[Aioli/Alioli]

Aioli is essentially garlic mayonnaise. As others have remarked on other threads here, mayonnaise is quite safe from a bacteriological standpoint. Much safer than you think it might be.

Obviously, the most important thing to do is start out with the freshest eggs you can find. I always use eggs I buy at the Green Market, and they were laid perhaps a day or two before I bought them. If you are paraniod about salmonella, there are a few things you can do: 1) you can coddle the eggs using whatever procedure people use to render eggs safe that way; 2) you can buy eggs that have already been rendered safe via irradtiation or whatever it is that they do; 3) you can freeze the egg yolks for several days, which has the added benefit of increasing the emulsifying properties; 4) you can cook the eggs over heat as one would to make a Hollandaise; 5) you can make your aioli by adding the other ingredients to store-bought mayonnaise; 6) throw caution to the wind and just use the raw egg. I recommend #6 myself.

So, assuming you start with nice fresh, high quality eggs there is one other thing working in your favor: Since one of the primary components of mayonnaise is an acid (lemon juice or vinegar usually), the pH is relatively low. So low it is deadly to most bacteria that might concern you. In fact, Alton Brown recommends leaving your homemade mayonnaise out at toom temperature for one hour after it is made in order to give the pH the best chance to kill off any such bacteria. I have consumed homemade mayonnaise up to two weeks old with no ill effects. The long and short of this is that you have nothing to fear letting it sit our for an hour or two if you're going to be eating it immediately thereafter.

As for the egg yolk or whole egg question... I believe that all the emulsifying properties of eggs are contained in the yolk and that the whites mostly contribute additional liquid. Since I prefer that the liquid components in my mayonnaises be flavor components, I use only the yolks. The general rule of thumb is: one yolk + one cup of oil + 1-1.5 T acid + 1 t kosher salt = a little over one cup of mayonnaise. A touch of Dijon mustard is often included as well.

In re to your last question, I'm not sure what you mean. Aioli is garlic mayonnaise. If you make it with other ingredients, it is no longer aioli but another kind of flavored mayonnaise. I don't go through all thart much mayonnaise, but when I do use it I always make it at home. Interesting flavorings (to me) have included chipotle peppers, smoked Spanish paprika, parsley, cracked black pepper, Sichuan peppercorns, chervil, tarragon, porcini dust, Old Bay seasoning, even lamb drippings... just about anything (not all together, of course).

Just made a kick-ass mayonnaise last PM with a tiny bit of garlic, minced basil, lemon zest, lemon juice, integrated lemon/olive oil (i.e., the lemons are crushed together with the olives -- not an infused oil) and safflower oil. Very tasty.

[Roasting a Chicken]

What happens eventually is that the salinity of the brine and the salinity of the meat achieve an equilibrium (the initial difference in salinity is part of what makes brining work).

Just on the technical side, there is something that I'd like to point out:

When you have different levels of dissolved solids between food and brine, liquid will move from the less concentrated environment into the more concentrated environment until the two environments have more or less the same levels of dissolved solids. This is what is meant by "equilibrium."

Now, normally one would think that there's no way a chicken could possibly be as salty as the brining solution. This is, in fact, correct. So why doesn't brining a chicken actually move water out of the chicken and into the brine? This is, after all, exactly what happens if you brine a cucumber. Is this happened, wouldn't that make the chicken more dry instead of more moist? Correct again.

Luckily, as it turns out, the bland part of most meats is the liquid contained inside the cells and inaccessible until the cell walls are broken. The intracellular fluid -- the fluid between the cells -- has an extremely high concentration of dissolved solids. So what happens is that the brining solution flows into the spaces between the cells until equilibrium is reached.

The net effect of this is that the overall salinity of the chicken is increased even as the salinity of the intracellular fluid is decreased. This is good in the short-term, but the cell walls are used to having a high concentration of dissolved solids in the liquids that surround them. When the concentration of the intracellular fluid is drastically changed by brining, there is only so long the cell walls can maintain their integrity before they begin to break down. A certain amount of this can provide some additional tenderness. However, too much makes the meat mushy.

I have effectively brined a large (say 20 pound) turkey for over 24 hours without encountering any mushiness. It's going to take a long time for any brine to make it into the center of a big thick turkey breast. A 3-5 pound chicken, on the other hand, probably doesn't benefit from much more than a couple of hours of brining. I also like to brine double-cut pork chops.

[Updating the Kitchen Essentials]

You might also think of checking out Fishs Eddy for every day dishes. They're inexpensive, heavy and very durable.

[Painting kitchen cabinets]

Tommy. My  husband is a general contractor and I read him your question.

