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Genetically Modified, Caffeine-Free Coffee 87

Posted by timothy from the think-rabbits-in-australia dept.
pyrrho writes: "Coffee, Genetic Modifications... perfect for Slashdot. Kona Coffee Growers want to ban GM Coffee from the "Big Island". If you think your are for GM coffee... keep in mind they are trying to grow a type of coffee without caffeine! So, think again(tm). It might be different if they were trying to double the caffeine."
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Genetically Modified, Caffeine-Free Coffee More

Genetically Modified, Caffeine-Free Coffee

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  • best left as nature intended. Coffee is one of those things. During those times that I've had to give up caffeine, I switched to herbal teas. Almost as good, without having to worry about growing a third eye.
    • Genetically modified caffeine free coffee is the same as regular coffee. It just has the gene that produces the protein caffeine deleted. GM foods cannot change your body's DNA. That is a completely unfounded myth.

      GM foods are completely safe unless a poison is introduced (NEW!! Nightshade enhanced brocolli!!!) or an allergen is introduced. DNA codes for proteins. That's all it does. Now, scientists usualy know what protein the gene they are splicing in codes for. So GM foods are very safe.
  • If someone wants to try to grow GM coffee without caffeine, go for it. Why is it ok to make fairly exotic hybrids to do what we want a plant to do but not go about it using the source? If its labeled properly, so consumers can choose between GM and non GM (or irradiated/non irradiated etc) what is the big problem? Seems like the Kona coffee company is concerned about competition.

    I understand that the caffeine that is removed from decaf goes into other products, so this removes a potential revenue source. However, I don't know if the cost of removal is higher or lower than the value of the caffeine.

    • Re:Why the big concern over GM (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ndanger ( 589194 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @11:03PM (#3899077)
      GM doesn't just make crops more plentiful or disease resistant, it introduces a new species. This can cause all sorts of problems. GM plants can destroy biodiversity [globalexchange.org], become unkillable mutant superweeds [newscientist.com], and give corporations more IP power [arkinstitute.com]. As an example, I believe there was an old Slashdot story (I searched but couldn't find it) about a Canadian farmer who was being sued because genetically modified seed blew off of passing trucks and cross-fertilized his field.

      This doesn't mean that GM is bad, or that Kona coffee growers aren't more concerned with the purity of their brand than their crop, just that we should proceed with care [ama-assn.org].
      • Ahem.

        1) The Canadian farmer had investigated Roundup-Ready crops, and decided that they cost too much.

        2) The Canadian farmer planted a field, and used Roundup as his sole means of weed control, which would have killed any non-Roundup-Ready plants. He still managed to bring in a full crop, which means that his entire field was Roundup-Ready and, because only a total moron would spray something that would kill his crop, the farmer knew it was Roundup-Ready.

        3) The farmer used seeds from the crop to plant the next year's crop, and used Roundup alone again.

        4) Monsanto sued him

        5) The Canadian farmer claimed in court that he didn't acquire the seed illegally, but that it must have been seed that fell off the truck.

        6) The Canadian courts ruled that even in the incredibly unlikely event that the farmer's entire field was accidentally planted with Roundup-Ready seed, #2 proved he knew he was growing a Roundup-Ready crop and #1 established that he knew that he was violating Monsanto's patent when he planted the seed the next year.

        In short, the farmer was lying through his teeth, the court knew it, and the court smacked him down.
      • Two organisms are different species if they cannot produce viable offspring. A GM coffee plant crossed with a non-GM coffee plant will produce viable coffee plants. In this case, the offspring will appear either normal or "half-caff", depending on the status of the gene affected in the modification. Therefore, these two plants are not different species. GM does not produce a new species by any current definition of the term "species"
      • > GM doesn't just make crops more plentiful or disease resistant, it introduces a new species. This can cause all sorts of problems. GM plants can destroy biodiversity [...]

        HuH? Either the GM-hacked coffee cross-pollinates with unmodded coffee, or it doesn't.

        If there's no cross-pollination, then there's no risk of the GM-hacked coffee making it into the wild.

        If there is cross-pollination, aren't you contradicting yourself? How can introducing new genes into the pool "destroy biodiversity"? The very definition of "biodiversity" makes it an inherent contradiction.

