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AFAIK vitamin A deficiency is a recent issue, due to the increased consumption of white rice at the expense of brown rice, which was the traditional way of eati

AFAIK vitamin A deficiency is a recent issue, due to the increased consumption of white rice at the expense of brown rice, which was the traditional way of eating rice for centuries (except among the elite, which had other sources of vitamin A thanks to a more diversified food supply than subsistence farmers). Golden rice is yet another technological “solution” to a social problem, and unsurprisingly it's also failing for other social issues (fear of GMOs)…

connorgutman 3y ago
You’re not wrong but this is akin to saying that we shouldn’t treat gunshot wounds because we need better gun control. We can do both.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  It's not a treatment here (vitamin A supplementation for people with deficiency is, and nobody argues against that), it's more like bulletproof vest in your example. Sure we could generalize bulletproof vest at the same time we're pushing for gun control, but it's not necessarily a desirable thing to do.
  - icambron 3y ago
    Allowing people access to bullet proof vests sure seems desirable to me! But also I think the "treating the gunshot wound" analogy is a better fit. A crop that produces vitamin A is a treatment for population suffering from vitamin A deficiency. And "let people grow this crop" is a much smaller social problem than "dramatically reduce poverty".
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      > Allowing people access to bullet proof vests sure seems desirable to me! Maybe, but I'm not sure law enforcement would agree with you, for their own very good reasons. > But also I think the "treating the gunshot wound" analogy is a better fit. A crop that produces vitamin A is a treatment for population suffering from vitamin A deficiency. No, it's not a treatment, it's a prevention measure, and its effect is very slow (the population must accept the reinforced food, and incorporate it in sufficient fashion in their diet, and it can take decades before the entire population is positively affected). “letting people grow this crop” is only the very beginning of a very complex social process that you are oversimplifying. I don't have a particular opinion on the use of Golden Rice nor on GMOs in general, but believing that it will instantly solve the social problem at stake is delusional, and such delusion is exactly part of the lobbying campaign from GMOs industrial, which, unlike GMOs themselves, is a problem. The only way for such a technological solution to be as effective as advertised, is with strong political support and regulation allowing its very quick generalization (that's what we did with iodized salt) but one must be careful with such an approach, because its effectiveness itself is a danger if things have hidden side effect (see the adverse effects of added fluorine in tap water to prevent dental cavities).
      - icambron 3y ago
        I don't know of anyone who thinks any idea can solve any problem instantly. And I don't see where I've expressed any view of the complexity or simplicity of anything. The discussion I thought we were having is whether it is wise to try a technical solution. Iodized salt is a good example of a technical solution success story, and the one that was top of mind for me too. I don't think anyone thinks we should have waited for the underlying social problems to clear themselves. It certainly points out that these solutions need to be implemented well and have government support in order to be successful, but that's exactly why people are so upset about the political setbacks to golden rice.
delichon 3y ago
Golden rice is a sort of Ozempic, high tech remediation for the damages of a modern diet. De-modernizing the diet is a better solution where it can be afforded.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  I wonder what the long term effects of Ozempic will be. I have a feeling that it will bite us in the ass big time in quite unexpected ways.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    “A new disease is just another opportunity”
hollerith 3y ago
Where was brown rice the traditional way of eating rice (for non-elites)? During what centuries roughly? What is your evidence? I always thought that brown rice was eaten mainly by Westerners in the 20th Century whose dietary options were varied and plentiful enough that they didn’t notice the anti-nutritive effects of the bran and germ. And maybe also by East Asians millenia ago when rice culture was new and still being explored. Now if you were to say instead that vitamin A deficiency became a problem in East Asia only with the introduction (millennia ago) of the practice of getting most of one’s calories from rice, I would tend to believe you.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  >Where was brown rice the traditional way of eating rice (for non-elites)? During what centuries roughly? What is your evidence? Japanese commoners prior to the post-WW2 era mostly ate brown rice, white rice was eaten only by the rich and powerful. Even today, "hakumai"/"shiroi gohan" (white rice) still holds some of that special regard compared to "genmai" (brown rice), and that's despite the latter now being known as a vastly superior source of nutrients. I am not familiar with the food histories of other asian countries, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are similar.
- Hizonner 3y ago
  > Where was brown rice the traditional way of eating rice (for non-elites)? Everywhere. > During what centuries roughly? At all times up until at least the late 19th century. > What is your evidence? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rice > I always thought that brown rice was eaten mainly by Westerners in the 20th Century whose dietary options were varied and plentiful enough that they didn’t notice the anti-nutritive effects of the bran and germ. And maybe also by East Asians millenia ago when rice culture was new and still being explored. That's insane. White rice was extremely labor intensive to produce until machines started doing it.
  - hollerith 3y ago
    > White rice was extremely labor intensive to produce until machines started doing it Here is someone producing rice without any machine that is “95% white” (less than 5 percent of the bran remains). In fact, when using this primitive tech the bran and germ seem to come off as an unavoidable side effect of removing the husk, which no one suggests should be left on the rice grain and no one eats AFAIK. To make it easy for you to verify my “95% white” assertion, I have “jumped” to a close-up of the rice just before cooking, but of course to verify that no machine is used, you have to watch from the start of the video (to minute 9). https://youtu.be/qGNUPqHvTso?si=WWnY3OLALTBREVMs&t=525 https://youtu.be/qGNUPqHvTso?si=WWnY3OLALTBREVMs&t=525
blululu 3y ago
Not sure about the downvotes. Vitamin A deficiency is a bogus diet issue. The problem can be solved with a sack of sweet potatoes.
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  Many people do not find sweet potatoes palatable and won't eat them. Rice doesn't have this issue. The whole point here is to introduce Vitamin A into the food supply of people with limited options at risk of Vitamin A deficiency without changing the diet so as to encourage adoption. This is no different than when western countries started iodizing salt. It was much more effective at eliminating iodine deficiency than telling people to just eat seafood.
- numpad0 3y ago
  Or by adding back brown rice to cookers. Same deal as whole grain breads, a healthier option. Won't work for sushi, but sushi comes with fish slices on top too, so...
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  Sweet potatoes, spinach or carrots, yes, but idk how easy these are to grow in the Philippines.

