slkinsey

Boils down to: No it's not practical to do it yourself, and yes it is difficult for a non-professional to do well by him- or herself.

In most American restaurants -- even the high-end ones -- espresso is not taken seriously at all and usually tastes like bitter percolated overextracted ass.

Yes

Very interesting reading. I have to say that I didn't find the Humane Society fact sheet nearly as horrible as I had expected. their main oppositions seem to be: OK... veal calfs are taken away from their mothers at an early age... I have a hard time feeling too terrible about this. OK... veal calfs are then trucked to other facilities... again, not optimal, but certainly not outrageously bad. Finally we get to the box part... I gather, even from the Humane Society's description, that they are not as terribly small as I had been lead to believe. The veal guys say: Now... that seems fairly close to what the Humane Society people said, but it doesn't sound all that bad. I note the veal guys' use of the modifier "modern veal stalls" which gives them some wiggle room on the visual/physical interaction stuff for "not modern" veal stalls. I also note that the veal guys' materials do not say the calfs can turn around in the stalls. I rather imagine that the reality lies somewhere in the middle here, but I really am struck by the fact that it doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as I supposed it would be. Again, it doesn't seem substantially worse than what happens to chickens in large-scale operations -- or, frankly, all that much worse than what happens to beef cows. The cynic in me still has to wonder how much of the veal hoopla is due to the big dewey eyes and soft fuzzy coats of baby cows. One does wonder, however, how different the various types of veal taste compared to each other. It would be very interesting to get chops of formula-fed veal and nonformula-fed veal of comparable quality and do a side-by-side comparison. I wonder if three easy things couldn't be done to make raising veal a much more humane practice: 1) Increase the size of the stalls slightly so the calfs can turn around. 2) Feed the calfs the milk formula via rubber nipple dispensers rather than buckets. 3) Feed the calfs a limited amount of roughage.

Yea... that doesn't seem cruel to me either. But obviously it is the case that there aren't enough unwanted bulls in the dairy industry to satisfy the demand for veal. I have never been particularly clear on what exactly goes into making veal, except that one hears stories of calfs growing up in a box, etc., etc. One wonders whether this kind of life is any less humane than the life of the average factory chicken and, if so, why more people aren't up in arms about factory chickens... but of course baby cows have big dewey eyes and are a lot cuter than chickens.

Definitely we need to do a tasting. I am not sure, however, whether "sustainable veal" is quite the right way or saying it. My understanding of sustainable, and I looked it up to make sure I had a correct understanding, is: I am not sure what it is, exactly, about veal that is not sustainable. Sustainability, of course, does not necessarily exclude unnecessary cruelty. Now, veal that is humane (marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals) is another story. I would think it depends greatly on one's standards for humane treatment of calfs raised for veal. People do, of course, argue that raising any animal for slaughter and consumption is inhumane. With veal, it would seem that three of the necessary components are a diet that is primarily milk, a minimum of exercise and slaughter before a certain age (yes/no?). One could certainly argue that these three components are inherrently inhumane and that veal is therefore necessarily inhumane. One could also argue that altering these components in some arbitrary way to make them more humane will produce meat that is veal-like, but not veal. So, the questions I think need to be answered are: 1) What makes veal veal? 2) What is it, exactly, about veal that makes it inhumane? 3) Do what degree do they have to be changed to make them acceptably humane? 4) How do those changes affect the characteristics of the meat? If one insists, for example, that calfs raised for veal must be allowed to freely exercise and must be fed a non-milk diet, I can see how that might fundamentally change the nature of the meat. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that a limited amount of this might improve the meat. The question is: how much? And what is an acceptable compromise? I also wonder what it is that Europeans do differently that make (once made?) JC prefer their veal over American veal ?

Thanks, dude. That said, I don't think it is reasonable to assume that moderators are wearing -- or should wear -- their moderation hats in every single discussion. If you cut us do we not bleed? OK granted, it's a very moderate bleeding... But seriously, I'm new to eGullet moderating but would hope that I have the ability to take off my moderator hat and mix with the rabble most of the time and only put the moderator hat back on when required to do my job. These moderator hats are not designed for comfort anyway... although I wonder if FG might have been pulling my leg when he mailed me a crown of thorns and said I had to wear it every time I signed on to eGullet. I'll have to check into that. Hopefully we can recognize when we are in need of moderating ourselves, but thankfully there is a fair amount of moderator redundancy engineered into the system and another moderator can always step in.

