Genetically Engineered Seafood Coming To a Restaurant Near You (indianapublicmedia.org) 140
"The first genetically-modified animal for human consumption could be arriving in grocery stores across the United States as early as next year." Long-time Slashdot reader tomhath tipped us off to Indiana Public Media's report on AquaBounty Technologies:
AquaBounty will produce a GMO salmon that CEO Ron Stotish says will grow faster than freshwater-raised fish. "It does so because we've given it the ability, using the same biological process that regulates growth in the unmodified salmon, to grow about twice as fast reaching market rate about half the time," Stotish says. The technology has been around since the 1990s, but it took until 2015 to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, due to concerns about people eating genetically-modified animals. The genetic makeup of the biotech fish takes a growth-hormone regulatory gene from the Pacific Chinook salmon with a promoter gene from an ocean pout and puts it into the genome of an Atlantic salmon. The result causes for the growth hormone to remain on leading to faster growth rate than non GMO salmon.
The modified fish is able to grow to market size using 25 percent less feed than the traditional salmon, increasing cost efficiency... Stotish says his operation causes less harm than traditional fish farming. "We're not using coastal waterways, we're not putting antibiotics and medications into the water," Stotish says. "Our fish are in a controlled environment, we don't need antibiotics, we don't have to treat for sea lice."
The company says that every year Americans consume about 350,000 tons of Atlantic salmon -- more than 95% of which has to be imported.
The modified fish is able to grow to market size using 25 percent less feed than the traditional salmon, increasing cost efficiency... Stotish says his operation causes less harm than traditional fish farming. "We're not using coastal waterways, we're not putting antibiotics and medications into the water," Stotish says. "Our fish are in a controlled environment, we don't need antibiotics, we don't have to treat for sea lice."
The company says that every year Americans consume about 350,000 tons of Atlantic salmon -- more than 95% of which has to be imported.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see why don't we alter the natural progression of growth and see what happens
I'll tell you what happens right now, you get all the meat and very little of the flavor, just like with over-fertilized vegetables.
The regular farmed fish already has mushy flesh with little flavor compared to wild fish. This is going to taste more like pollack than salmon; it will just be boring. But it will be fish, and it will taste like "a fish."
I'm not gonna be the guinea pig for this experiment either, if I wanted to eat bland mushy fish I'd go down to the river a catch a Northern Pikeminnow or 50.
Re:What could go wrong?? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I don't know about you, but I can tell the difference between farm and fresh by the taste, not texture. It's the feed they give the farm raised. It tastes more chemical-y and less buttery-fatty, for lack of a more accurate description.
And they dye it pink for chrissake!
Re:What could go wrong?? (Score:4, Interesting)
They don't dye the flesh. That's one of the myths listed in the first article I linked -- tl;dr: farmed salmon is fed with the same caroteniods that wild salmon gets from crustaceans.
Personally, I can't taste the difference between farmed and wild, nor frozen or fresh. But uncontrolled anecdotes are next to useless.
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I can taste the difference in farmed and wild caught salmon. Perhaps I could be less skeptical of your position if your first link wasn't to Alltech, an aquaculture proponent site, and your 2nd link wasn't to a fish farm management site.
While taste is a consideration, it is not the only one. I consume some healthy things that do not satisfy the taste buds nearly as well as many of the things thought to be most unhealthy. Wild caught salmon seem to have spent less time marinading in a broth of antibiotic so
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I appreciate the scrutiny of my sources for potential bias and conflicts of interest. I was worried about this as well, which was why I aimed for three corroborating sources. But you didn't specifically refute any points that were made, and instead just dismissed the authority [wikipedia.org] of the article writers.
As for your claims, which contradicts my first reference, what are your counter-evidence that farmed salmon spend a considerable time swimming in antibiotics? And what is your evidence that use of said fish-spec
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"...what are your counter-evidence that farmed salmon spend a considerable time swimming in antibiotics? And what is your evidence that use of said fish-specific antibiotic is detrimental to human health?"
Well, first... it seems unlikely fish not swimming in antibiotics would need to be defended and/or prosecuted to the standard of not detrimental to human health.
2ndly through fourthly: Farmed salmon full of antibiotics [youtube.com]
wild salmon vs farmed [feedthemwisely.com]
Salmon farming in crisis: 'We are seeing a chemical arms race in the seas'" [theguardian.com]
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Well, first... it seems unlikely fish not swimming in antibiotics would need to be defended and/or prosecuted to the standard of not detrimental to human health.
Antibiotics are administered to the salmon as medicated feed. A responsible farm would only administer it when a bacterial infection is detected. Farmed fish doesn't "swim in it," as you make it out to be. Norway, which produces about 1 million out of 3.2 million tonnes of globally farmed salmon,[1] [globalsalm...iative.org] [2] [who.int], also use alternatives to antibiotics, such as vaccinations and separating generations, and disinfecting empty holdings.[2] The quantity of antibiotic use in Norway has dropped from 48 tons in 1987[3, page 2 [globalsalm...iative.org]
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I'm happy I'm more or less migrating to Thailand.
