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<p>Wait a minute. I just infused the hiking clothes I’m wearing tomorrow with permethrin.</p>
<p>BTW, the real reason to stop eating corn is that it is fattening all heck. The type 2 diabetes will kill you long before the pesticides…</p>
<p>Botanists have been playing with the genes of plants for decades.
Im not happy about emphasis on increasing protein in wheat though. It makes it harder for me to digest.</p>
<p>GMO crops are completely, fundamentally different from the traditional breeding practices of the last 10,000 years. If you have a small tomato and cross it with a large tomato, you’ll (probably) get a medium sized tomato. However, Monsanto is crossing that tomato with a cactus so it will need less water, or with a camel, so it will need less water - something that can only be done in a lab at the level of bombarding DNA together and hoping that it melds.</p>
<p>And those scenarios are quite benign. What Monsanto is really doing is crossing food products with genes that will allow them to be drenched in chemicals (the “round-up ready” corn and soybeans) or inserting the pesticide gene into the food gene directly (Bt corn). All to profit Monsanto in its sales of seed and chemicals. There is absolutely no benefit to human consumers and there may be great risk. These products have only been around since the early 1990’s and we have no idea of their long term effect or what other things they are changing. </p>
<p>[Risks</a> of Genetic Engineering | Union of Concerned Scientists](<a href=“http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/risks-of-genetic-engineering.html]Risks”>http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/risks-of-genetic-engineering.html)</p>
<p>We already know of some of the environmental risks of these crops. Butterflies die after eating nectar from the flowers of round-up ready soybeans. Herbicide resistant weeds have become rampant (there is a type of amaranth that is taking over fields in the southwest that can grow 1 foot in a day) and a few days ago, a GMO wheat crop was found in a field in Oregon (GMO wheat had been an experiment that ended 12 years ago in Oregon). No one knows how it got there and Japan and Korea banned imports of US wheat on that day.</p>
<p>Isn’t anyone eating meat eating grain? That’s how feedlot cattle get to market. Doesn’t most US grain go into livestock feed?</p>
<p>A previous poster said something about GMO corn entering only livestock feed. I work with country elevators. Doesn’t all grain get co-mingled when it goes to the next processor? Elevators have contracts with ADM, etc. for x amount of bushels–not x amount to go for feed, x amount to go for cornflakes, etc.</p>
<p>40% of US corn goes to feed, 40%+ goes to ethanol. They try to not mix them but it’s inevitable that there will be errors.</p>
<p>And yes, if you eat meat, you’re eating the GMO crops that the animal ate. If you eat anything with lecithin (it contains soy), you’re also eating GMO crops. If you eat honey, you’re eating pollen that has traveled from GMO crops. It can’t be realistically avoided, at least not in this country.</p>
<p>I’m very much into organic food, though not a purist. And yet I do find gene splicing (glowing tobacco plants, etc.) fascinating. I just would prefer not to eat GMO’s. </p>
<p>I’m not totally against modifying crops, although I think we should be much more cautious about putting different species together. And I don’t like that once the big guys come up with something new to grow, the old crops seem not to be grown at all anymore, anywhere. Where can we get wheat anything like the stuff grown in the late 1800’s? Nowhere that I know of. I did buy some Einkorn spaghetti recently, though.</p>
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Of course corn isn’t in eggs. -___- </p>
<p>‘Everything’ is clearly a hyperbole, but if you want to really think about how much corn is in our day to day processed items, I’d think outside the food category.</p>
<p>GMO crops seed can easy be spread. You can think your crop is GMO free, but the field over to the right can easily change that. Just look at Monsanto goin after people who didn’t directly use their seeds.</p>
<p>Unitl it is proven that GM products are really that dangerous I’ll be happy to enjoy the more efficient production and lower costs of same. Now if they could just have a tomato with real flavor again…for less than $4/pound.</p>
<p>Has anyone mentioned corn based sweeteners? In many many things.</p>
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<p>Sure. First you need a plot of land with rich, moist soil and full sun; corn won’t grow in the shade, and it’s finicky about soils. Corn requires a lot of nitrogen, so it’s ideal if you’ve got some ground where you planted beans or peas last year–legumes “fix” nitrogen in the soil. Short of that, mixing a lot of manure or ripened compost into the soil will help; ideally, do so in the fall before you expect to plant. Legend has it the Native Americans would dig in a fish for each corn plant, but as each plant will produce only one or two ears of corn, that could get to be an expensive proposition; and smelly, too. Corn also needs warm soil to germinate, so you should plant when the soil is at least 50 or 60 degrees, depending on the variety. </p>
