Oranges and GMOs and Florida and the OJ Industry

[weinoo]

There was an interesting article this past weekend in the NYT on the battle being waged against what appears to be an unstoppable disease that sours oranges and leaves them half green.

Of course, many are against G.M.O.s in any and every form. Although, let's face it, most of us eat modified fruits and vegetables on a daily basis - the orange is actually already a genetically modified fruit, no?

Anyway, article is entitled A Race to Save the Orange By Altering Its DNA.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

[HungryC]

Citrus greening has made it to my locale, with a few scattered cases showing up in commercial groves and backyard orchards. It's not yet widespread, though no one really knows why.

Commercial OJ is, to me, a marketing marvel. Most people actually believe it is a natural product. How has that industry managed to disguise the extensive manipulation of the "juice" for so long? Extraordinarily weak product labeling requirements mean US customers don't understand that a whole host of flavoring compounds and additives are ALREADY in their OJ. At this point, will GMO oranges matter to the average consumer buying it? I seriously doubt it. As long as Tropicana continues to pump out TV ads showing orchards and white-guy farmers picking fruit, some segment of consumers will continue to drink it down.

[gfweb]

For me there are three GMO issues that are a concern. First the potential for unanticipated ecological mischief (eg BT corn pollen killing butterflies). Second the behavior of overzealous corporate lawyers who sue the pants off of innocent farmers who are unlucky enough to have GMO pollen drift onto their field and fertilize their plants. Third, the irrational, fear-mongering that goes on from those who virulently oppose GMO anything no matter what the potential benefit.

Of these, only #2 is solvable. Either the companies could tell their lawyers to back off and not pursue obviously unfair cases or congress could step in and establish ground rules.

#1 can never be fully assured. A similar situation exists with drug approval. You don't know a new drug is really safe for a few years.

[Shel_B]

Commercial OJ is, to me, a marketing marvel. Most people actually believe it is a natural product. How has that industry managed to disguise the extensive manipulation of the "juice" for so long? Extraordinarily weak product labeling requirements mean US customers don't understand that a whole host of flavoring compounds and additives are ALREADY in their OJ.

How is "commercial" OJ manipulated. I've not bought any for years, but recall that ingredient list was pretty simple - just pasteurized OJ. What am I missing?

[Brown Hornet]

The process of pasteurizing and storing OJ greatly reduces its flavor. When the pasteurized OJ is ready to be packaged and shipped for consumption, they add flavorings to the OJ. Apparently the FDA does not require that these flavoring additives be listed on the packaging. Are the flavorings harmful? I doubt it. At the same time, I think it's fairly disgraceful that they are not required to list this on the packaging.

Back OT, the use of GMOs does not bother me, in theory. Humans have been genetically modifying produce for thousands of years to increase yields. My bigger concern, which is somewhat linked to GMOs, is the decreasing biodiversity of our crops. When a significant portion of our crops have identical genetic strains, it would seem that that crop would become more susceptible to a single disease or other blight.

[weinoo]

It's amazing to me that they haven't yet found a single orange tree amongst the infected ones that is resistant to this disease.

[Shalmanese]

Apparently the FDA does not require that these flavoring additives be listed on the packaging. Are the flavorings harmful? I doubt it. At the same time, I think it's fairly disgraceful that they are not required to list this on the packaging.

All of the flavoring additives are extracted from oranges which is why there's no requirement for them to be labelled. It's hard to imagine how they could be substantially more harmful than the oranges they were extracted from.

[gfweb]

It's amazing to me that they haven't yet found a single orange tree amongst the infected ones that is resistant to this disease.

If the orange trees are all derived from grafts they are probably very similar if not identical. This old form of cloning guarantees consistent fruit, but decreases the seed-driven genetic diversity in which a resistant tree can arise.

[HungryC]

Apparently the FDA does not require that these flavoring additives be listed on the packaging. Are the flavorings harmful? I doubt it. At the same time, I think it's fairly disgraceful that they are not required to list this on the packaging.

All of the flavoring additives are extracted from oranges which is why there's no requirement for them to be labelled. It's hard to imagine how they could be substantially more harmful than the oranges they were extracted from.

I wasn't suggesting that it was harmful, just highly processed and not labeled as such. People have been trained to look at labels--when they see "not from concentrate" and only "orange juice" listed on the label, they don't understand the contents are not an industrially processed mixture of treated liquid. The added flavoring should be disclosed on the label, IMHO.

I think the big, legit fear about transgenic plants is the potential for unintended effects on pollinators. Bees are suffering....no bees, no fruit or veg. We may inadvertently wipe out the pollinators in our race to eliminate pesticides and diseases through transgenic modification. It's important to distinguish between traditional (and ancient) plant breeding and seed selection and inserting genes from completely unrelated organisms into plants.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Bees are suffering....no bees, no fruit or veg.

I wish no particular harm to bees, however in North America bees are an invasive species, or at least a non-indigenous species. North Americans ate fruit and vegetables before bees were introduced. That being said, I'd still rather not have GMO food if I had a choice.

[HungryC]

Bees are suffering....no bees, no fruit or veg.

I wish no particular harm to bees, however in North America bees are an invasive species, or at least a non-indigenous species. North Americans ate fruit and vegetables before bees were introduced. That being said, I'd still rather not have GMO food if I had a choice.

Many of the fruit and vegetables you're eating are not indigenous to North America (with the notable exceptions of corn, some beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and squash). Apples, oranges, pears, almonds, filberts, all of the brassicas, melons, figs.....it's a long, long list. Without pollinators (whether bee, wasp, midge, etc), we're sunk.

[Toliver]

HungryC is sort of right about the orange juice we buy from the store.

Here is an interesting article on how Coca Cola (who owns Minute Maid) uses an algorithm to make sure the orange juice they bottle/can tastes consistent from season to season:

"Coke engineers its OJ -- with an algorithm"

Inside the bottling plant, "blend technicians" at a traffic control center carry out Black Book instructions prior to bottling. The weekly recipe is tweaked constantly. Natural flavors and fragrances captured during squeezing are added back into the juice to restore flavor lost in processing.

Basically they "dismantle" the orange, its juice, its oils, etc, into parts and then recombine the parts (which could be called additives) into a specific mixture so the consumer will get a consistent juice product.

So technically speaking, the processed juice we drink isn't really just juice from an orange. It's a concoction or recipe.

And logically you'd think Coca Cola isn't the only company doing something like this.