Though I doubt they’ll actually be able to have the kind of hard hitting interview I’d really like to read about.

here are two other really interesting Pollan pieces –

“The Seed Conspiracy” (1994):
http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=5
written 3 years before the introduction of GMOs. I remember Peggy Lemaux saying once that people use the same rhetoric now against GMOs that they used to use against hybrids. Pollan definitely primed himself for his position on corporate GMOs.

“Playing God in the Garden” (1998):
http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=73
Pollan plants Bt potatoes in his garden! and then doesn’t eat them. He talks with conventional growers and organic growers, along with a Monsanto rep (I doubt they’d send reps to hang out with him any more – let alone give him any more seeds). The description of the pest management practices on the two farms is especially good, although he doesn’t touch on the relative safety of organic vs conventional pesticides. He’s almost convinced by the pesticide reduction that goes along with Bt, but in the end cops that the conventional grower just shouldn’t grow Russets, ignoring the point that he makes about the grower following market demands. If the market demands Russets, isn’t the GM the lesser of two evils? But Pollan simply says we should change the market, but doesn’t describe how.

Really pretty much any sufficiently prominent staple food is going to be vilified by somebody. The people who think autism is caused by vaccinations (it isn’t!) occasionally claim that a wheatless diet will cure autism (it doesn’t!). Refined sugar has had a bad name for decades. I’m unable to think of any ways rice is allegedly bad, but I’m sure there must be something.

What more does it take?

I will try to do something detailed about what has and hasn’t been genetically engineered, and what traits were used by the end of the weekend and hopefully you will all help me catch any mistakes or oversights.

I’m hoping to also do a rough outline of an “ask a biologist” website over the weekend that I’ll be asking for comments on, should be a nice change of pace after living and breathing NSF all week.

To follow up on the Pollan/HFCS connection, isn’t Pollan the one who keeps saying “You find HFCS in everything, even bread! Why do you need HFCS in bread?!” which flat out ignores how leavened products are made – the yeast is alive and needs sugar to consume. All breads have sugar! And apparently for high-temp baking, HFCS are preferred because they caramelize at a higher temps than other sugars.

Then people go to the grocery stores, read the labels and go “Ugh!” The HFCS/bread complaint I keep seeing repeated everywhere.

There does seem to be a lot of misinformation floating around out there about what food is and isn’t genetically engineered. Do you think it would be helpful if I did a post on which crops currently are genetically engineered and which ones are often assumed to be but aren’t?

High fructose corn syrup is bad for you, but as you point out, so are other sugar sources, even the organic 100% cane sugar health-conscious people are now supposed to buy because the more locally produced beat sugar probably came from genetically engineered beats. (Which disregards the fact the sugar you buy at the grocery story is pure sucrose, and the proteins or DNA of the plant that created it are gone, but that’s a different rant.)

I’m not sure which is cause and which is effect here though. Do people not like corn because they’re worried about the effects on HFCS or do people worry about HFCS because they don’t like corn?