Bob says this...

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.

[Espresso and Haute Cuisine]

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

[Babbo (First 6 Years)]

urban legend?

Yes

[Humanely raised veal]

Here's some information presenting a couple of sides to this discussion.

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:

The mother and calf bond is a strong one. Yet, veal calves are taken from their mothers as early as one or two days after birth. Often they have not had the opportunity to nurse and receive colostrum, the antibody-rich milk that helps protect them from disease. 

The calves are trucked considerable distances to auction barns and sold for slaughter or delivery to veal barns. During this journey, they are subjected to rough handling (even being thrown onto trucks), inclement weather conditions, and exposure to numerous diseases; they often have no opportunity to rest or eat. When they finally arrive at the veal barn, many calves will become ill or are already sick. 

Until they are slaughtered at 16 weeks of age, formula-fed calves are confined in tiny, wooden crates with slatted floors and no bedding, which are too small for the calves to take more than one step forward or backward. The calves are unable to turn around, to groom their hindquarters, or to stretch out on their sides—a position calves commonly choose to relieve heat stress and bloat. As the calves grow, they are unable to adopt their preferred sleeping position or to lie down without cramping their legs. Veal calves are often separated from their neighbors by partitions that prevent social contact. By nature, calves are social animals who spend a great deal of time playing and interacting.

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:

In addition to supporting the use of individual stalls, the AVMA guidelines also call for well-insulated, well-ventilated barns with supplementary heating systems and levels of indoor lighting — either natural or artificial — maintained so that the calves can be seen easily. Each stall is constructed so that the calves will have adequate room to stand, stretch, step forward, backward, and from side to side, lie in a natural position and groom themselves.  Slotted flooring is provided for comfort and cleanliness. Modern veal stalls allow the animals to have visual and physical interaction with their neighbors. This means that the calves are not socially isolated but are assured of receiving their own feed, individual care and attention of good preventive medical procedures...

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

Veal, as we know it, is a byproduct of the dairy industry--the unwanted bull calves were slaughtered young and sold before they were weaned. I don't see anything cruel about this.

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

It's probably too late, but I would like to return to the discussion of veal, which is much less complicated. I don't think veal presents the same questions of sustainability as, say, commodity crops, GM or not, so it is primarily an issue of quality vs. animal welfare.

It is interesting that Julia (and others) denigrate the quality of "sustainable veal" because, as I recall, Julia (and others) used to be in the habit of denigrating the quality of american veal in general. So I wonder: is regular american veal now objectively good, or just better than the sustainable? I certainly haven't noticed a change.

The other question is: have some people managed to figure out how to make better sustainable veal? That was certainly the implication of Ed Behr's article, mentioned so long ago.

I think we need a tasting.

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:

2 a : of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged b : of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods

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 ?

[Humanely raised veal]

What is good is that this didn't happen to this thread, and I think that's because Sam did fulfil the moderator's role. His style is moderate, even when I don't agree with him. He did misinterpret some of what I said, but allowed me to expound and explain, accepted my explanation, and continued to disagree in a constructive and friendly way. That's called intelligent discourse, I believe.

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

It's probably annoying to the two of you that I keep busting in on your debate, but this just came out today:

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!

Sam, I found your last post surprizingly defenisive, as (I surmise) did Badthings.

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).

Your main  ripostes to my concerns about the negatives of GM is to say they're no worse than the negatives we already have. While I have said repeatedly that I have reached no conclusion about GM, but I insist on proper research and publication of evidence, you only seem to say that GM has the potential to do wondrous things so let's get going.

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

Sam, we must be boring most everyone (apart from the two of us) to hell and back because no-one but our friend Bt is chiming in. So I'll bow gracefully out of the debate, although I promise to read any further reply   Thanks for the interesting discussion.

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

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.

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.

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

Absolutely. Maybe someone should start doing them.

Agreed again.

Boy, talk about uninformed...  Just how much genetic diversity to you think existed in commercially grown American soybeans before GM was introduced? 

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 I seemed shrill, I've been reading a lot about this, and some of the advocates on either side are intellectualy dishonest.

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

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).

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:

Boy, talk about uninformed...  Just how much genetic diversity to you think existed in commercially grown American soybeans before GM was introduced?

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 read that, felt uninformed, so I went off and looked it up, finding that the truth is that there is 187 chromosonally different (which, as the child of two chemists, you should know is significant variation) varieties of pre-GM soybean.

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."

I'm not certain, but I also don't believe that 1990, and certainly not 1995, varieties would qualify as "before GM was introduced" which, again, is what you put forth.

