Keith, Thanks for the flattery about elegance. I just try to be funny and somewhat coherent. I'm not allergic to MSG. I'm _sensitive_ to it as are an estimated 25-30% of the population. The symptoms I get aren't from mere exposure to the substance but from consuming large quantities.
It's reassuring to hear that there are no similarities and no logical connections between food additives and genetically modified food. The fact that both were developed by scientists is a coincidence, the fact that both are sponsored by food industry corporations is a coincidence and the fact that both are regulated by government agencies that have revolving door personnel with the food industry corporations is a coincidence. Obviously food corporations are motivated by a different profit motive when dealing with GMO than the profit motive they are motivated by when dealing with MSG. Thanks for clearing that up! But that sounds like an "us and them" scenario and that is not fair. "They" are really acting no different than "we" would and/or do. We just don't notice it when we do it. Or as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and they are us." By the way, yesterday I spent about 10 minutes reading labels in a so-called health food store. You know the kind where the customers are required to wear sandals, dreadlocks, loose clothing and body piercings. The shelves creaked with hydrolyzed vegetable protein, yeast extract, autolyzed yeast... A simple rule would be: if it comes in a box, don't eat it. If it comes in a can, bottle or jar, read the fine print. If you don't know what the additive is, don't eat it. This may come as a surprise, but I'm delighted with the food selection regime that sensitivity to MSG imposes on me. It's stuff I wanted to do anyway -- eat conscientiously -- but was too, shall we say, addicted to the convenience, taste and familiarity. Getting away from the sarcasm of paragraph two (I apologize, Keith, but sometimes your bluntly stated certainties awaken the sarcastic little devil within), I have three books currently checked out from the library. One of them is about the perils of MSG. Another is _Altars of Unhewn Stone_ by Wes Jackson, co-director of the Land Insitute. The third is _Creative Evolution_ by Henri Bergson. As a convenience, I'll quote the Amazon blurb on Altars and then take issue with it: "Science in modern times is increasingly becoming an esoteric enclave for a select few... In Altars of Unhewn Stone, Wes Jackson restores the critical link between science and cultural wisdom, showing that recent findings support traditional attitudes about farming, land and resource use, and the interrelations of cultural and biological communities." My problem is with the "recent finding support traditional attitudes" claim. Central to Jackson's perspective is the observation that reliance on monoculture and annual grains to obtain high crop yields wastes water and soil. Those are traditional attitudes, too. Jackson argues for an approach to farming that takes the prairie ecology as its model, relying on mixed crops and perennial species. Incidently, Jackson takes issue with the academic imperialism of the molecular biologists. Well, not so incidently. A lot of the book is a polemic against that imperialism: "My opposition to many of the grand claims of biotechnology is not because they are new. But because they are painfully old. They are part of the recent acceleration of the fall that came with the industrialization and chemicalization of agriculture. The ancient split between humans and nature widened during this epoch. This recent flurry of interest in biotechnological techniques has its roots in the same motives that fueled the transition to industrial and chemical agriculture." I don't agree with everything that Jackson has to say, but he strikes me as an articulate, knowledgeable and principled observer of the agricultural scene. Those familiar with the writing of Wendell Berry may recognize Jackson as the friend whose conversations Berry frequently refers to. I won't comment extensively on Bergson's book other than to note something he says about Herbert Spencer, "The usual device of the Spencerian method consists in reconstructing evolution with fragments of the evolved." Damn! If that doesn't sound like the modus operandi of genetic modification. I understand old Herbert subsequently went into the dry goods business with Karl Marx, founding the department store chain named after the two of them. Seriously, though, I understand their graves in Highgate Cemetery are close to each other. This is both fitting and ironic. Fitting because it seems to me that much of what Marx is reviled for is actually Spencerian and not at all Marxist. At the same time there was been a popular/scholarly second coming of social Darwinism, without always mentioning Spencer's name. Naturally, it is the people who most readily embrace the discretely resurrected Spencer that detest him most vehemently in his disguise as Karl Marx. The proximity of graves is ironic because Marx famously wrote of a spectre haunting Europe. But it turns out to be Spencer's ghost, not the phantasm of communism, haunting Europe, Marx, America, Capitalism, the Enlightenment and good clean food. Boo! > Tom, > > I wish I could be so elegant in writing about genetics as you are about > monosodium glutamate! I'm sorry for your allergy, but I don't see the > logical connection between food additives (adulteration, if you wish to > call it that) and GM foods. They both happen to involve the same product, > and there are probably rogue suppliers of both, but there's no similarity > otherwise. (Incidentally, I understand that most allergies, and also some > distressing conditions such as asthma, are probably caused by auto-immune > responses, in turn originally caused by not enough exposure to a wide > enough variety of foods and environmental conditions in childhood.) > > Keith > > At 09:06 18/09/02 -0700, you wrote: > >Keith quoted from Johnjoe McFadden, > > > >> ANDi, the first GM monkey, is a step towards that