Oh boy, it's such a pleasure to have someone who has real knowledge of the subject, and can even provide source material, unlike a couple of amateurs like Sam and myself I completely agree! The tone could have been better, as I explain in my posts above to badthings and Officer McDowell of the Polite Tone Police. (Nota bene: the preceding statement is intended to be humorous). Perhaps I have not made sufficiently clear that I do, indeed, agree with you on most of your points. I think it is a very potent technology that has the potential to do great good and great harm. In this sense, it is similar to other advanced 20th century technologies like nuclear power. I couldn't agree more with your insistence on proper research and publication of evidence. In fact, I think that should be the case with many more things than GM. I have tended to take the GM side in this debate only because I felt that someone had to present the other side when so many people seem to assert that GM is a horrible thing and that it will lead to the extinction of all "natural" plant and animal life and turn us all into genetic freaks with nine arms and eleven heads... not that there's anything wrong with having nine arms and eleven heads. Just in case any of them read eGullet l would like to be perfectly clear that I welcome our new nine-armed eleven-headed genetic mutant superhero overlords and never said anything bad about them. That said, there are, to be sure, bad things and dangerous things about genetic engineering techoloogy, and it should absolutely be watched closely. But, I do think it is important to point out that we have been blithely sitting by while non-genetic engineering technologies have been doing all the things we are decrying in GM for decades right under our noses. Indeed, we should really say that non-GM modern hybrids are produced by "old-style genetic engineering technologies" since specially developed non-GM hybrids are certainly genetically engineered Oh, now... how could we possibly be boring? I mean... it's us! I think it's been an interesting discussion too. And as you have remarked before, I think the two of us share mostly the same thoughts on genetic engineering but happen to have entered into this discussion representing different sides of our more diverse and nuanced feelings on the subject.

Of course, but saying that x is no more dangerous than y doesn't make x safe. It's true, it's just not a legitimate argument for GM crops. Absolutely. I agree completely. I don't think it's a legitimate argument on either side, which is what I was trying to say. Absolutely. Maybe someone should start doing them. Agreed again. I was trying to make a little joke. The problem that is unique to GM crops -- not soy! -- is if the transgenic material conveys an adaptive advantage, introgresses into wild relatives, then outcompetes plants without the transgenes. They go away, along with their genes that aren't as valuable at the moment as glyphosate resistance, but might have come in handy later on. That, I think, is a serious concern, particularly with corn among the GM crops now grown. This is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed. And I think there are things that can be done to address it, such as making sure that GM crops are sterile or only survive one generation or are otherwise modified so that they are not capable of exchanging DNA with wild varieties. Again, similar problems have existed for a long time with respect to the hybrid crops that are already grown. To take corn, for example, is there any "wild corn" in America that has not been fundamentally influenced by the genetics of the hybrids planted over the last 30-40 years? I hardly see how this could be the case. I don't think corn has been "natural" for a thousand years. Now, this does not mean to minimize the importance of this phenomenon with respect to GM crops or to say that it isn't something we should worry about -- merely to point out that it is something that has been going on for a long time and is not in any way unique to GM crops (although GM crops do introduce new and important elements for consideraton). Sorry if the tone of my response seemed inappropriate. I did not mean to imply anything about the tone of yours or to make anything personal. I had heavy pressure at the day job yesterday and was not able to go over my post and make sure the tone was well modulated. My teasing about your and Macrosan's use of "intellectually dishonest" was only that... because I think it could be interpreted as name-callind and because I think it's a meaningless phrase, as I had mentioned in a previous post.

