are still going to have this fear about 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.720 genetically modified food crops, and to some extent, I can 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.000 sort of understand. I can sympathize with where it's coming from, 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.560 and I I agree that in some ways we do 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:29.320 need to be very careful about it. Um. But here's 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:34.280 the bottom line. What scientists are saying about genetically modified 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:40.440 food crops is that there's no inherent risk, nothing that 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:46.280 inherently makes this a greater problem than any traditional breeding technique, right, So, 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.560 so in other words, that that doesn't mean necessarily that 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:54.400 the product of a genetic modification won't be dangerous. It's 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:57.920 just no more inherently likely to be dangerous than a 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.840 new species of plant produced by any other means. Right, 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.720 It's it's it's a different tool, but that's what it is, 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:05.960 a tool, and it's all in how you use the tool, 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.119 whether or not it ends up being a harmful or 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:13.280 beneficial outcome. Yeah. Like, like we talked about how there's 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:17.199 some misinformation out there, like the idea of using uh, 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:22.680 genetic information from fish to try and fortify a fruit 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.240 or vegetable with this this resistance of frost. Now let's 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:27.640 say let's say that that did work. There's some people 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:28.639 who are like, well, I don't want to eat that. 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.040 It's gonna be a fishy tasting tomato. There's more than 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:34.320 people surveyed, in fact, said that they thought it would 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:36.080 taste fishing. But but that's the thing is that we're 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:39.320 talking about genetic information about a particular trait. It's not 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:44.239 like you are making some weird tomato fish hybrid right, right, 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:49.000 And and genes don't contain some some essence of a being. 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:51.680 I mean, you know, any one bit of a fish's 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.280 genes isn't going to make it taste like fish, right, Yeah, 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.080 that that seems to that kind of concern I think 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:02.080 borders on a on a kind of magical thinking. Well, yeah, 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:04.480 there's a definitely kind of magical thinking, and it's borne 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.159 out of ignorance of just how genes work and how 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:11.720 they how they're expressed, and how genetic modification works. On 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.360 the other hand, I do think there are some totally 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:19.399 legitimate concerns that people can have about how genetic modification 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:22.760 of food crops will be implemented. Sure, absolutely. I mean, 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:27.160 you know, some of these herbicide tolerant plants I think 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:31.120 are being created so that big corporations can dump as 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:34.200 much herbside as they want all over their crops. And 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:38.879 whether or not that herbicide has other side effects is right, 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:41.560 It could have. The herbicide itself could have environmental impacts. 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:44.680 So again, the genetic modification part isn't necessarily the problem 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:48.240 in that case, although it does raise the concern that 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:52.920