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Comparing Italian food to US food will quickly spiral out of control in anecdote-ville. A good friend of mine gets deathly ill from pasta in the US, but can eat

Comparing Italian food to US food will quickly spiral out of control in anecdote-ville. A good friend of mine gets deathly ill from pasta in the US, but can eat as much as she wants in Italy... (glyphosates is what I suspect here) Also, in Italy, I hear they can just get vine ripened veges almost whenever they want, a bit unfair on the flavor comparison. :(

macawfish 9y ago
Someone was explaining to me that wheat in the US is often genetically modified to be more dense (and therefore more profitable) by just copy pasting the genes that make gluten a bunch of times. So that wheat in the US has way more gluten in it.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  I have a friend who works for a GMO company, he said (just this past week) there is no GMO wheat. Anywhere. Yet. fyi. Surprised the crap out of me. Edit: Soy beans and corn are the big GMO crops right now. I am sure there are lots of veges and fruit, but he works in the grain industry, so I have no confirmation on this.
- phonon 9y ago
  Sort of. Dwarf wheat has some changes from older wheat varieties. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2963738/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2963738/
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    That article is titled with "wheat breeding", I am fairly certain that breeding is not GMO. Some source that says otherwise?
    - phonon 9y ago
      That's the "sort of". How do you define "GMO"? See https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding for example. "Breeding" new plant varieties by creating mutations in existing ones has a long history.
randomdata 9y ago
> glyphosates is what I suspect here That is unlikely. https://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/roundupwheat.asp https://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/roundupwheat.asp
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  I no longer trust snopes as I used to. I got my info from a guy who's job is working in the seed industry confirms they do actually douse the field in glysophates (is round up the only brand? not sure) Also, if you look into Passover flour, Rabbis will insist on this procedure for their flour to ensure their is no moisture in the wheat before harvest. Do some more digging instead of just snopes, I suspect they are no longer completely unbiased. Edit: I am going to ask my friend for any evidence he can provide, or where I can find it, in regards to this issue.
  - randomdata 9y ago
    > Do some more digging instead of just snopes How about personal experience? I grow wheat. It doesn't get the roundup treatment. That would be a big waste of money. That's not to say that nobody does it, but it's not standard practice. Wheat tends to dry down sufficiently on its own (and there is no such thing as glyphosate-tolerant wheat, so you would never want to apply it through the growing season). My colored beans on the other hand... They definitely need the desiccation. Out of interest, does your friend get sick from beans (not soy)?
    - RobertRoberts 9y ago
      Everything I've heard and read is that it's used only at the end of the season, and just before harvest. Snopes seems to poo-poo this idea. So killing the wheat isn't the issue, it's already dead. No idea why glysophates would be used as a desiccant over other dedicated products... Again, I will be seeing my friend (works in GMO crop industry) in about 2 weeks, and I will discuss this with him in person, since that is who I got this information from. Edit: I suspect that large companies have little motivation to ensure food is clean and healthy in the same manner as a small farm does. And if you want to play funny numbers, if you do the math, a _large_ percentage of farmers may not use glyphosates, but since there are very few large corporate farms, then that is where Snopes gets it's "small percentage of farmers" comes from. But ignores the fact that a large percentage of the wheat comes from them. Just a logic thought on statical manipulation.

macawfish 9y ago

Someone was explaining to me that wheat in the US is often genetically modified to be more dense (and therefore more profitable) by just copy pasting the genes that make gluten a bunch of times. So that wheat in the US has way more gluten in it.

RobertRoberts 9y ago
I have a friend who works for a GMO company, he said (just this past week) there is no GMO wheat. Anywhere. Yet. fyi. Surprised the crap out of me. Edit: Soy beans and corn are the big GMO crops right now. I am sure there are lots of veges and fruit, but he works in the grain industry, so I have no confirmation on this.
phonon 9y ago
Sort of. Dwarf wheat has some changes from older wheat varieties. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2963738/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2963738/
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  That article is titled with "wheat breeding", I am fairly certain that breeding is not GMO. Some source that says otherwise?
  - phonon 9y ago
    That's the "sort of". How do you define "GMO"? See https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding for example. "Breeding" new plant varieties by creating mutations in existing ones has a long history.

randomdata 9y ago

> glyphosates is what I suspect here That is unlikely. https://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/roundupwheat.asp https://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/roundupwheat.asp

RobertRoberts 9y ago
I no longer trust snopes as I used to. I got my info from a guy who's job is working in the seed industry confirms they do actually douse the field in glysophates (is round up the only brand? not sure) Also, if you look into Passover flour, Rabbis will insist on this procedure for their flour to ensure their is no moisture in the wheat before harvest. Do some more digging instead of just snopes, I suspect they are no longer completely unbiased. Edit: I am going to ask my friend for any evidence he can provide, or where I can find it, in regards to this issue.
- randomdata 9y ago
  > Do some more digging instead of just snopes How about personal experience? I grow wheat. It doesn't get the roundup treatment. That would be a big waste of money. That's not to say that nobody does it, but it's not standard practice. Wheat tends to dry down sufficiently on its own (and there is no such thing as glyphosate-tolerant wheat, so you would never want to apply it through the growing season). My colored beans on the other hand... They definitely need the desiccation. Out of interest, does your friend get sick from beans (not soy)?
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    Everything I've heard and read is that it's used only at the end of the season, and just before harvest. Snopes seems to poo-poo this idea. So killing the wheat isn't the issue, it's already dead. No idea why glysophates would be used as a desiccant over other dedicated products... Again, I will be seeing my friend (works in GMO crop industry) in about 2 weeks, and I will discuss this with him in person, since that is who I got this information from. Edit: I suspect that large companies have little motivation to ensure food is clean and healthy in the same manner as a small farm does. And if you want to play funny numbers, if you do the math, a _large_ percentage of farmers may not use glyphosates, but since there are very few large corporate farms, then that is where Snopes gets it's "small percentage of farmers" comes from. But ignores the fact that a large percentage of the wheat comes from them. Just a logic thought on statical manipulation.