Genetically modifed wheat

Sound idea which means it will not see the light of day in our lifetime.
Starvation is a great motivator.....:ohwell:

I read a book called The Gluten Connection. It was an eye opener. It talks about the genetic mutation of wheat during the industrial revolution. Even whole wheat is not true, it is a mutation.
Wish gluen free products were more affordable and available to purchase in the regular market.

Maybe you were but I wasn't created in a lab. sorry.
But you keep posting any rediculous statement you want. :yawn:
Not biting.

I'm not trying to be a troll here, but I have some honest questions about this idea of giving GMO wheat to people in starvation circumstances.
1) Is it reasonable to ask/expect that the companies that spent millions, if not billions, of dollars developing GMO wheat to give it away for free (which presumably would be necessary to get it to people in these countries)?
2) Is there any evidence that GMO wheat will grow better in places where famine is a problem, or has GMO wheat been designed to grow in more favorable conditions? Another way to think about this is, what problems were the GMO wheat strains in question designed to address, drought, certain pests?
3) In practice (farming), it is notoriously difficult to keep GMO species separated from non-GMO species of crops. What will we do if there are problems with the GMO crops, and they cross-breed with existing strains, having the net effect of making things worse for people in developing nations that already have food shortages?

If anyone has reasonably good (preferably based in published research) to these questions, I'd love to see it.

If people want to eat genetically modified crops, honestly I couldn't care less about what they do. I do care about the fact that in order to test them they obviously have to be grown in the environment and it's impossible to contain contamination. Seeds will be blown into the surrounding environment and it just becomes impossible to contain.

I just see no reason to start growing genetically modified crops when there is enough food waste in the world to feed the starving. It's not about the amount of food grown in the world, it's about access to the food that is grown. As mentioned, in many of the starving countries there are very corrupt governments. That is one of the biggest obstacles. Even if GMO crops were grown there, that government would still control them and there would still be starving people. I think the larger picture is being missed and if the point is to grow genetically modified wheat actually in the countries, that's not going to solve the hunger issue for many of them. For others, it would make more sense to attempt to grow native plants that are already adapted to the environment if that is a possibility before resorting to GMO monoculture cultivation. But again, in the end I think a better focus is on the current food waste in the world and *access* to food issues.

Maybe you were but I wasn't created in a lab. sorry.
But you keep posting any rediculous statement you want. :yawn:
Not biting.

Ron's statement is absolutely not ridiculous.

Whether you like it or not, mutations occur in your genome on a very frequent bases.

This is basic science. No lab needed.

And frankly no need to fear the mutations. Most people don't have any problem at all when their DNA is damaged. Your body is so freakin' awesome, it repairs the damage and you're fine. If it happens to repair it wrong, you're still probably fine because what are the odds that damage will occur in something important? And if it does occur in something important, that cell will self-destruct and you're good. If it doesn't self-destruct, it will probably get recognized by the immune system as 'not -self' and it will be destroyed. If it doesn't get destroyed by the immune system, it might, might, might grow. It really depends on where the mutation is. If it grows, it might might might metastasize.

Maybe... big maybe... the mutation will be created in a germ cell (eggs for women, sperm for men). If that happens, well, you could give birth to a child with a new genetic disease... or with gills (okay, I'm joking about the gills, sorta). But you get the idea. Possibly, just possibly, the mutation might give the child a better chance at survival and that child will live longer, have more children, and pass those good genes on to his/her child.

This is life. It happens. There is absolutely no denying this process. It's science.

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About GMOs specifically, I have no problem eating them. I have no problem with anyone else eating them. I have (as promised) been reading more about them and I do have concerns, especially with the plants engineered to withstand round-up. I'm concerned not by the plant but by the possible environmental impact of using round-up so freely.

I do think we need to be careful with GMOs. I've also been told and have read to verify the claims that there are some unintended, unforeseen consequences- proteins that are expressed that we didn't want expressed, growth patterns in the lab that are ideal that aren't repeated in the farmer's field, and so forth, but this is not enough to make me fear them.

When it comes to countries with starving people, absolutely positively I think we should be getting hardy plant seeds to them that will grow, that will produce, that will save lives, and if GMOs can do that, so be it.