On 25 Jul 2003 15:01:43 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

In sci.med.nutrition Moosh:] wrote:
On 22 Jul 2003 07:08:06 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:
[...]
It always amazes me how Organic folk can accept a GE "chemical" as OK
for their needs.

Bt is a natural soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, which happens to
be toxic to butterfly and moth larvae. It is not a GE "chemical", though
the genes producing the Bt toxins have been engineered into GE crops.

I suggest you bring yourself up to date. BT is the freeze dried
protein (chemical) that is produced by the bacterium you mentioned. It
is a stomach poison to caterpillars and some other insects. Some
strains of it are produced by genetic engineering.

Yes, I suppose it would be extracted from GM crops.

No, GM bacteria, I believe.

Or is it produced by
some GM bacterium?

Yes.

The Organic folk would not accept it if it were
properly labelled as GM.

I suspect they are so desperate for permitted pesticides, that they
don't want to know

They would use the non-GM sort.

Then they may be restricted from the various BTs that target different
insects. Not sure which are GM, but there are BT chemicals for
mosquitoes and so on.

All you have to
be amazed about is the labelling issue.

No, the hypocrisy of Organic growers trying to bend their rather silly
rules to accept what they need. Ferinstance, there are many safe
fungicides, but organic folk only permit the toxic and very persistant
heavy metal, mined, copper salts. Go figure.

Desperation? Anyways, Bt has been so overused that it
only has a limited useful life.

Now that it is present perpetually, whether really needed or not, you are
right.

Well it is that by use of the protein powder by agriculture and the
home gardener.

No, because when GE'd into a crop it is present all the time, though
gradually fading in strenght as the crop matures.

But it is present whenever the caterpillars are present in the garden
or crop. When there is no plant predatiojn, there is no resistance
occurring.

When home gardners use it, or non-GM soy farmers &c, it is only present as
needed, then disappears.

And why does it matter if it's there or not, if the pests aren't
predating the crop?

New specific pesticides will be
developed.

Which we do not know the problems with.

Same problems as with BT. Have you heard of testing?
Happens all the time.

So the Bt crop suppliers, who are ruining it, should be paying for the
research for something new organic.

They are, all the time. They developed BT, so why shouldn't they use
it, and develop further selective pesticides. BTW, who says they are
ruining anything?

And the produce will probably not
sell as well as when the organic Bt stuff was used occasionally.

Only because the public has been hoodwinked into believing that
Organic is somehow better.

It is.

No evidence that it is.

Why buy corn with Bt protein in it?

To get a pest free crop, without having to spray, thus saving much
fossil fuel needed in applying the sprays a number of times.

Why buy paste made from tomato which keeps longer, but with no guarantee
about the nutritional qualities lasting in proportion?

Huh? Tomato past is hardly a staple. It's a flavouring or a spice IME.
Does it matter if a bit of any nutrient in it disappears?