<p>Turn over the soil so it’s loose, down to a depth of maybe a foot. Get some seed from your local organic seed dealer (this will just be dried kernels, but specially bred to produce a particular variety of sweet corn). Take a stick or other pointed object and make holes about an inch deep (or whatever it says on the seed package, as the requirements differ by variety) in straight rows, with the holes in each row 12-15 inches apart, and the rows 30-36 inches apart (you’ll want to walk between the rows to water, tend, and harvest your corn, but you won’t need to walk between the individual plants in each row). It’s better to have blocks of multiple rows (at least 4) than a single long row, because corn is wind-pollinated and you get better pollination and consequently more complete ears without “skips” or missing kernels if each plant is surrounded by other corn plants on 3 or 4 sides (except, obviously, at the corners of your corn patch). Drop two or three seeds into each hole, and cover loosely with soil. Water well and frequently. Water, sun, nutrients in the soil, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere do the rest, through the magic of photosynthesis. Not all the seeds will germinate, but if you do get more than one plant from any hole, pull out the weaker-looking plants, leaving the strongest plant at each hole intact. </p>
<p>It’s kind of fun watching corn grow because once the plant emerges (usually in just a few days) it grows really fast; on a hot summer day in Illinois you can literally hear the corn grow, because it creaks and pops as the corn plant is expanding and adding biomass. Besides frequent watering, you’ll also want to be active with a hoe to control weeds between rows and between plants in a row, being careful not to damage the corn plant. Each successful plant should produce one or two ears. Harvest when the kernels are full and tightly packed, and a thumbnail puncture of a kernel produces a milky substance. Harvest by pulling the ear downward and twisting. The sooner you cook it after harvesting, the tastier it will be; ideal is to have someone start the water before you harvest, so you as soon as you husk the corn you’re ready to drop it into the boiling water. Charcoal-roasted sweet corn is also delicious, but for that you should thoroughly soak the corn in water, husks on, before roasting over a low, even bed of coals. (Some recipes for roasted corn will say you should remove the corn silk before roasting, but that’s really quite unnecessary as long as your fire’s not too hot; the heat will loosen the silk and you can easily peel back the husk, silk and all, once it’s roasted and ready to dip into melted butter).</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
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<p>The hen that produced your eggs ate corn. So did the cow that produced the milk from which your cheese was made. </p>
<p>Also, cheese is a processed food by definition. People make it (with the aid of microorganisms) from an unprocessed starting material, milk.</p>
<p>It’s not more efficient production, that is a myth that Monsanto wants you to buy. Efficiency jumped up beginning in the 80’s after a farm bill incentivized no-till farming methods. That, and other conventional methods are responsible for the vast majority of increasing yields.</p>
<p>Recent government experiments show that just simple crop rotation between corn and soybeans (sadly, the only things most farmers know how to grow) eliminate the need for GMO crops or any use of Bt. And of course, it’s cheaper because you don’t have to buy your grain from Monsanto.</p>
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I believe Nrdsb4 was talking about the actually compilation of a product and not it’s interaction with corn. Just because the chicken ate something doesn’t not make it egg a percentage of the eaten product.</p>
<p>Then there’s the “you are what you eat” school of thought…</p>
<p>Don’t take me too seriously on this. I’m definitely not a scientist!</p>
<p>I hear that dihydrogen monoxide solvent is being DELIBERATELY sprayed on corn to make it grow fatter</p>
<p>That’s not unheard of. I heard that they leech it into the soil.</p>
<p>Only by those gullible Nacirema.</p>
<p><em>leach</em></p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Back to bee colony collapse–neonicotinides have been banned in Europe, while our EPA is “studying” the issue and will decide in 2015. By then we will probably be out of bees…</p>
<p>I will spel how I want to. </p>
<p>Leech.</p>
<p>We had corn on the cob for dinner tonight. Ymm!</p>
<p>Our neighbor is a PhD who was hired by a wealthy man who spent a lot of money on greenhouses and a research station in order to grow better tasting tomatoes. He brought us about 20 beautiful tomatoes. They were grown hydroponically so no pesticides were used. Wow, are they good! He said he is throwing away a bunch of them. I hope he brings us more.</p>
<p>We had corn on the cob for dinner tonight. Ymm!</p>
<p>Our neighbor is a PhD who was hired by a wealthy man who spent a lot of money on greenhouses and a research station in order to grow better tasting tomatoes. He brought us about 20 beautiful tomatoes. They were grown hydroponically so no pesticides were used. Wow, are they good! He said he is throwing away a bunch of them. I hope he brings us more.</p>