Comments on: We won!

By: Genetic Maize » We won!

Genetic Maize » We won! — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:06:19 +0000

[...] register and vote for science communiction! You can find more details about the competition over at Biofortified. Karl and I are really looking forward to our interview with Michael Pollan! Start thinking about [...]

By: Science Report » Blog Archive » Nibbles: Climate change, Blog, Language, Language Again, IT,

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:02:31 +0000

[...] to Biofortified, winners of an interview with foodie god Michael Pollan (and [...]

By: Nibbles: Climate change, Blog, Language, Language Again, IT,

Nibbles: Climate change, Blog, Language, Language Again, IT, — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:02:37 +0000

[...] to Biofortified, winners of an interview with foodie god Michael Pollan (and [...]

By: Genetic Maize » About this blog

Genetic Maize » About this blog — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:32:45 +0000

[...] the group blog on plant genetics and genetic engineering. Especially since winning the Ashoka Changemakers GMO Risk or Rescue contest, I’ve committed to helping to make Biofortified the best possible resource on the web for these [...]

By: Karl Haro von Mogel

Karl Haro von Mogel — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:29:48 +0000

Hey it called us savvy bloggers.. I’m happy.

By: MaryM

MaryM — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:00:59 +0000

FYI: I saw a news item about your win on change.org:

http://food.change.org/blog/view/winners_of_ashokas_gmo_risk_or_rescue_competition_announced

Ok, it doesn’t say congratulations or anything…but they at least acknowledged the win

By: Karl Haro von Mogel

Karl Haro von Mogel — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:43:41 +0000

Yeah, there are a lot of little things that don’t matter too much, for example, he singles out TBHQ (a preservative), calling it a ‘form of butane.’ Well tetra-hydro butyl quinone has a butyl group, but that’s not a form of butane. He also referred to it in a speech as a ‘form of benzene’ which by his definition means that three amino acids are ‘forms of benzene.’ The terms butane and benzene are used in conjunction with saying “I don’t know about you but I don’t want to eat benzene or butane.” But TBHQ is not butane or benzene, just as much as butyric acid in parmesan cheese is not butane, and tryptophan, phenylalanine and Tyrosine are not benzene. The chemical subunits of TBHQ are used (inconsistently) as reasons for rejecting the preservative, rather than an analysis of its relative toxicity and exposure. Caffeine is about half as toxic per-gram, meaning that at the levels consumed in foods, TBHQ passes the cup of coffee test. You’d have to eat 2,000 chicken McNuggets in one sitting to even be affected by the levels of it in the oil.

So he does make errors like this, and although they need correcting like any other error, and I’d love to talk to him about TBHQ as well, there are a finite number of questions we could ask him. It might be more worthwhile to ask why he stumps for the voodoo-rich Biodynamic Agriculture in a passage about how we need many food systems and forms of agriculture, and doesn’t mention genetic engineering in that list. He has also called for multiple approaches to our agricultural problems, excluding nothing. It would seem that he should include this technology in that list, and I’d like to see if he would explicitly agree on that point.

Although the poor TBHQ analysis is equally problematic, and the C4 metabolism also scientifically problematic, the correction would be soon forgotten by most people. However, an explicit statement about pursuing GE along with all other options would have a more lasting impact. Some of the stuff we’ll have to consider when choosing our questions!

By: Ewan Ross

Ewan Ross — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:39:40 +0000

While you’re at it could you also look into the statements he makes about C4 metabolism towards the start of the book – unless I am mistaken (I often am) I recall that he stated it was more efficient because it utilized 4 carbons rather than 3… rather than the rather more interesting reason of drastically reducing photorespiration by concentrating CO2 around rubisco etc etc. It irks me somewhat more that this was presented as scientfic information in an otherwise interesting few chapters than the utterly ludicrous (and therefore spottable by anyone who’s graduated high school) lunar energy nonsense towards the end (which admittedly was also embedded in an otherwise interesting few chapters).

Although admittedly you may have a rather short interview if you go after him for pedantic things like that =p

By: Karl Haro von Mogel

Karl Haro von Mogel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:16:50 +0000

Good find, Grel. I remember reading that. I had to check the book to see the context, but it seems that he is not willing to discount fanciful cultural explanations of food (in this case mushrooms) that lack scientific evidence. That seems right in line with his romantic approach.
I think when it gets closer to the day, we’ll be asking readers for more question ideas.

By: Grel

Grel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:12:42 +0000

When you interview Michael Pollan, perhaps you could do us all a favor and ask him about this part of the omnivore’s dilemma, on page 378:

“I’m not prepared to discount any of these speclations just because thery’re not yet proveable by our science. Mushrooms are mysterious. Who’s to say the day won’t come when science will be able to measure fungus’s exotic energies, perhaps even calculate our minimum daily requirements of lunar calories?”

This is a popular book after all and so far he has gotten away with using it to push woo. It’s not like he owes you one for doing this interview, so now’s the chance to clarify what he meant here.