What’s for lunch?
The victory of parents against HFCS in chocolate milk from Berkeley Farms in one school district in California rings sadly hollow. The change has no effect on the children’s health, but leads parents to believe that they’ve made a difference. Hopefully, this small change will lead them to fight for larger changes, but if they aren’t fighting for the changes that actually affect the health of their children, do all their efforts do any good?
Biofortified is going to Italy!
I just submitted a poster abstract featuring Biofortified for the Maize Genetics Conference 2010. The title is: Biofortified: An educational resource for plant genetics and genetic engineering. What do you think? I’m looking forward to presenting the idea of science blogging to all of the maize geneticists and to hopefully recruiting more regular and guest bloggers. We probably should get some non-maize people on Biofortified, though. Know anyone?
Chez Panisse with Michael Pollan
Chez Panisse by ian_ransley via Flickr.
We just got back to Karl’s parent’s house from Berkley, we’re trying to unwind, but I think it’s going to take a while! Dinner with Michael Pollan and Karl (and Frank, of course) was a really wonderful experience. The conversation was fast paced and fabulous, covering the map from science journalism to specific details on certain genetically engineered traits to the deliciousness of local produce. All my nervousness was for naught, as Michael is extremely nice. He listened to Karl and I blab about science very politely, even with interest. Hopefully we weren’t too enthusiastic. I really hope that we opened long lasting lines of communication. Time will tell. It is obvious that there are a lot of people hoping for Micheal’s attention, including the fan boy that came up to him as we were leaving, so I can only hope that we left at least a small positive impression. Ok, now for the important part… the food!
Corn syrup myths
There are a lot of myths out there about high fructose corn syrup. While there are plenty of reasons to avoid consuming too much corn syrup (and all sugars), that’s no reason to spread rumors.
Have any commonly held beliefs about corn that you’d like to know more about? Let us know in the comments.
Myth: Huge amounts of the sizable US corn crop go to HFCS production. Here’s an example that sums up this idea from Grist: “The Big Corn People began to grow so much royally-subsidized GMO corn that they turned it into millions of gallons of high fructose corn syrup.”
It’s true, a portion of the US corn crop is used for HFCS production. It’s also true that corn syrup is cheap because the corn industry receives subsidies. But there’s a lot more to this story.
Those naughty plants!
Potentially promiscuous pollen from corn tassels by circulating via Flickr.
Many people, including me, are concerned about potential harm to crop biodiversity from gene flow. Most people’s concern focuses on transgenics. There is a certain probability, albeit small, that transgenes will end up in the progeny of non-transgenic plants, weedy relatives of the crop, or wild relatives that grow nearby due to pollen flow. Transgenes can also be moved from place to place by accidental or purposeful movement of seeds.
How much transgene flow is actually happening is a subject of some controversy, but what about gene flow between non-transgenic plants?
There is potential for problems whenever plants that aren’t supposed to cross stray from their intended mates. Some things to think about include how gene flow happens at the field and genetic levels and what characteristics of the genes themselves can affect permanence of contaminating genes once they get into a variety they shouldn’t be in.
Want to comment? Check out my posts on Biofortified where discussion is welcome!
All material on this site is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License, unless otherwise stated.