First of all, 1962 is hardly 1990 or 1995. I would expect there to be a lot more genetic diversity among commercially grown soybean cultivars in 1962 ... I find it very hard to dispute that, but then that's not the question you put forth when you called someone "uninformed". What you asked was this: mcdowell, what exactly did you think I was asking? How many soybean varieties existed in a seed catalog? How many soybean varieties existed in 1867? Why would any of these numbers be meaningful? If one is going to blame GM soybeans for a reduction in the genetic diversity of commercially grown American soybeans the only thing that would be meaningful is to understand how many soybean varieties existed planted in American soybean fields immediately prior to the widespread planting of GM soybeans. I assumed, perhaps unrealistically, that any reasonable person would understand that this has to be the case. A technical document describing all the known soybean cultivars in 1962 is in no way reflective of the genetic diversity of soybeans planted in American fields prior to the widespread planting of GM soybeans. This is what my response to your post pointed out. I don't understand why you seem to be getting touchy about it, but it was an absolutely valid response on my part. You provided your data as refuting my earlier statement and I explained why I didn't think it was sufficient to do so. Let's just think about this a minute: OK, your 1962 report says that there were 187 varieties of soybean in 1962. Does this reflect what is planted in American fields in 1962 or the genetic diversity as planted in the fields? We really don't know, do we? Even assuming that all 187 varieties were actually being grown in 1962, it is quite possible that the planting was something like this: 35% variety 132, 22% variety 14, 17% variety 97, 15% variety 173, 7% variety 2, 4% all the other varieties. Now, does that seem like a great deal of genetic diversity to you? Let's think about it another minute: Is there any reason to suspect that any or most of the 187 varieties in your 1962 report are completely extinct? We don't really know, but my strong suspicion is that there are at least some seeds around somewhere for most of these varieties. But that's not all... As we know, there are plenty of new soybean strains that have been developed since 1962. So, if the USDA were to do a report enumerating all the known soybean varieties, it seems inevitable that the number for 2003 will be more than 187, not less. Does this equal more genetic diversity today as opposed to 1962? Of course not, you say, just because the soybean varieties exist does not mean that they are planted in American fields. This brings us right back to my point about your data. Now, it just so happens that I not only have parents who are chemists, but I also have a lot of relatives in the farming business. You can drive through West Texas and similar places and see field after field after field of cotton or feed corn or whatever all at exactly the same level of maturity, all exactly the same height, etc. And, what's more important, the characteristics of the crops you see do not vary much from one farmer's fields to the next. It has been this way as long as I can remember, which doesn't go back to 1962, but certainly goes back to 1975 or so. This does not represent a great deal of genetic diversity. The farmers were all growing special hybrid crops, and they were all choosing to grow the same varieties. Even a cursory glance around the fields circa 1980 is enough to demonstrate that there was very little genetic diversity. The impression formed by such an observation is supported by what I hear from my farmer relatives. Another thing that has happened since 1962 is an incredible consolidation of farmland into the ownership of a relatively small number of companies. I am sure the data is out there somewhere, but I would guess that the number of farm owner/operators in this country is a lot less than 50% of what it was in 1962. This has also been bad for genetic diversity of crops. If AgriCorp buys up 100 small farms it is a sure bet that they are not planting 100 different varieties of soybean on that consolidated land -- even assuming that the 100 small farmers were all growing different varieties, which is extremely unlikely. So, what does this mean. It means A) that there is plentiful evidence that leads to the conclusion that there was very little genetic diversity in American crops like soybeans immediately prior to the widespread planting of GM crops; and B) your 1962 data really doesn't prove anything. If you, or anyone else, can provide data showing the number of soybean varieties actually planted in American soil immediately prior to the widespread adoption of GM soybean varieties, including relative percentages in which those soybeans are planted, and if that data demonstrates significant genetic diversity, I will gladly shout from the rooftops that I was mistaken. I am chromosonaly different from my father, mother and sister... but that doesn't represent meaningful genetic diversity. For example, many parents and siblings are so similar to their children or siblings that they are "perfect" organ donors. This is exactly what I meant when I said it "could be that many of [the 187 varieties] are incredibly similar and do not represent meaningful genetic diversity." Roundup Ready soybeans were introduced commercially in 1996. As for you, mcdowell, I find it incredibly ironic that you should say that when you could have read my posts to this thread and seen me say things to Macrosan like: "Macrosan, apparently I have misconstrued some of your points" and "I hope I have not misconstrued or misrepresented your position" and "Now... I am only looking at a few sentences that you wrote. Perhaps you meant for it to come out differently, or perhaps you were just pursuing an idea that came to mind and think differently. I'm cool with that. What do you think then?" and Macrosan must have thought I had totally twisted his words when he said: "how nice to find someone who can coolly and intelligently discuss an important but fundamentally difficult subject When you come down to it, you and I agree on most of the fundamental facts and principles." The person who would seem to be doing the twisting here is you, my friend, not me. And, as for the intellectul name-calling that you allege, I don't see any. My remarks about "talk about uninformed" and "one could almost say 'intellectually dishonest'" was meant to be humorous and teasing badthings and Macrosan about their use of that phrase. Badthings, anyway, seemed to get it. Not that I think I need to explain myself to you in this regard, but just for the record since you have obviously felt the call to comment on my character.