        (The real question about GMing coffee not to produce caffeine is "Why bother? What self-respecting geek drinks decaf anyways? Maybe if they can make g3n3-h4x0r3d c0ff33 with more caffeine, I'll be interested.")

        • If there is cross-pollination, aren't you contradicting yourself? How can introducing new genes into the pool "destroy biodiversity"? The very definition of "biodiversity" makes it an inherent contradiction.

          The threat to biodiversity the article referred to the "squeezing out" of other organisms--the threat is that the GMed plants will multiply quickly and rob nutrients from other organisms. Where there used to be a balance of power, GMed crops might create a monopoly; instead of having a field with lots of plants, you've got a poop-load of mutant corn.

          That's not automatically a bad thing. But saying "sure, release whatever you want into the environment and let consumers decide!" seems more than shortsighted.

          PS> It doesn't matter to me, I don't like coffee. I drink tea: the anti-h4xor beverage.
          • GM plants are usually modified with aspects that make them better from viewpoint of humans, or companies. That may not give them any edge over natural plants when it's about survival of the fittest.

            Some properties (disease or bug resistance for example) may or may not offer enough benefits to outweight the disadvantages (plant growing Bt may, for example, use bit less energy to do so, when natural version doesn't, and not do so well against it when it's not given fertilizers any more).

            In this case, it's clearly even more unlikely, caffeine production hasn't evolved into caffee plants by change, or it would've disappeared already, thus decaf'd plants are not as competitive as existing ones, and can not threaten other organisms.
      • In the "good old days" when Monsanto & Co still developped new varieties by crossing existing varieties they used to sell hybrid seeds that couldn't multiply (the resulting plants were infertile). Why isn't that technique used for GM stuff?
    • My only concern with GM foods is that the technology is not acessible to 3rd world countries, which typically depend on the export of agricultural goods to survive.

      Making agriculture dependent on GM food is to make 3rd world countries even more dependent on the bottom line of multinational biotech companies.

      Apart from this, I welcome GM food. For example, it should be much more healthy to drink no caffeine GM cofee than to extract the caffeine of coffee using all sorts of organic, potencially hazardous, solvents.

      Increased pruductions with desisese and weather resistant plants should also produce less agricultural polution for the same crop yield.

  • Yeah... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:12PM (#3898912) Journal
    <Homer> Right! And someday they'll create BEER without ALCOHOL in it!! Sheesh! </Homer>

    • That's funny - I was just thinking:

      Homer: Caffeine free coffee?!? We aren't going to stand for that, are we boys?

      Lennie & Carl: No!

      Homer: Let's go get them! Ouu! Pengiun Mints...

  • Well - (Score:2, Funny)

    by RaboKrabekian ( 461040 )
    I'll get excited when they can genetically engineer crack in to coffee. That should help with those 48 hour benders...

  • Useless brown water (Score:3, Funny)

    by Scaba ( 183684 ) <joe@joefranDEBIANcia.com minus distro> on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:34PM (#3898981)
    Decaffeinated coffee:

    "It's useless warm brown water."
    "Say goodbye to your will to live."
    "It's what they're drinking in hell."

    Apologies to David Letterman [cbs.com]
    • Well some people do actually like the taste of coffee and they drink it not for the cafene, but the taste. Just like some people like beer for the taste and not the effect.

      Also you'd be able to drink a cup of coffee before going to bed which many cannot do and still get to sleep.

      Lastly there are some people who have acid reflux and should not have caffene, but this would give them caffene free coffee... oh and decafe coffee does have some caffene, it is just much less than regular coffee....

  • Louisa's Bakery & Cafe in Seattle (Score:5, Funny)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:40PM (#3899001)
    Louisa's Bakery and Cafe in Seattle (on eastlake) call a double tall non-fat decaf latte a "why bother." I love hearing them yell orders, single short mocha, double tall non-fat and two "why bothers" to go.

    Best damn omelettes anywhere, IMO, too....

    -Sean
  • 'ey! I *like* my morning decaf! It wakes me up but doesn't keep me from sleeping through morning meetings like normal coffee does!

  • Caffeine Free Coffee (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bouncings ( 55215 ) <.moc.redniknek. .ta. .nek.> on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @11:10PM (#3899107) Homepage
    A caffeine free cup of coffee just isn't right. It's kind of like combustion-free motor oil, scandal-free whitehouse, defect-free Windows, or troll-free slashdot.