connorgutman 3y ago

You’re not wrong but this is akin to saying that we shouldn’t treat gunshot wounds because we need better gun control. We can do both.

littlestymaar 3y ago
It's not a treatment here (vitamin A supplementation for people with deficiency is, and nobody argues against that), it's more like bulletproof vest in your example. Sure we could generalize bulletproof vest at the same time we're pushing for gun control, but it's not necessarily a desirable thing to do.
- icambron 3y ago
  Allowing people access to bullet proof vests sure seems desirable to me! But also I think the "treating the gunshot wound" analogy is a better fit. A crop that produces vitamin A is a treatment for population suffering from vitamin A deficiency. And "let people grow this crop" is a much smaller social problem than "dramatically reduce poverty".
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > Allowing people access to bullet proof vests sure seems desirable to me! Maybe, but I'm not sure law enforcement would agree with you, for their own very good reasons. > But also I think the "treating the gunshot wound" analogy is a better fit. A crop that produces vitamin A is a treatment for population suffering from vitamin A deficiency. No, it's not a treatment, it's a prevention measure, and its effect is very slow (the population must accept the reinforced food, and incorporate it in sufficient fashion in their diet, and it can take decades before the entire population is positively affected). “letting people grow this crop” is only the very beginning of a very complex social process that you are oversimplifying. I don't have a particular opinion on the use of Golden Rice nor on GMOs in general, but believing that it will instantly solve the social problem at stake is delusional, and such delusion is exactly part of the lobbying campaign from GMOs industrial, which, unlike GMOs themselves, is a problem. The only way for such a technological solution to be as effective as advertised, is with strong political support and regulation allowing its very quick generalization (that's what we did with iodized salt) but one must be careful with such an approach, because its effectiveness itself is a danger if things have hidden side effect (see the adverse effects of added fluorine in tap water to prevent dental cavities).
    - icambron 3y ago
      I don't know of anyone who thinks any idea can solve any problem instantly. And I don't see where I've expressed any view of the complexity or simplicity of anything. The discussion I thought we were having is whether it is wise to try a technical solution. Iodized salt is a good example of a technical solution success story, and the one that was top of mind for me too. I don't think anyone thinks we should have waited for the underlying social problems to clear themselves. It certainly points out that these solutions need to be implemented well and have government support in order to be successful, but that's exactly why people are so upset about the political setbacks to golden rice.