187 varieties, according to FJ Herman's 1962 USDA Technical Bull. A revision of the genus Glycine and its immediate allies (revised down from the suspected 323 after chromosonal testing). I'm not a horticulturalist, or anything close, so I can't tell you if that's "not very much" or not. Seems like a lot to me. I could just be uninformed. First of all, 1962 is hardly 1990 or 1995. I would expect there to be a lot more genetic diversity among commercially grown soybean cultivars in 1962. Furthermore, what varieties of soybeans exist may not necesarily reflect those that are actually planted in the fields. And, of course, one has to wonder how much diversity there was between many of the 1962 cultivars you cite. It could be that many of them are incredibly similar and do not represent meaningful genetic diversity. Again... I would be willing to bet that the 1990 "planted in the fields" number is less than 20.

I find it interesting that the author would find "collard greens (turnip, mustard, poke, etc.) and pot likker" a Southern food by her definition (a food or dish which is popular all over the South, but is rarely, if ever, eaten anywhere else; not a food or dish that has been routinely eaten in another part of the country for at least fifty years). There are plenty of people a few blocks north of me (that's Harlem, if you're wondering) who would beg to differ.

Um... I read your excerpt several times over, and I couldn't find anything in there that says GM soybean cultivars have lower or higher yields as compared to non-GM cultivars. So I am not exactly sure how you think your point is supported by this excerpt. I should point out, however, that a GM crop does not necessarily have to have a higher yield for the genetic engineering to have value. It also seems quite clear to me that genetic engineering does hold great promise for higher yields. I.e., since human stupidity has already fucked up so many ecosystems with invasive species, it makes sense to do it more, with transgenic species the genomes of which we have altered in unpredictable ways of which we cannot reasonably project the long-term implications. This is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the question at hand.If you think that is what I was saying, then you missed my point entirely. My point was that there is no reason to suspect that GM crops are any more dangerous than non-GM crops in this regard. I should add, by the way, that there are plenty of things that could be done with genetic engineering to make GM organisms significantly safer than non-GM organisms in this regard. If, for example, the cats introduced to Australia had been genetically modified so that they were incapable of reproducing in the wild and could only do so via artificial insemination, they wouldn't be having the problems with wild cats they're having over there. So what? Just because GM is being used a certain way right now doesn't mean that the idea of genetic engineering should be tossed away like the proverbial baby with the bath water. I don't know what arguments others have made, but I would certainly never assert that GM as we know it today is something that could even begin to address world hunger or any of the other myriad possibilities this technology promises. Does it have the potential to make an impact in these areas in the relatively near future? Say, 50 years? Absolutely. I have no stake in heirloom soybean varieties, but one thing that we really do not want to do, if we're going to feed the world, is eliminate agricultural biodiversity. Boy, talk about uninformed... Just how much genetic diversity to you think existed in commercially grown American soybeans before GM was introduced? Well, I'll tell you a secret: not very much. This is a fait accompli, I'm afraid. I certainly don't mean to imply that this is a good thing, but to lay the problem of poor genetic diversity in commercially grown crops at the door of genetic engineering is unrealistic at best -- one could almost say "intellectually dishonest" if one was into using such language . In fact, well-executed genetic engineering with this goal could potentially cause there to be more genetic diversity in American soybean crops than was present in, say, 1990.

you didn't like it? I wouldn't say it is any better than what could be had at Carmine's around 10 years ago.

The food at Rao's is completely mediocre. The reason to go there is not to experience wonderful food. The reason to go to Rao's -- the only reason to go to Rao's, really -- is to say you've been there.