    It's just not natural.

  • If this ends up like maize in Mexico... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by schmaltz ( 70977 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @11:18PM (#3899138)
    it could wipe out caffeinated coffee.

    Before you flame or down-mod me as being anti-GM or anti-futurist, review the facts [bbc.co.uk] and double-check the counter claims and rebuttals [sciam.com].
    • But of course if a low-caffeinated coffee was bred from natural sources, and then contaminated the germplasm that would be OK?
      • Well, that's an interesting point... up to a point. The assumption I sense in your message -which is the message also put out by the biotech industry- is that genetic modifications to organisms is no different from wild cross pollination *or* selective crossbreeding in a hothouse or lab.

        But is that true? The purpose of genetic engineering is to add new sequences which result in the expression of new features (proteins, hormones, &c) not previously found in that organism -are we agreed on this point, at least?

        With crossbreeding, wild or selective, the species of the pollen/sperm/germ plasm sources need to be pretty closely related to the species which will bear the seed/fruit/offspring -otherwise it just won't take. Still with me? So, new characteristics will come about when crosses are from already related species -my understanding, anyway.

        GM does an end-run around the related species "requirement" of crossbreeding, by employing techniques which splice, inject, shotgun or otherwise introduce a new sequence into the recipient species' genome. Correct? Now, from what I've read, many of the sources for the new sequences come from species that are not related to the recipient species. They sometimes don't belong to even the same phylum or order.

        A quick example is the now-demised Flavr-Savr tomato -genes from the flounder fish and a bacteria species were inserted, to add shelf life and toughen the overall structure of the fruit.

        Would evolution bring these specific additions about on its own, or could you obtain those sequences through crosspollinations? Doesn't seem so -it seems that if they could have, they would have. The tomato plant and the flounder would have to spend another hundred million years evolving or more before the possibility of them becoming compatible enough to exchange genetic material on their own.

        So to answer your original question, it doesn't matter to me as I don't drink coffee! But the interesting thing is, whether crosspollinated or engineered, genes do escape into the wild, and the cousin species do pick up the new characteristics -even from the GM plants. That's pretty scary.
        • > But the interesting thing is, whether crosspollinated or engineered, genes do escape into the wild, and the cousin species do pick up the new characteristics -even from the GM plants. That's pretty scary.

          How so? Evolution takes care of its own.

          For instance, I happen to think that decaf is an abomination unto my sight. Were I in the business of running a coffee plantation, and GM-hacked decaf beans started showing up, I'd (a) be pissed, (b) rip out the decaf plants, and (c) probably sue the inventors of decaf beans for the cost of replanting. The gene for decaf stops at the border of my field because I select against it.

          Suppose I'm wrong, and most people prefer decaf. I can either (a) go out of business, or (b) grow decaf or less-caffeinated beans. The gene for decaf propagates, but it propagates because I choose to stay in business and select for it.

          Suppose everyone's wrong, and human civilization stops. Then we're back to natural selection.

          Caffeine is bitter stuff, and toxic to some insects. That may be why it evolved in coffee beans. Within a few dozen generations, predators will take advantage of the decaf beans - low-caffeine plants will have their beans eaten more often, thereby producing fewer offspring, and things will return to normal.

          In the case of the Flavr-Savr tomato, the same thing applies -- I'd expect that a tomato with a tough skin and long shelf life, in the absence of human intervention, would sit on the ground and act as a tasty morsel for predators for longer periods of time than unmodded tomatoes.

          Meantime, unmodded tomatoes that rot after a day or two - get their seeds into the ground faster, have their offspring germinate sooner, and have more nutrients (from the soil created after the fruit rots away) - than the Flavr-Savrs.

          Farmers planting GM foods are no different than farmers who select crops for desirable traits. In neither case are farmers selecting traits that are advantageous to the food plants -- they're selecting for traits that are advantageous to humans.

          And if you think that's somehow wrong or immoral, I suggest you research how we've directed the evolution of corn over the past 1500 years.

