Hacker News Reader

Comment by mmastrac | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a fan of the term "real food" that Greenpeace uses. Your body can get nutrition from anything in a compatible form. It doesn't matter if it's been engineered, crawls on tree back, created in a science kit - if it's compatible, your body will absorb it.

> “The only guaranteed solution to fix malnutrition is a diverse healthy diet. Providing people with real food based on ecological agriculture not only addresses malnutrition, but is also a scaleable solution to adapt to climate change.

View on HN

"real food", "natural", etc - these are language signs that pseudo-knowledge is creeping into the issue.

I am waiting for entirely synthetic food options that will compete with photosynthesis from an energy perspective. That could be huge for space for instance.

Perhaps algal oil? Soylent is taking that approach

Do algae not rely on photosynthesis?

This isn't necessarily true.

Vitamins often need to be consumed with the foods they're found in to be absorbed properly.

Fructose as an additive, fructose in squeezed juice and fructose in whole fruit are processed differently in the body.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/08/reduce-type-2-...

It's not about nutrition. It's the risk that hidden risks that GMOs engender. E.g. Unknown effects upon the ecosystem.

Another example: GMO Wheat contains an unnaturally high gluten content. Gluten is an irritant for everyone--some more than others. We have many people who are not really "gluten intolerant", but think they are. They are just sensitive to the unnaturally high gluten content in GMO foods.

I assume you mean certain varieties of GMO wheat have high gluten content? There's nothing about GMO itself that would cause that, it's a matter of what they decide to change.

There is no commercially grown GMO wheat. I have no idea where you heard this nonsense. And within different non-modified wheat varieties, gluten content varies greatly. Ex. Hard, red winter wheat has more gluten and is often used as bread flour. There is no incentive to breed wheat for higher gluten content anyway.

You're wrong on both accounts.

1) A GMO wheat currently is used. It's called Renan. 2) Higher gluten flour is desirable for bread products such as pizza. I make my own pizza. The best pizza bread is made from high-gluten flour.

Correction: Artificial selection and contemporary milling processes have increased the gluten content. Not from GMO.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com