Most fish is "farmed" here, and is rather boring, just Nil perch and catfish. But it is so delicious made on char coal. (Obviously I can buy sea fish and trouts farmed in the Chiang Mai area).
Farmed means: everyone has a pond, full with fish. No need to GMO anything, and I bet you could do the same in the US ... but alas ... profit profit profit.
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Let's see why don't we alter the natural progression of growth and see what happens.
If you compare almost any crop or animal grown for food, to the wild type it came from, there are dramatic differences, especially in the progression of growth. We have been adapting food crops to our needs for at least 10,000 years.
These salmon are bred to grow quickly, but that means they are more dependent than ever on a steady supply of food and an absence of predators. So if there is an accidental release, they are less likely to survive in the wild than non-GMO salmon, and less likely to interbreed
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Before domestication, maize plants grew only small, 25 millimetres (1 in) long corn cobs, and only one per plant. [wikipedia.org]
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So if there is an accidental release, they are less likely to survive in the wild than non-GMO salmon, and less likely to interbreed with wild fish, so they are environmentally safer. ...
That is probably the biggest nonsense you ever wrote
Re:all you need to do is refuse to order it. (Score:5, Informative)
Tuna (Score:3, Insightful)
GMOcean (Score:2)
Imagine tuna stack vertically in cages like chickens all in farm in the basement of the amazon warehouse.
PrimeSashimi delivered by drone. No parasites to worry about.
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I think they just feed farmed fish wild caught fish, so the mercury is still there. There might be a difference in amount.
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The USA is not the world, and even in America, it can be argued that Pollock is more eaten. All those crab sticks and such.
Going by harvest levels, various types of carp (grass silver and common), along with the Peruvian Anchovy and even Tiapia out number Tuna, which out numbers salmon.
Then there is shrimp.
Note that the carp and tiapia are mostly farmed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Misleading title (Score:2, Interesting)
Not seafood.
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Not seafood.
Good luck convincing me to say "waterfood" without the quotes, though.
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The GMO salmon will be initially grown inland on a small scale. Once it is no longer a novelty, the operation will be scaled up and the fish will be raised in the ocean. They are taking it slow to avoid a backlash.
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Not seafood.
Walleye and trout are freshwater fish, but you'll still find them in the seafood section of the menu.
Sell whatever GMO you want, (Score:5, Insightful)
as long as it is clearly labeled so that I can make an informed choice.
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So you can make an informed choice, by weighing up all the misinformation you're being told from both sides.
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It looks like you're projecting straight from your experience. Please go on...
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I know I can trust any global holding to try to fuck me as hard as it can, yeah.
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So you can make an informed choice, by weighing up all the misinformation you're being told from both sides.
This is the level of philosophy that slashdot is capable of, right here.
"I cannot understand, therefore you cannot understand."
Sad. But also true.
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I wish I had teeth like these.
Re:Sell whatever GMO you want, (Score:5, Insightful)
as long as it is clearly labeled so that I can make an informed choice.
Even the non-GMO salmon is fed pellets made from GMO-corn and GMO-soybean meal.
If you want to avoid all GMO you need to buy "Organic" or "Wild".
Another way to make an informed choice by reading information on the topic instead of listening to nonsense from Greenpeace.
People opposed to GMOs know the least about them [biotech-now.org]
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Another way to make an informed choice by reading information on the topic
Yeah, reading information is always good. Now, let's see how unbiased is this "Biotechnology Innovation Organization"....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.sourcewatch.org/in... [sourcewatch.org]
Yep, an entirely unbiased source of "information", this one.
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Here is a link from Nature: Opponents of GMO know the least, but think they know the most [nature.com]
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What does this link have to do with my point? I'll bold the relevant part of my comment for you, because you obviously lack reading comprehension: Sell whatever GMO you want, as long as it is clearly labeled so that I can make an informed choice.
I am not pro or against GMO, I am not interested in your (or anyone's) opinion as to it safety. When I say informed, I mean one specific thing - a label on the product that makes it clear if I'm buying a GMO or not.
When I decide how to spend my money it is my right
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as long as it is clearly labeled
Regulations should be based on scientific evidence. They should not pander to superstitions. There is zero evidence that GMO salmon is harmful, and no reason to believe that it is.
If someone wants to grow non-GMO salmon, and label it as such, they are free to do so. This is exactly how it works with other GMO foods. If you go into any grocery store, there are plenty of products labeled "GMO Free", or "Organic" which implies GMO-Free.
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Regulations should be based on scientific evidence.