    • That would assume that removal of caffeine from the beans gives a selective benefit. Most likely, caffeine evolved to be in coffee beans for a reason, and gives some benefit. IOW, caffiene increases your Darwinian fitness!
  • Removing caffeine from anything is WRONG. You're supposed to ADD caffeine, not remove it!
    • Time to stock up on some Penguins [peppermints.com]. Man, I love those things... crunch three or four and it's the same caffeine as a cup of coffee, and your breath is freshened too!
  • If they can figure out how to take the coffee out genetically, they will not be far from knowing how to increase the caffeine dose.

    ---"I'll have a half decaf, half double-expresso with half non-fat and half half-and-half".
  • That's just plain WRONG! Nature wanted us to have caffeine in our coffee, so why not let it continue to give that to us? Caffeine is the lubricant that runs our society -- where would programmers be today if it weren't for coffee? Probably in bed, contemplating the next killer game to top tetris and breakout. Adding decaffeinated coffee to the mix makes no sense whatsoever.
  • Did you like the taste? If you're like myself and most of my acquaintances from Uni time, probably not. A nasty, bitter taste - not just because for most of us our first experience was with the instant variety which was pretty vile in those days. After a while I got to tolerate it, now I like it, but I'm pretty sure it's a learned response from the caffeine jolt. (Ditto tea, BTW - I'm a Brit but couldn't stand that brew either till I reached Uni.)

    Coffee without caffeine seems somehow pointless.
  • ode to caffeine:

    oh caffeine, oh caffeine
    i love your fuzzy buzz
    the shakes, the shivers
    the drool upon my chin.

    oh caffeine, oh caffeine
    without you i cannot be
    i do not breathe nor see
    nor write in proper english

    oh caffeine, oh caffeine
    you will be my swift death
    i pray that when my heart giveth up
    my brain still buzzeth


    : four 100mg caffeine pills a day
    : better life through chemistry

  • I can't help think about a strong corollary, where the geek sympathis are like to be reversed.

    Hypothetically if somebody where to suggest GM tabacco with low/no nicotine, the established tabacco producers would likly follow a similar path and oppose, probably stating similar reasons. GM is bad, taste, choice, et. all.

    Geeks would probably be sympathetic/support a GM change 'for the geater public good', after all nicotine is a dangerous addictive drug.

    In this case I think many Geeks would follow pyrrho's lead and oppose the GM, since Caffine is also a rather dangerous addictive drug.

    • You're wasting your breath, man. Every caffeine-related thread I point out that caffeine isn't the safest substance in the world. And every time I'm either (mostly) ignored or flamed. Many posts I can get an "Informative" or "Insightful" but not when you question a vice of the majority of /. readers.
      • Yeah, no kidding. When I read stuff from all these caffeinated kids it makes me cringe. It's exactly the "I need X more cups of coffee in the morning than you" type pissing contest that gets me the most.

        Congratulations, you are all addicts.

        At least we can be comforted in the fact that caffeine lowers your sperm count. That, coupled with the very low likelyhood that most people here even have girlfriends, says some good things about what the gene pool will look like in 20 years.
    • Nicotine-free tobacco would be completely boneheaded. Non-smokers still wouldn't smoke it, because it'd still be bad for you. Smokers wouldn't smoke it, becase the nicotine's what they're addicted to. (Non-chemically-addicted smokers might smoke it.)
      • No. Coffee actually tastes good, while smoking has no other point than nicotine (and making you look cool).

        Many people for medical or other reasons cannot have caffeine at all. Other choose not to, because there are some really detrimental effects to drinking it.
        • "No" what? No one would smoke nicotine-free tobacco at all? If that's what you're saying, I mostly agree.

          However, there's a lot of talk about the psychological addiction of smoking (aside from chemical). Perhaps those smokers would smoke nicotine-free tobacco.

          I still think it's a boneheaded idea, though.
      • I should add: coffee is different from tobacco, because the tobacco itself is harmful, not just the nicotine. AFAICT, Coffee is not particularly harmful, except for the caffiene.

        And if GM tobacco plants were introduced, and I was convinced that nicotine-free tobacco was a Good Thing, you'd still have to convince me that this was the only reasonable way to obtain nicotine-free tobacco.
    • > Hypothetically if somebody where to suggest GM tabacco with low/no nicotine, the established tabacco producers would likly follow a similar path and oppose, probably stating similar reasons GM is bad, taste, choice, et. all.

