Can gentically engineered foods help feed the hungry? Are anti-GMO activists and over-zealous environmentalists standing in the way of the hungry being fed? The hope that GMO foods might bring solutions to malnutrition and world hunger was never more dramatically illustrated than when Time magazine ran a cover story titled "Grains of Hope." The article joyfully announced the development of a genetically engineered "golden rice." This new strain of GM rice has genes from viruses and daffodils spliced into its genetic instructions. The result is a form of rice that is a golden-yellow color (much like daffodil flowers), and that produces beta-carotene, which the human body normally converts into Vitamin A. Nearly a million children die every year because they are weakened by Vitamin A deficiencies and an additional 350,000 go blind. Golden rice, said Time, will be a godsend for the half of humanity that depends on rice for its major staple. Merely eating this rice could prevent blindness and death. The development of golden rice was, it seemed, compelling and inspiring evidence that GM crops are the answer to malnutrition and hunger. Time quoted former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: "Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy, starvation is." Shortly after the Time cover story, Monsanto and other biotechnology companies launched a $50 million marketing campaign, including $32 million in TV and print advertising. The ads, complete with soft focus fields and smiling children, said that "biotech foods could help end world hunger." Other ad campaigns have followed. One Monsanto ad tells the public: "Biotechnology is one of tomorrow's tools in our hands today. Slowing its acceptance is a luxury our hungry world cannot afford." Within a few months, the biotech industry had spent far more on these ads than it had on developing golden rice. Their purpose? "Unless I'm missing something," wrote Michael Pollan in The New York Times Magazine, "the aim of this audacious new advertising campaign is to impale people like me -- well-off first-worlders dubious about genetically engineered food -- on the horns of a moral dilemma ... If we don't get over our queasiness about eating genetically modified food, kids in the third world will go blind." The implication of the ads is that lifesaving food is being held hostage by anti-science activists. In the years since Time proclaimed the promises of golden rice, however, we've learned a few things. For one thing, we've learned that golden rice will not grow in the kinds of soil that it must to be of value to the world's hungry. To grow properly, it requires heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides -- expensive inputs unaffordable to the very people that the variety is supposed to help. And we've also learned that golden rice requires large amounts of water -- water that might not be available in precisely those areas where Vitamin A deficiency is a problem, and where farmers cannot afford costly irrigation projects. And one more thing -- it turns out that golden rice doesn't work, even in theory. Malnourished people are not able to absorb Vitamin A in this form. And even if they could, they'd have to eat an awful lot of the stuff. An 11-year-old boy would have to eat 27 bowls of golden rice a day in order to satisfy his minimum requirement for the vitamin. I'm sure that given enough time and enough money, some viable genetically modified (GM) crops could be developed that contain more nutrients or have higher yields. But I'm not sure that even if that were to happen, it would actually benefit the world's poor. Monsanto and the other biotech companies aren't developing these seeds with the intention of giving them away. If people can't afford to buy GM seeds, or if they can't afford the fertilizers, pesticides and water the seeds require, they'll be left out. Poverty is at the root of the problem of hunger. As Peter Rosset, director of Food First, reminds us, "People do not have Vitamin A deficiency because rice contains too little Vitamin A, but because their diet has been reduced to rice and almost nothing else." And what, pray tell, has reduced these people to such poverty and their diets to such meager fare? In the words of the British writer George Monbiot: The world has a surplus of food, but still people go hungry. They go hungry because they cannot afford to buy it. They cannot afford to buy it because the sources of wealth and the means of production have been captured and in some cases monopolized by landowners and corporations. The purpose of the biotech industry is to capture and monopolize the sources of wealth and the means of production ... GM technology permits companies to ensure that everything we eat is owned by them. They can patent the seeds and the processes which give rise to them. They can make sure that crops can't be grown without their patented chemicals. They can prevent seeds from reproducing themselves. By buying up competing seed companies and closing them down, they can capture the food market, the biggest and most diverse market of all. No one in her right mind would welcome this, so the corporations must persuade us to focus on something else ... We are told that ... by refusing to eat GM products, we are threatening the developing world with starvation, an argument that is, shall we say, imaginative ... With rare exceptions, genetically engineered crops are being created not because they're productive or because they address real human needs, but because they're patentable. The biotech companies have invested billions of dollars because they sense in this technology the potential for enormous profit and the means to gain control over the world's food supply. Their goal is not to help subsistence farmers feed themselves. Their goal is maximum profit. While Monsanto would like us to believe they are seeking to alleviate world hunger, there is actually a very dark side to the company's efforts. For countless centuries farmers have fed humanity by saving the seed from one years crop to plant the following year. But Monsanto, the company that claims its motives are to help feed the hungry, has developed what it calls a "Technology Protection System" that renders seeds sterile. Commonly known as "terminator technology" and developed with taxpayer funding by the USDA and Delta & Pine Land Company (an affiliate of Monsanto), the process genetically alters seeds so that their offspring will be sterile for all time. If employed, this technology would ensure that farmers cannot save their own seeds, but would have to come back to Monsanto year after year to purchase new ones. Critics refer to these genetically engineered seeds as suicide seeds. "By peddling suicide seeds, the biotechnology multinationals will lock the world's poorest farmers into a new form of genetic serfdom," says Emma Must of the World Development Movement. "Currently 80 percent of crops in developing countries are grown using farm-saved seed. Being unable to save seeds from sterile crops could mean the difference between surviving and going under." To Monsanto and other GMO companies, the terminator and other seed sterilizing technologies are simply business ventures that are designed to enhance profits. In this case, there is not even the implication of benefit to consumers. I wish I could speak more highly of GM foods and their potential. But the technology is now held tightly in the hands of corporations whose motives are, I'm afraid, very different from what they would have us believe. Despite the PR, Monsanto's goal is not to make hunger history. It's to control the staple crops that feed the world. Will GMOs help end world hunger? I don't think so. John Robbins is the author of many bestsellers including "The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World," the classic "Diet For A New America" and "The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less." He is the recipient of the Rachel Carson Award, the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, the Peace Abbey's Courage of Conscience Award and Green America's Lifetime Achievement Award. To learn more about his work, visit www.johnrobbins.info This Blogger's Books from The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less by John Robbins Food Revolution, The: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World by John Robbins Many supporters of GMO seeds, are Monsanto supporters. Who is in charge of the USDA-Agricultural Research Service ? I believe it was Tom Vilsack,who is now a member of the cabnit our current Secretary.Who is Tom Vilsack?Google him and find out. Our Supreme Court Justice,Clarence Thomas,,,Used to Work for who> Monsanto.and several top positions in the Food and Drug Administration,and the Department of Agriculture,all filled with former Monsanto Lobbyist, do you really want to believe any thing these people say? I can post more articall s,but I will not, enough has been said,if you are interested at all, in what you, your children,and grandchildren are eating, do your research,,make up your own mind,in the mean time,keep saving your seeds.You might want to google, how many seed saving banks are left here in the U.S., compared to how many there used to be, and why. cAROL