What makes you think that "normal" foods aren't already poisoning us? Have you ever seen a list of all the different toxins that exist in raw vegetables? People can and do die every year from eating non-genetically engineered foods that poison them. One of the things that genetic engineering could do is create foods that are less poisonous than their unaltered counterparts. For example, one could engineer fava beans so that they were safe to eat for people with a glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (up to 20% of the African population, and 4% to 40% around the Mediterranean depending on locale). This could save many, many people who would otherwise have died of favism. How do you think this wouold happen? We do not interact on a genomic level with the DNA of the foods we eat. So it is basically impossible that the consumption of foods with engineered DNA could somehow change our DNA. It doesn't work that way. Humans are not going to start growing gills if we eat potatoes that have some frog DNA spliced in. Now... could eating certain foods cause changes in our DNA on an evolutionary scale? Sure. But this will take millions of years. There should definitely be strong oversight, this is true. And, as far as I know, there is strong oversight. I'm not entirely sure I agree with this, but is isn't an entirely invalid opinion. I don't think it is reasonable to test all GM foods for 50 years, if that's what you have in mind. Macrosan, there are already horrible problems that have been caused by so-called natural organisms that we have introduced to various environments. Ask anyone in the Southern US what they think about Kudzu... Ask the Aussies what they think about rabbits and cats... Etc... You are forgetting something very important: Before the farmer got the GM corn, he was already spraying his "normal" corn with shitloads of pesticides in order to kill off the worms anyway. It is not necessarily the case that the GM corn will be any more effective in keeping away the worms than the pesticide. But, it certainly might be the case that the GM corn has a lot less "collateral damage" (i.e., kills fewer non-worm organisms in the cornfield) as compared to the pesticide. So, in this way, the GM corn is actually better for the environment than the "normal" corn. For example, the birds can simply eat the earthworms and crickets and other little bugs in the cornfield that don't happen to eat the parts of the corn plants that we want to eat. Not only should there me more of these other organisms present in a GM cornfield, since they are no longer being poisoned by pesticides, but the birds would not be ingesting the pesticides either. It goes without saying, by the way, that the farmer is already using artificial soil nutrients and much heavy machinery to keep his crop going. Again, there may be things that genetic engineering can do to actually reduce the degree to which these things are needed. It should not be ignored, however, that there are other things that can make a big difference as well. I have relatives who are cotton farmers in West Texas. One of them had an Israeli underground irrigation system installed in one of his fields. These are perforated pipes that run several feet under the ground, so the fields may be irrigated from underneath. This has two important benefits: 1) the water doesn't evaporate as it does on the surface, so less water can be used; 2) fertilizers are deployed via the underground irrigation pipes directly to the roots, so there is no surface run-off and less fertilizer can be used. The main benefit, however, is the fact that his field with the underground irrigation system yields twice the coton per acre compared to his other fields. There are many things that can be done to minimize most of your negative scenarios. One particularly potent one is to produce GM organisms that are sterile and that are genetically programmed to die after a certain period of time (one growing season, for example).

Sorry I have been too busy to respond to your previous post, although there is not much to add to that debate that really stays on topic for eGullet. As for my feelings about GM foods, I find that most alarmists don't really understand the science. It's just like people who think that irradiating food makes it "dangerous" or perhaps "radioactive." the advantage I have is that my parents are both academic research chemists. In particular, my mother has done quite a bit in the biology/medical research side (cancer, AIDS, etc.). As such, she needless to say has a very good understanding of how genetics work and an interest in cloning and GM, and has been able to inform me about many of these things. Basically, once we figure out GM better, DNA can make anything living do just about anything. If we wanted to develop, for example, plants that were extremely hardy, that were capable of surviving a season in specific weather and soil conditions, that were resistant to certain pests, that were absolutely sterile and always died after one season, that were extremely nutrient rich, etc... we could do it if we worked at it hard enough. Or, on the other hand, we could produce transgenic goats that produce milk containing substances that help fight certain childhood ailments. Or, on the GM-engineered third hand, we could have transgenic pigs that grew actual human organs for transpant. Or, on the nuclear waste mutant's fourth hand, plants or animals or bacteria that break down and use the plastics in our landfills. How about cotton that already grows in whatever colors you want, with no need for the fabrics to be dyed and no fading with use? How about sheep that grow any color wool you want? The possibilities are endless, and it's all right there in the DNA. GM can, and almost certainly will be used to line the pockets of the makers. And I understand that it is largely being used that way right now. But it is absolutely a fact that a food plant of food animal could be engineered via genetics in such a way that it would produce greater yield from smaller resources. You're basically talking about only three things: what is the efficiency with which the organism utilizes the nutrients that are available to it; what is the efficiency with which it stores those nutrients; and what is the form in which it stores those nutrients. You have to understand that things like Roundup-resistant soybean plants are only the first tiny stumbling steps in what is possible with GM. The future is virtually limitless. Now, should there be processes in place to ensure that companies proceed safely and cautiously? Absolutely. But, fundamentally, if certain guidelines are adhered to there is no reason GM crops shouldn't be a shitload safer than a lot of other things we are doing to the ecosystem. And, in many ways, they hold out the prospect of potentially being safer and better. I would certainly rather eat corn that had been engineered to be unpalatable to worms, or rye that had been engineered to resist ergot than corn or rye that had been sprayed with whatever pesticides were needed to produce similar effects.

