A new hope

If food scientists unlock the secret of getting tomatoes back on the market that travel reasonably well and still taste recognizably like tomatoes, I will have renewed faith in America culture (for the first time in my adult life).  I've already had my faith renewed in the ability of a free people to demand and receive commercially distributed bread that's worth eating, though I was raised to believe this was a lost cause.

The scientist in the linked article has forsworn GMO techniques in the interest of avoiding fantastic levels of controversy and therefore expense and delay, which is too bad, but it appears to be possible to achieve the same good results by old-fashioned breeding within a reasonable timeframe.  In the meantime, I rarely bother with large fresh supermarket tomatoes, but I do eat a double handful of "TreeSweet" cherry tomatoes every day, and I've been surprised to find somewhat edible hydroponic large tomatoes for sale as well.  We usually rely on canned tomatoes for cooking.

4 comments:

E Hines said...

...forsworn GMO techniques...but it appears to be possible to achieve the same good results by old-fashioned breeding within a reasonable timeframe.

I'm at a loss to understand the practical or functional difference between GMO techniques and breeding, other than the timeframe to get results.

Eric Hines

Texan99 said...

This research term is alive to the important distinction: avoiding a lot of expensive and dilatory red tape and public hysteria. Otherwise, obviously the results are completely interchangeable, because reproduction is a time-honored mechanism for genetically modifying organisms.

E Hines said...

Well, the Caymans, or the Isle of Man, or... don't need to be only banking safe havens.

Eric Hines

Ymar Sakar said...

The infamous GMO products are not the first gen Golden Rice, but from my sources, it is the pesticide Roundout resistant products. It is the pesticides and other things that create toxins, which our bodies no longer have the special fruits and herbs God put on this Earth for us to to metabolize.

Because humans are uneducated sheep and often go on band wagons, the ones that understand the issue use a label and that label picks up negative connotations. More of them understand the problem than the Left's global warmists do however.

The other problem with GMO is how they cross hybridize with other people's crops.

The are other ways to reduce the toxicity of pesticides and what not even with GMo products, but since scientists aren't paid to do the research, people just assume that the traditional society is lying or covering up stuff.

The people that don't understand the problems perceived in America, aren't merely the Left. Much of the political middle class in America, the conservatives, also don't get it.