Not really, the regulations of the market should first and foremost reflect the preferences of the participants. That you choose to disparage such preferences as "superstition" is your value judgement, and it is just as valid as the opposite one.
But since you insist on "scientific evidence" as a basis of a regulation, let's see what is available. urns out there is plenty. First, the evidence that markets operate best when full information is available to t
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Not really, the regulations of the market should first and foremost reflect the preferences of the participants.
Poppycock. Mandating information based on verifiable justification, perhaps. But mandating information just because people have unfounded fears from misinformation campaigns is not required.
Next you'll tell us that manufacturers should be required to label all "gluten free" products as such because some people are gluten-sensitive -- even products that cannot possibly contain gluten. It's really pretty funny looking at labels today, where companies freely demonstrate an ignorance of what gluten is. I've se
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Mandating information based on verifiable justification.
Mandating information because there is material, easily ascertainable difference in the origin of what you buy, you mean? Yeah, even you seem to agree with that, in abstract. Until it comes to your pet peeves :)
But mandating information just because people have unfounded fears... Next you'll tell us that manufacturers should be required to label all "gluten free" products as such
That's a good, two-paragraph strawman that is also a false analogy. Congr
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Mandating information because there is material, easily ascertainable difference in the origin of what you buy, you mean?
No. Not even close. And you know it. Do you really think that there should be mandatory labeling of corn chips to identify which state of the US the corn was grown in, for example? That's a difference in the origin that makes no difference in any scientifically discernible way. "Maltodextrin" which comes from GMO corn is identical to that which comes from non-GMO, and is thus indiscernible in any scientific way, but according to you, it has to be labeled because it is an "easily ascertainable difference in
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They will lobby for laws to prevent laws that require labeling.
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Dangerous expirement (Score:2, Insightful)
A lot of things can go wrong here. No, its not something that you can say with high confidence is safe. Likely what happened was that someone with big bags of cash paid off someone in the agencies to approve this thing. Money talks, and big business will play fast and loose.
It will end up in the environment and it would probably overproliferate and have some devastating effect on the food web.
The growth hormones could have disasterous effects on humans including promoting cancers. All around a foolish and d
Ob (Score:2)
Would there be the possibility that some of it may be kindly purveyed upon us in the soon-to-be 51st state?
--
J. Rees-Mogg c/o The Houses Of Parliament, London.
Sounds fantastic! (Score:2)
... If you're not one of those salmon.
Yeah, I wouldn't eat it (Score:2)
That's just asking for trouble [schlockmercenary.com]. Predicted over 18 years ago, too!
When will the US try to force the EU to buy/sell (Score:3)
Like with GMO or hormone poisoned beef, I wonder how long it takes the US will try to force the EU (or asian countries) to allow to sell it there.
Why not something useful with this tech? (Score:2)
We have enough natural and farmed salmon. Why not genetically modify a 'problem' fish like silver carp [wikipedia.org]. It's a problem fish here in North America where it also has low culinary value (even though it has high culinary value in China). Why not change silver carp to address some of its shortcomings?
Mod parent up please. (Score:3, Interesting)
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The main difference is that tuna is used mostly as a filler fish, not a main course, so it makes sense to intensively farm it.
When you do that, you're going to sacrifice a lot of flavor, but canning already does that, so canned farmed tuna might not be much different from canned wild tuna.
But salmon isn't usually canned, and when it is, it loses most of its price premium. GMO farmed salmon is really risky bet, because they might only be able to get lower prices comparable to canned pink salmon. Also the fac
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The main difference is that tuna is used mostly as a filler fish, not a main course,
Strange, in Europe and Asia it is a main dish.
Re: Mod parent up please. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mod parent up please. (Score:5, Informative)
The objection to gmo in plants has been about increased use of pesticide, namely Roundup
1. Roundup/Glyphosate is not a pesticide. It is an herbicide.
2. Roundup-Ready crops allow herbicides to be applied more effectively after germination, rather than using much harsher herbicides to kill weeds in the seed stage. In many cases, herbicide use goes down, and Roundup is much less persistent in the environment than the chemicals it replaced.
3. Roundup-Ready crops allow for much less environmentally damaging "no-till" farming methods, that reduce erosion, and improve soil nutrient and carbon retention.
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Oh, I was mistaken.
This is the dumbest post you ever made ...
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A herbicide is by many considered a type of pesticide. This includes the EPA. Calling glyphosate a pesticide isn't wrong; its just less specific.
https://www.beyondpesticides.o... [beyondpesticides.org].
https://www.epa.gov/minimum-ri... [epa.gov]
Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree.
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Roundup-Ready crops allow herbicides to be applied more effectively after germination, rather than using much harsher herbicides to kill weeds in the seed stage.
Considering that glyphosate can show up in foods [theguardian.com], this isn't exactly extolling a benefit of Roundup-Ready GMOs.