I think it's exceptionally brave of him to virtually dispense with the convention. Indeed, pairing wine with food has very much been a limiting factor in what can done by chefs. Right... there are certainly plenty of worthy non-wine beverages that may be consumed together with food.

Isn't liver very high in iron? Might the presence of the iron contribute to liver's distinctive taste? Might the long cooking of a fairly acidic stew in raw cast iron have brought enough iron into the stew for it to attain a flavor that is reminiscent of the flavor that iron contributes to liver?

Truffle oil is olive oil (usually) that has been infused with truffles (usually scraps, I think). Can be a great way to get a little truffle essence into a recipe without breaking the bank. See here for more information.

Thank you. I don't see much value in tossing around accusations and personal remarks of trying to force a certain interpretation onto what someone said in order to pump oneself up with righteous indignation. Not that I am referring to you in any way, but I have observed and experienced more than a bit of this in online discussions over the years. That said, while you and I do seem to agree on many of the fundamental facts and principles I am not sure we agree on the interpretation of those facts and principles, nor the road down which they lead. There is definitely a difference between the two, but I am not so sure it is such an enormous gulf. Ultimately both are virtually impossible to determine by purely scientific means and would be highly political decisions no matter what. And, of course, since the two are so closely interrelated, it becomes very difficult to separate the two. As I said before, when determining the optimum food supply, as you suggest, subjective decisions would have to be made as to the kind of world in which we want to live, because there are many possibilities for "sustainable" depending on the nature of what is being sustained. Do we want it to be a world in which we have a rich and varied mix of wildlife, plenty of "natural" landscape "unspoiled" by human intervention, etc.? Well, the level of food production that corresponds to that kind of world will likely be smaller than what is needed to feed the current or projected population. OK... so maybe the optimum food production is something else. What? Plenty of politics in there. How are we to arrive at any such policy, interim or not? I am also at a loss to understand where "a decision on GM" falls into your model. There is a fundamental problem with deliberately limiting the food supply or making decisions that have the effect of deliberately limiting the food supply. The problem is that it is the nature of animal populations to expand to their natural limits. If food supply is the major growth-limiting factor -- which it would be in your model -- certain things happen at the margins of the population: the organisms die of starvation and starvation-related conditions. That is how the population is limited and it is unavoidable when food supply is the principal growth-limiting condition. This is why, for instance, deer hunting is a humane practice in areas where deer have a limited food supply (the idea being that it is more humane to die from a bullet than to inevitably starve to death). Such a situation is unacceptable from a moral point of view where human beings are concerned, however. Luckily, human beings are different from other organisms. Our sexual drive is not so closely linked to reproduction, and as "first world" cultures demonstrate, we do not have to grow our population until some natural growth-limiting condition (food supply, disease, etc.) is reached. Indeed, as I have pointed out earlier, the cultures with the lowest population growth are precisely those which are the least encumbered with natural growth-limiting conditions. This leads me to conclude that the tendency of human populations to grow until a limiting condition prevents further growth is largely cultural and that the conditions which allow such a cultural outlook to develop largely depend on the ready availability of food. The things that correlate highly with lower population growth -- and I have already pointed out some of them -- are unlikely to flourish in cultures where food is scarse and starvation is a concern. The place where we are right now, however, is one in which we already have some trouble feeding the world population (although there are many complicating factors such as distrubution, etc.). It is also a fact that there will be many more mouths to feed in the immediately forseeable future. These mouths will need to be fed before we can even think of effecting any cultural changes that may lead to lower population growth. This is where GM foods can come in. Now, it may or may not be the fact that GM foods and the companies that make them are not working towards this purpose right now. But it is quite clear that GM can indeed help in this regard. The point is that the advisability or morality of GM food as a concept is not inextricably bound to what companies are doing with it right now. If an American farmer can get twice as much corn out of one acre using GM corn or if an African farmer can use GM corn that is drought resistant (etc.) this is a gain. Whether or not these things are currently being done with GM, they certainly can be done with GM. It seems fairly clear to me that heirloom tomatoes and line-caught salmon is not going to feed those mouths. Now... maybe one day the world population will be at a place where this may be possible, but inorder to get to that place I think we need to worry about feeding the people who are here now. GM foods seem to me clearly a part of how we are going to have to do that. And I don't think that it is "inellectually dishonest" (whatever that means... something that is dishonest in a manner that is informed by the intellect rather than by emotion or experience?) to suggest that this is the case. So... while I don't think we should think of GM as a way to create an inexhaustible food supply, it seems quite reasonable and indeed inevitable that GM foods will be a big part of how we feed the world population in the foressable future. Macrosan, this is a little fatuous. You can't answer those kinds of questions about your viewpoint either. No one can. It's too complicated and we don't have enough information. Yea yea yea... all the tinkering we have done has been so horrible that better nutrition, medicine, and other forms of technology have enabled people in the "first world" to enjoy unprecedented longevity, freedom from disease and a standard of living unimaginable only 100 years ago. Nuclear bombs are pretty bad, I'll agree. But nuclear power is pretty good. And it is not clear to me that nuclear bombs as we have experienced them are all that much worse than, say, the Black Plague. Now, about that veal...