      Well, most of the harmful effects from smoking are due to the fact that you're slurping partially-oxidized chemicals straight into the mucus membranes of your lungs, so I suspect that a nic-free smoke wouldn't be much healthier than your current smokes.

      Problem is, a nic-free smoke wouldn't provide the pleasure to the smoker that nicotine provides, so it'd do poorly in the market. Cigarette smokers would never switch to nicotine-free cigarettes - why bother? (Just as pot smokers have no reason to smoke hemp - you can't get high off THC-free marijuana, so you make rope out of it instead of smoking it :)

      Without the nicotine "high" to addict first-time users, nic-free cigarettes would be useless even as an entry-level product. ("Freddy! We know you're the 'cool' kid on the block, but this Junior Camel your Dad gave you tastes/smells like crap! Why the hell do the grownups smoke this stuff again?")

      So yes, you could engineer nic-free tobacco, but the tobacco lobby wouldn't care either way, because nobody would pay money to smoke it.

      Side note: I always thought the nicotine patch was a good idea - but that it shouldn't require a prescription.

      Nicotine's a drug. It's legal in an air-fouling, often-lung-cancer-causing (cigarette/pipe/cigar) form without a prescription. It's legal in a clean (unless you're kissing the user), sometimes-mouth-cancer-causing (chewing) form without a prescription, why can't it be legal in an even cleaner, non-cancer-causing (patch) form without a prescription?

      FWIW, I'm a non-smoker, and the reason I don't hang around smokers is because, well, I think your drug of choice smells like crap. If you nicotine addicts could just dose up with a patch, you might still have a heart disease risk from long-term nicotine use, but your lung cancer rates would drop, and most importantly, none of us non-smokers would have any legitimate reason to ask you to butt out -- because you wouldn't be filling our air with your choice. Just like coffee drinkers, you could enjoy your drug of choice in public or in the workplace without anyone getting on your case! :-)

  • Of course, if caffeine really does help prevent Alzheimers [slashdot.org], the future for decaf may be black!
  • I'm all for great caffeine free coffee. My doctor took me off caffeine. The pain of his Rx was bad, but not quite as bad as the pain of the ulcer that was forming. It's dang hard to find really good whole bean decaf. For now I'm living off Starbuck's decaf House Blend. And I do realize that decaf espresso is quite a contradiction.
  • Just a few days ago on /., there was this article [news.com.au] which talks about reduced risks of getting Alzheimer if drinking 3 or more coffees a day.

    Why would I want to get rid of the ingredient that actually does anything good?

    • They attributed the affect to caffeine out the 200 odd akalines in coffee because they presume, by the celebrity effect, that caffeine has the highest muzzle velocity. Until this new coffee hits the market, they can't actually do a proper experiment to determine whether caffeine is the active ingredient.

  • I can see it now.

    Genetically engineered decaf-coffee plants cross-breed with normal coffee plants creating a half-strength coffee plant. Then half of that... then half of that. They're trying to wean us off our coffee people!

    We've got to do something! I'd lead the effort, but for some reason, I just don't have any energy today...

  • What's the point? (Score:3, Funny)

    by olman ( 127310 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:03AM (#3901620)
    I've never understood why someone would drink decaf.. I you're using drugs, there's little point just taking placebo, is there?

    Some people..
  • Why would they try and kill all of us by growing coffee w/ out caffeine? I mean don't they understand my cells won't divide w/ out caffeine?????

  • Caffeine-free coffee?
    Genetically Engineered.
    Slashdot says "No Way".
  • Even though this is not to be a popular amungst the /. crowd, it does interest me. I found out that caffeine is bad for me through my doc last fall, causing strange heart palpitations.

    Even decaf. coffee is too much caffeine for me is seems because decaf is not actually caffeine-free, only has the majority of it removed.

    So, for someone like me that's just dying for a good cup of coffee (the smell at work all day just kills me!), but can't have ceffeine in the mix... this is going to be just what the doctor ordered!


  • I need something that keeps me awake when I'm too busy 133t #@ck1ng to be bothered eating or crinking at all...

  • This has got to be right up there with:

    1. The automatic open on impact parachute
    2. The submarine screen door
    3. Caffeine free diet Coke(tm)
    4. The solar powered flashlight
    5. DRM

    Sheesh.

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