This is exactly the same concept which gave the anti-vaxxers movement traction. Instead of immediately acknowledging that some people might not like mercury compounds in their vaccines, the medical community responded with "But this mercury isn't harmful at all!". We all know how that turned out.
GMOs have some positive benefits for both humanity and the environment but enabling the agri-biz to se
Re: Mod parent up please. (Score:2)
But, what happens with GMO being about pesticides restistance is that various genes have been ins
Re:Not the first (Score:4, Insightful)
We hear this argument from GMO shills but its a fallacious argument. Most foods are not GMO. GMO specifically refers to direct intentional manipulation of DNA by inserting or removing DNA. We've been doing selective breeding for a long time, this is NOT GMO, and the process cannot produce the same effects and dangers of GMO. Also selective breeding isnt necessarily safe, you can end up with toxic effects. The probabilities with GMOs are much higher because it allows changes which would never occur due to a sexual process and allows it to happen with a severity and rapidity that would not occur with breeding. Selective breeding imposes certain limits and constraints on things because genes can only transfer within the same species and the mutations happen at a lower rate.
That you refer to selective breeding breeding as GMO destroys your credibility and your just trying to mislead people.
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We've been doing selective breeding for a long time, this is NOT GMO, and the process cannot produce the same effects and dangers of GMO.
Well that's a lie.
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So selective breeding is not 'genetically modifying' an organism? What is it doing then?
Re:Not the first (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't be so harsh on people for using the term "GMO" incorrectly, as the term itself is unspecific, and is often broadened to include anything that has had its genes altered[1] [europa.eu], even by nature.[2] [forbes.com] [3] [smithsonianmag.com]
It would be so much simpler if people just referred to the specific technologies being utilized, as they all suffer from risk/reward issues, and there aren't clear ethical borders. An incomplete list of the technologies used include:
* Nature's own technique of random mutations with a natural selection filter on top
* Artificial selection by humans, which in ~10,000 years gave us massive, delicious mutants like the modern wheat and corn crops, and docile cows, pigs and dogs
* Cloning started around the 1800s in order to perpetuate popular varieties of e.g. apples, oranges and bananas, whereby a branch of the tree is cut off and re-planted
* Forced hybridization has been around the 1900s, where two distinctly inbred parental lineages are perpetually bred to produce sterile offspring (e.g. seedless watermelons, or mules for use by the British Empire as amazing pack animals)
* Radiation-induced mutation breeding (mutagenesis) has been around since around the 1930s, which forcefully increases the mutation rate and splits chromosomes in order to allow breeding with other species -- a technique the EU even calls GMO (see [1])
-- a lot of western staple crops are based on, or hybridized from, crops produced from this technique
* Chemically-induced mutation breeding is a more modern version of mutagenesis that's doesn't cause as much DNA damage -- still a GMO in the EU though (see [1])
* Transgenic modifications, where specific genes can be takes from unrelated species, was invented in the 1970s
* Cisgenic modifications, where the specific genes are taken from a species where it would have been possible to acquire it naturally through conventional breeding,[4] [wikipedia.org] have been a classification of GMOs since around the year 2000
So GMO debates could be untangled massively if people just spoke about the specific technologies. For instance, I suspect based on your comment that you would be against transgenic GMOs and mutagenesis, but for cisgenic GMOs... while being on the fence about forced hybridization?
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It's not that simple, even just selective breeding can accidentally produce or spread very dangerous organisms such as Heracleum sosnowskyi [wikipedia.org]. The main dangers of any modified organism (regardless of its GMO status) is toxicity and damage to the ecosystems from its rapid spreading. GMO organisms are very carefully tested/studied before entering market, this can even sometime
Re:Another example of technology that nobody asks (Score:4, Informative)
I'm guessing no one asked for GMO insulin [acsh.org] and GMO cheese [geneticlit...roject.org] 30-40 years ago either, but dropping society's dependence on chopped-up cow pancreases and calf stomachs allowed us to significantly ramp up production and lower costs.
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Where are you getting the info that GMO rennet is mostly used by the US? It's widely used in Denmark and Sweden as well. I would almost assume the same for any western country where the demand for hard cheese outpaces the demand for veal.
As for the comparison made, the parent I responded to specifically said "GMO anything," which I saw as fair game. But I think you're right in that topic which the article is about, this has been an unnecessary tangent.
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One study estimated [journalofd...cience.org] that GMO rennet (a.k.a. FDC/FPC) could account for up to 80% of the global market share of rennet.
As for taste, there shouldn't be a difference between the chymosin enzyme produced in calf stomachs and the chymosin enzyme produced by microbes. As described in a comparison [google.com] of Gouda and Cheddar cheese making, there was no major sensory difference between bovine rennet and bovine FPC. Though camel-based FPC interestingly led to reduced bitterness.
What do you propose is the mechanism for yo