oldhousegal, I commend you. I'd love to be living that way - as they say "every journey begins with a single step". I found a website created by a grad student from Singapore who is studying "food perceptions" of all things. This entire website is dedicated to unraveling the "great pine nut mystery" (don't you love the internet!). Here is a picture of pine nuts. "S" is apparently what you want. "A" is what you don't want. Similar in size.. posting another pic below which is a close up of "A". close up on PNS (pine nut syndrome) inducing pine nut Funny... Target house brand of pine nuts has only had one reported case of PNS but Trader Joe's has had 69 cases.... maybe I'm not ready to give up on Target yet (maybe I am still being naive to believe everything I read on the internet.... looks pretty credible to me though - will link the website below). Here is a link that might be useful: The Great Pine Nut Mystery

I'm not sure it was the Dateline you saw, but I attended a presentation by a cop who assisted in at least one Dateline episode. He now goes around the country making presentations because he feels he can reach more people. As part of his demonstration, he logged on to a chatroom and pretended to be a 13 or 14 year old girl. Within a few minutes, a pedophile type approached him. Very creepy. The cop said that guys with these urges have always been out there. It is just that with the internet and its chatrooms and instant messaging and so on that they can live out their fantasies. Young kids feel safe in their homes and may unintentionally reveal more than they recognize to their new found friends -- who may pose as someone much younger. They do not realize that by mentioning their town and that they scored the winning point at a recent sports competition that another person could track down their identity. The cop said a screen name that shows gender and age will be much more likely to attract predators, e.g. "Lisa91", than a neutral screen name. He also recommending keeping the computer in a public place and not in the kid's bedroom and to monitor your kid such as seeing what he or she has posted on MySpace. He also mentioned installing tracking software on the computer to see what sites your kid has visited. While internet predators are real, I happen to believe that greater dangers are posed by people kids know: the *funny* uncle, mom's boyfriend, the step-dad, the teacher, the clergyperson, etc. Same with kidnapping; most are the other parent, not a stranger. True, a big part of parenting is protecting your kid. But it is also learning to give them independence. The big trick is when and how much and to know they will make mistakes. You don't want a kid going off to college incapable of doing anything and making independent judgments! JMHO

People bred the pit to be aggressive and now people are upset that they bite. Until laws get passed against the PEOPLE who breed and misuse them nothing will change. If pits are outlawed the idiots will find another big dog to make aggressive. Some people just love the idea of having a big dangerous dog and some sick people get off on watching them fight. I have rescued and euthanized 3 dogs for aggression. Two were pit bulls, one was a German shepherd and all had been abused. Two other equally abused German shepherds are the world's sweetest dogs and my pit girls are dolls. Every dog is different and you just can't lump them together by breed, which is what BSL does. They need to be evaluated as individuals and aggressive dogs do need to be removed and even that gets into that slippery slope of taking away our rights. Izzie, no dog attacks out of the blue. People may not know what the trigger is and we can't ask the dog. I use an animal communicator, something most people scorn. But something made that collie bite the little boy. What a pity it cost so dearly in harm to a child and death for a dog. livvysmom, if you or your children has a friend with one of the breeds who has been known to be aggressive and they do not keep the dog far from the children you should not go there. They are not being responsible and your child is not safe. I KNOW my dogs will not bite. When a child comes over they are not allowed near the child with the exception of 3 of my dogs who I know adore children and then only with supervision. My son was raised with my Dobermans, German shepherds and rescue dogs without incident, but not everyone is so fortunate. By the way, the worst bites I've gotten have been from those yappy little toy dogs. My Shih tzu/Yorkie is the most aggressive dog I've ever owned. Fortunately at only 12 pounds she doesn't do much damage and the big dogs just think she's funny.