solution. The same > >> technology that inserted a jellyfish gene into his chromosome will be used > >> to correct defective human genes. We must see ANDi, not as a danger, but > >as > >> our only hope for the future. > > > >And we must see all "hopes for the future" from the perspective of previous > >gee-whiz sentimentalities that retrospectively we now can see right through. > >Or should see through, if we could see. In 1948, a symposium was held in a > >Chicago hotel to present the latest findings on a wonder substance to > >leaders of the food industry. That wonder substance was monosodium > >glutamate. > > > >The other day I spent about 15 minutes reading labels in the Safeway. Most > >of the savory prepared foods sold contain MSG, although it is not always > >labeled as monosodium glutamate. It is also listed as hydrolyzed vegetable > >protein, autolyzed yeast, yeast extract or sometimes "flavor". Flavor? How's > >that for informative labelling? > > > >A lot of people are sensitive to MSG, including me. Many people go through > >years or decades of physical and emotional torment before they discover that > >their chronic symptoms are the result of an MSG sensitivity. But MSG is > >crucial to the food industry. It makes food taste good, no doubt about it. > > > >When I first suspected I was sensitive, I cut out the MSG and my symptoms > >cleared up. Then I naively went about replacing the MSG laced foods that I > >had enjoyed with what I thought were "non-MSG" substitutes. Eventually, the > >symptoms returned. Recently I had another look at the literature and a > >second look at the labels. The organic chicken boullion cubes I had bought > >to replace the MSG-rich boullion I previously cooked with contained, as > >their leading ingredient, "yeast extract", a substance that itself contains > >10-20% MSG. > > > >Yesterday, when I went grocery shopping and spent less than $8 on around > >four kilos of groceries -- all fresh fruits and vegetables. If everyone > >shopped like that everyday the food industry would go broke. That's why MSG > >remains "Generally Regarded As Safe" -- GRAS. GRAS, my ass! MSG is generally > >regarded as indispensible to the profits of agribusiness corporations. It > >makes packaged, prepared food taste better than it otherwise could. Period. > >That's important. If it didn't taste so good, you wouldn't buy it. End of > >sales. End of profits. End of business. End of story. > > > >Oh and if you liked tobacco industry science, you'll love glutamate industry > >science. It's soooo reassuring (unless, of course, you've actually had and > >recognized the symptoms, modified your diet and felt the miracle cure). This > >is not rocket science, it's not even food science for crissake -- it's > >common sense. If something makes you fell ill, you should be able to stop > >eating it without taking a course in cryptoanalysis. "Flavor"?! Can you > >believe it? Why aren't distilleries allowed to label vodka as containing 40% > >"sociability"? > > > > > >A thought occurred to me yesterday. Very high on the agenda of GM must be > >development of a technique to induce plant and animal cells to spontaneously > >produce large quantities of free glutamates. Yes, kiddies, BETTER TASTING > >FOOD THROUGH SCIENCE! It will make some people sick and they'll have few > >non-bettertasting foods to turn to but, hey, that's the price we should to > >be willing to pay for progress. Besides, the pharmaceutical industry will > >come up with a bio-engineered pill to combat the symptoms. An industry to > >make you sick and another one to make you well again. If that's not > >efficiency, I don't know what is. > > > >Unlike ANDi, we humans don't need any more jellyfish genes in our > >chromosomes. We've got too many as it is if we continue to let these > >profit-driven, science-thumping, industry-funded, msgee-willikers sharks > >monkey with our food. > > > >It's fun to lean back and day dream about scenarios of the future that are > >feasible on the assumption of scientist-saints. Just try working as a > >scientist-saint for a few years, though, and see what that does to your > >income and standing in the profession. The same is true of writers, graphic > >artists, musicians, architects, engineers -- most people with specialized > >training and skill are employed commercially. We wouldn't think of > >attributing some sort of transcedent social altruism to advertising > >copywriters as a profession. Why should we do so for molecular biologists? > >Or, more to the point, why should we believe advertising copywriters when, > >in their stints as content providers, they attribute transcendent social > >altruism to molecular biologists? > > > >It is said that Sir Francis Bacon contracted pneumonia and died shortly > >after conducting an experiment in which he stuffed snow into the carcasses > >of chickens to see if freezing would preserve them. Three hundred years > >later, Clarence Birdseye pioneered the retail sale of frozen foods. > >Refrigeration is a wonderful thing. Today the world depends on a vast "cold > >chain" to give us this day our daily bread. Until recently that cold chain > >relied extensively on Chloroflourocarbons. Then we discovered that we were > >poking a hole in the ozone layer. Even without CFCs, the cold chain burns > >fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gasses, which contribute to global > >warming. (I'll finesse the fine points of modern chicken processing -- > >anyone who's curious can look up "fecal soup"). > > > >The wages of empiricism: the Bacon-chicken story tells us that we ignore > >context at our peril and that it is not always immediately apparent what the > >context is. Sir Francis may have imagined he was performing one experiment, > >when in actual fact he was performing at least three. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > -------------- > > Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England > Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ________________________________________________________________________ >