Roundup Ready soybeans were introduced commercially in 1996.

As for you, Sam, I found it ironic that you were twisting macorsan's words in almost the exact way that you claimed yours were twisted when you were off insulting midwesterners in that Babbo thread. It is entirely possible to have discourse and share opinions and facts (actual and perceived) without stooping to intellectual name-calling.

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

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. 

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.

[TDG: Southern Foods: Is They or Is They Ain't?]

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

It's probably annoying to the two of you that I keep busting in on your debate, but this just came out today:

Paul L. Raymer and Timothy L. Grey, "Challenges in Comparing Transgenic and Nontransgenic Soybean Cultivars," Crop Sci 2003; 43 1584-1589

[Excerpt snipped for brevity.]

Not to drag this out unnecessarily, but I think this demonstrates the need to really familiarize oneself with what we do know before getting all het up about this. E.g., FG seemed really pissed off by the suggestion that GM crops had lower yields, though this is in fact the case.

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.

Sam, I'm not trying to attack you, but this is a common, and very, very lame, argument:

Macrosan, there are already horrible problems that have been caused by so-called natural organisms that we have introduced to various environments.

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.

And you are certainly right about the potential of crop biotechnology to do all kinds of wonderful things -- but it is merely that, potential. No one is close to commercializing anything that's going to help feed the world, or do anything except try to get Monsanto in the black.

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.

Finally, the last sentence of that abstract is food for thought:

Many larger SVT programs will soon consider discontinuing separate trials for conventional cultivars as their numbers and importance diminish.

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.

[Rao's]

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.

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.

[Rao's]

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

I also have few misgivings about the likelihood of genetically engineered foods poisoning us.

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.

[Genetically engineered foods] might well create some long-term genetic change in human make-up...

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.

Just as a matter of policy, I would want all genetically engineered food to be subject to the same compliance as pharmaceuticals

There should definitely be strong oversight, this is true. And, as far as I know, there is strong oversight.

I would also like to see the necessary timescale for clinical testing greatly extended as compared with pharmaceuticals, simply because the likely time for any adverse effect to be recognized would be greater for GM food.

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.

When I talk about the safety of GM agriculture, I am thinking of the safety to the ecosystem, not so much the safety of the food.

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...

Let me paint a scenario (in which you'll have to excuse my lack of agricultural knowledge).

A farmer in Oklahoma plants 10,000 acres of GM corn which is resistant to worms. ... A few years after that, the farmer of the GM corn dicovers that his land has become effectively sterile as a result of the lack of worms and insects and animals which used to keep the soil broken up and manured. So he has to use articficial soil nutrients, and much heavy machinery, to keep his crop growing.

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.

Now my scenario has no end, because I think the series of causes and effects is infinite. I don't think the scenario is at all extreme, and I think that in principle at least it's more likely than unlikely.

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).

[Humanely raised veal]

While I acknowledge that my own opposition to GM is founded largely on cynicism, I'm interested to know why specifically it is that you support it. Have you read some independent material that I haven't seen which has convinced you of its virtues ? If so, I'd like to read it too.

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.

[TDG: Eight at El Bulli]

To me, as a wine lover, this is the weakest point in Ferran's culinary conceptions

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.

[Help please -- beef stew tasted "liverish"]

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?

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

Sorry to sound like an ignoramus.. but what is white truffle oil??

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.

[Humanely raised veal]

Well now, Sam, 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.

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 a hugely important difference of principle between "determining what is the optimum population of the world and matching food supply" and "determining what is the optimum food supply and allowing world population to match". You see the latter determination is nothing but a matter of science, although granted we don't have the facts or research yet to reach a conclusion. Whereas the former determination (of optimum world population) is nothing but a highly suspect political judgement, which could never achieve universal agreement.

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.

Of course I recognize that we can't yet formulate an intelligent opinion on optimum food production, but we have to take incremental decisions along that path. A decision on GM is just one of those. What we cannot do is to ignore the fact that interim policy needs to be made, without the benefit of all the facts, and we must acknowledge that some day a final decision will have to be made. This uncertainty is what makes the whole subject difficult to address.

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.

So I repeat the thesis from my previous posts that the much spouted claim for GM that it will enable us to feed the world is specious. Someone needs to answer all my questions above...

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.

The human race has inevitable tinkered with the world around it on a few occasions. Development of nuclear bombs was one consequence, and I have yet to meet someone who, with benefit of hindsight, is glad we did that.

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...

[Humanely raised veal]

As well as increased levels of herbicides, pesticides and estrogen which reduce the overall sperm count in men living in First World countries.

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.