Evidence that this is actually the case? Here's an excerpt of a U.S. Government Report on this subject. The gist of it: chlorinated hydrocarbons, products of detergent and surfactant manufacture, some products released from plastics and exposure to estrogenic chemicals may cause the decrease in male fertility. Also, note that I said in the following sentence, that this causality is still being debated. Call me a cynic, but I don't give a whole lot of weight to something that appears in "Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly." Especially as they seem to make an awful lot more of this study than I see there.

Macrosan, apparently I have misconstrued some of your points. That said, I'd like to examine a few things... These seem pretty close to being the same thing to me. The logical conclusion of the above is: Now, it is a fact that you didn't say exactly what I said. You only said that the population would grow as the food supply grows. However, the idea that the population will shrink as the food supply shrinks is part and parcel of your original statement. It also happens to be true in a somewhat limited sense. The population may not grow beyond the limits of the available food supply, so the food supply determines the maximum possible population. If the food supply grows, the maximum possible population grows. Likewise, if the food supply shrinks, the maximum possible population shrinks. Again, these seem like pretty much the same thing to me. Where your statement above is wrong, in my opinion, is that it assumes the human population will always grow up to the maximum possible size as determined by whatever by whatever growth-limiting conditions exist -- in this case, available food supply. In fact, as evidenced by countries like Italy, the actual population may be smaller than the maximum determined by food production, depending on many other variables. These are a little different, it is true. My statement could be taken to imply that we should not seek to increase the food supply above today's levels whereas yours seems to imply that we should not seek to increase the food supply above a level that we somehow determine is "safe and sustainable." You are absolutely correct that my statment here puts the cart before the horse. That said, I am not sure it is an "an exact reversal of your words." Rather than deciding on the desired population first and determining the level of food production that corresponds to that population, as I erroneously attributed to you, you advocate deciding on a "safe and sustainable" level of food production which then corresponds to some inherrently desirable population. No matter which way you look at it, it would seem that a big part of this idea would be to refuse to produce food beyond a certain level. And what exactly do you think would happen if the "safe and sustainable" level were less than the current level of consumption by the world population? I hope I have not misconstrued or misrepresented your position. However, it must be said that whether or not you advocate the deliberate limiting of food production as a means of population control, your statement above would seem to indicate that you do, in fact, advocate the deliberate limiting of food production. You are correct when you say that whatever restrictions on the food supply happen to exist will delimit population. However, when you advocate deliberate limitation of the food supply you inherrently advocate limiting the population by these means. Because the fact of the matter is that, when you limit the food supply people will starve, people will kill, people wil succumb to disease and people will die. This is exactly what happens in the so-called "natural world" every day. However, as humans the idea is that we want to be humane to one another. And the fact is that ample evidence exists showing that a limit on food production does not necessarily limit reproduction in an individual basis. This is to say that it doesn't limit the creation of new lives, it just limits the rate at which those new lives persist to reproductive maturity. In other words, it's not necessarily the case that mothers have fewer children... it's mostly the case that more of the children die before they can have children of their own. Indeed, there is every indication that cultural values adjust to this phenomenon so that women reproduce more, not less. Another big problem with your idea is that it is very hard to determine just what is "safe and sustainable." That might mean tree-hugging organic non-GM farming and a relatively small human population to some people. However, it could also mean massive genetic manipulation of both plant and animal life along with other drastic changes to the environment -- including perhaps the total extinction of all forms of life not necessary to support human consumption needs -- to feed a truly gigantic human population. There is no reason to suppose that one choice is inherrently "safer and more sustainable" than the other. I certainly prefer the former, but one cannot prove that the latter wouldn't work just as well. So, in sum, I think that FG is correct that we must seek ways to feed the world's population today. It is inhumane to do otherwise. Similarly -- and here is where I think the "first world" is failing -- we must aggressively seek to improve those other aspects of human existence that seem to go along with lower population growth. And I don't think it can be ignored that societies with plenty of food, with higher levels of affluence and education, where women are educated, have opportunities outside the home and are relatively free from oppression, and where sex education and birth control are ubiquitous tend to have low population growth. In my opinion, it may be the case that problems aren't solved by throwing food at them, but is certainly is the case that plenty of problems are created by a lack of food. I hardly see how it would be possible to create the conditions that might lead to lower population growth until people have enough to eat. Now... I am only looking at a few sentences that you wrote. Perhaps you meant for it to come out differently, or perhaps you were just pursuing an idea that came to mind and think differently. I'm cool with that. What do you think then?

