Re: Nuclear device for the kitchen, yes really

On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:48:32 GMT, richard mullens
<mullensdeletethis@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>YD wrote:
>> On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:29:28 GMT, richard mullens
>> <mullensdeletethis@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 09:59:09 -0700, Jim Thompson
>>>
>>><snip>
>>>
>>>>>It's already being done here in the U.S., at least for military meals.
>>>>>Seal in plastic, then irradiate.
>>>>>
>>>>>I don't know what type of radiation is being used.
>>>>>
>>>>>Of course it's being resisted for use in public consumption by the
>>>>>loonie greenies, but it's certainly the correct answer for food
>>>>>preservation AND stopping food-borne illness.
>>>>>
>>>>>I sometimes think there should be a bounty offered for loonie
>>>>>greenies, after all they ARE a terrorist group ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>> ...Jim Thompson
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>In the US, spices are commonly zapped to kill bugs, and some other
>>>>foods, I think. They use either gammas from an radioisotope source, or
>>>>electrons from an accelerator. Google 'food irradiation' or something.
>>>>
>>>>Zapping chicken and certain seafoods would probably save a thousand
>>>>lives for every cancer produced.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Just to speculate on this in the other direction... (As in "you are what you eat")
>>>
>>>Like they said in England - Mad cow desease can't jump the species barrier - it did.
>>>
>>>Those gamma rays etc modify the DNA in uncooked potatoes so that they don't sprout.
>>>The modified DNA gets taken up when it's consumed and gives evolution a boost...
>>>
>>
>>
>> Uh, how would taking up the modified DNA be any different from taking
>> up the unmodified DNA? Either way it won't turn you into a giant
>> potato or something since it gets dissolved in the digestive juices.
>>
>
>We have evolved with and are therefore in equilibrium with the DNA that is around us.
>Introducing greater variety may upset that balance.
>
>It is a hypothesis. It is not completely implausible. I am suggesting something
>more subtle than turning you into a giant potato. But then perhaps ...

Isn't the selective breeding of cereals and vegetables for yield and
resistance a kind of GM, even if a slow one? This has been going on
ever since mankind took up farming a few thousand years ago. Still, on
an evolutionary scale, the timespan is much too short for mankind to
have "adapted" to these new genes. So unless you have some evidence of
this (adapting) occuring, I'm afraid your hypothesis isn't more than
wishful thinking.

Anyway, cooking and eating something will certainly scramble whatever
DNA was in it into total uselessness.

- YD.
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