delichon 3y ago

Golden rice is a sort of Ozempic, high tech remediation for the damages of a modern diet. De-modernizing the diet is a better solution where it can be afforded.

ReptileMan 3y ago
I wonder what the long term effects of Ozempic will be. I have a feeling that it will bite us in the ass big time in quite unexpected ways.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  “A new disease is just another opportunity”

hollerith 3y ago

Where was brown rice the traditional way of eating rice (for non-elites)? During what centuries roughly? What is your evidence? I always thought that brown rice was eaten mainly by Westerners in the 20th Century whose dietary options were varied and plentiful enough that they didn’t notice the anti-nutritive effects of the bran and germ. And maybe also by East Asians millenia ago when rice culture was new and still being explored. Now if you were to say instead that vitamin A deficiency became a problem in East Asia only with the introduction (millennia ago) of the practice of getting most of one’s calories from rice, I would tend to believe you.

Dalewyn 3y ago
>Where was brown rice the traditional way of eating rice (for non-elites)? During what centuries roughly? What is your evidence? Japanese commoners prior to the post-WW2 era mostly ate brown rice, white rice was eaten only by the rich and powerful. Even today, "hakumai"/"shiroi gohan" (white rice) still holds some of that special regard compared to "genmai" (brown rice), and that's despite the latter now being known as a vastly superior source of nutrients. I am not familiar with the food histories of other asian countries, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are similar.
Hizonner 3y ago
> Where was brown rice the traditional way of eating rice (for non-elites)? Everywhere. > During what centuries roughly? At all times up until at least the late 19th century. > What is your evidence? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rice > I always thought that brown rice was eaten mainly by Westerners in the 20th Century whose dietary options were varied and plentiful enough that they didn’t notice the anti-nutritive effects of the bran and germ. And maybe also by East Asians millenia ago when rice culture was new and still being explored. That's insane. White rice was extremely labor intensive to produce until machines started doing it.
- hollerith 3y ago
  > White rice was extremely labor intensive to produce until machines started doing it Here is someone producing rice without any machine that is “95% white” (less than 5 percent of the bran remains). In fact, when using this primitive tech the bran and germ seem to come off as an unavoidable side effect of removing the husk, which no one suggests should be left on the rice grain and no one eats AFAIK. To make it easy for you to verify my “95% white” assertion, I have “jumped” to a close-up of the rice just before cooking, but of course to verify that no machine is used, you have to watch from the start of the video (to minute 9). https://youtu.be/qGNUPqHvTso?si=WWnY3OLALTBREVMs&t=525 https://youtu.be/qGNUPqHvTso?si=WWnY3OLALTBREVMs&t=525

blululu 3y ago

Not sure about the downvotes. Vitamin A deficiency is a bogus diet issue. The problem can be solved with a sack of sweet potatoes.

jandrewrogers 3y ago
Many people do not find sweet potatoes palatable and won't eat them. Rice doesn't have this issue. The whole point here is to introduce Vitamin A into the food supply of people with limited options at risk of Vitamin A deficiency without changing the diet so as to encourage adoption. This is no different than when western countries started iodizing salt. It was much more effective at eliminating iodine deficiency than telling people to just eat seafood.
numpad0 3y ago
Or by adding back brown rice to cookers. Same deal as whole grain breads, a healthier option. Won't work for sushi, but sushi comes with fish slices on top too, so...
littlestymaar 3y ago
Sweet potatoes, spinach or carrots, yes, but idk how easy these are to grow in the Philippines.