This is indeed the source. I don't have a copy of Duplais to hand at present but if you will accept a passage from Bedel's Trait complet de la fabrication des liqueurs et des vins liquoreux dits d'imitation Paris, 1899, (which many people think was largely a rehash of Duplais) I can email or fax it to you. I fear that I may try the forum's patience as well as my own typing accuracy if I copy out passages of 19th century French distillers handbooks! However, when Duplais wrote the original work in 1855 no one considered thujone an issue and there would have been no way of measuring it with any accuracy if anyone had had the inclination to do so. Duplais was interested in distillation and producing liqueurs and eaux de vie so he quoted figures for g/l of essence of wormwood but not concentrations of thujone. OK... now we're getting somewhere. Do you think it is the case that Duplais wrote a figure for g/l of essence of wormwood and Strang et al. misread this as a concentration of thujone? As you point out, Duplais would hardly have been able to measure the concentration of thujone anyway, which is a fact I can hardly think would have been unknown to Strang et al. In fact, I wonder whether the existence of thujone was understood at all in 1855. So, what I am wondering is where the misunderstanding/mistranslation happened. Of course, I did not mean to suggest that you type long passages of 19th century French and several possible translations thereof. I thought it would be more along the lines of "Duplais says blah blah blah here and was really referring to X, but Strang et al. mistranslated it as referring to Y." Is it not the case that Strang et al. read something in Duplais that caused them to extrapolate what they thought was a reasonable extimation of the thujone concentration in absinthe based? Somewhere there has got to be the misunderstanding. I am just trying to get a handle on what it was. Great! Glad to have you aboard. And still looking forward to any recommendation of absinthe that might be available in the US, if you are aware of any.

DDT may well have a worse reputation than it deserves, but I would stop short of characterizing it as "benign" with respect to humans. The following piece, which is a defence of DDT, is at pains to point out that research does suggest a link between heavy DDT exposure and low birth weight and premature births. http://web.ask.com/redir?bpg=http%3a%2f%2f...gourevitch.html Ooops. I should have paid more attention to what I was typing. I meant to say "relatively benign" rather than "quite benign." My point was that the stuff isn't exactly cancer in a bag, and that there are plenty of things out there that are 100 times worse for humans than DDT. Interesting quotes from the web page you linked to: That's pretty darn harmless in my book. YMMV, of course. As for whether or not the article points to a study that posits a link between heavy DDT exposure and low birth weight and premature births, as you suggest: The emphasis is mine, and would seem to indicate that Longnecker's study didn't even correlate the presence of DDT in the bloodstream of these women, but rather simply observes that women who lived during the ara when DDT was in heavy use tended to have silghtly a slightly higher incidence of pre-term deliveries and low birthweights. This is not particularly convincing evidence, IMO.