Three things

[juliew]

Rather than make a bunch of threads, I thought I'd put this all in one :)

1. I have a free Your Right to Be Beautiful book by Tonya Zavasta. I went to see her speak last night and when she saw that a section of my book had come off the binding, she offered me a new one. She said to give the old one to someone who would enjoy it. So, if you don't mind that, its all yours!

2. Is this an oxymoron or what?!: seedless organic grapes

3. I attached a file of something I saw in the grocery yesterday. I was like "you've gotta be kidding me." In case you can't read it, it says Lite SlimCado. On a sign near it it said 45% less fat and something percent less calories. I thought it would fit better in the aisle with the Fruit Roll Ups or something!

Light,

[Veganelle]

Slimcado!?? OMG, that is unbelievable! I wouldn't touch that thing with a 10 foot barge pole.

[Irish_Vegan_Girl]

Slimcado? How would they create that?

So your giving the book away to anyone?

Yeah aren't seedless grapes GM?

[sport]

Seedless does not mean GM, It is just hybridized but then lots of fruit are. I do not like seedless fruit. It does not seem natural.

[katchmoleen]

I ate one of those slimcados once, because it was on sale....it was truly awful. No thanks!

[Irish_Vegan_Girl]

Seedless does not mean GM, It is just hybridized but then lots of fruit are. I do not like seedless fruit. It does not seem natural.

Ok. How do they make seedless grapes? I eat them anyway:O:)

[juliew]

Irish Vegan Girl: yep, to anyone :)

[snoops]

You know the whole GM thing bothers me. Isn't a hybrid tomato say genetically modified. Doesn't all that mean is that they crossed two types of tomatoes. Is that a bad thing? Now seeds that have been genetically modified to produce a plant whose seeds are sterile, well yeah that's bad. But is crossing plants to get better plants bad? That's also genetic modification - am I right?

[katchmoleen]

I used to work as a plant geneticist. There are several ways to make GM plants, but the scariest technique is to take the DNA from one organism and insert it into another organism. Usually bacteria such as e Coli is used to do this, which opens up the whole can of worms of bacterial resistance. Other types of GM are using chemical stimuli to cause a plant to mutate, then culling the mutants to see if any have desired characteristics. This is less scary. Hybridising is a natural technique which has been done for centuries and can happen spontaneously in nature. Not scary at all.

[pixie_333]

But is crossing plants to get better plants bad? That's also genetic modification - am I right?

cambells gave some brazilians millions of dollars in the 80's to learn more how to do this for their tomatos. and still to this day they are trying to find the next best tasting tomato. they have chemists and green houses filled with various kinds of tomatos plants developed from a test tube at cambells. they call it GM.

[pixie_333]

ps

i find all hybrids just bad. if it naturaly occurs in the wild without any doing from mankind with factory waste getting in landfills etc.. then ok. but i am totaly against any kind of deliberate creation with plants.

and am wondering and it's O/T... but is it because of humans keeping dogs and cats as pets taking them away from the wild that there are so many cross breeds now?

[juliew]

Hybridising is a natural technique which has been done for centuries and can happen spontaneously in nature. Not scary at all.

So does that mean hybrid isn't so bad to eat? I know David Wolfe says always eat fruits WITH seeds, but you've got the first hand experience :)

Are these grapes likely hybrid or GM? Because I'm thinking that if they are hybrid, they would have had to be mixed with another grape that had no seeds which doesn't naturally exist...

such controversial grapes :p if I could find ones with seeds that would solve the whole problem!

[katchmoleen]

Commercial plant hybridization is done just like the bees do it, pollen from one plant is sprinkled onto the "sex organs" of another plant. Then they see what that plant ends up like, and they keep reproducing it under controlled conditions. Most hybrids have seeds, but since they contain the DNA from two different plant varieties, they will not reproduce "true". It can be fun to still plant them and see what you get. They are not sterile. Now seedless fruits? They are not truly seedless but the seeds are so small you cannot really see them, or they are really soft and edible, like "seedless" watermelon. And they may be sterile, that I don't know. My work was done with guar plants, of all boring things, trying to mutate guar plants to grow in non-tropical conditions. I hated the work, got fired, went back to school, and now I am a nurse! While working in the lab, I got exposed to all sorts of nasty chemicals that contributed to my current health challenges.

[T-Bird]

I read that seedless grapes were a natural variation, and they were then propagated via root cuttings.

Seedless watermelon, they mess with the genes.

Hybridized isn't so terrible, imho. It could have happened naturally, they just gave an assist. But I certainly prefer heirloom types, alot of hybridization has been done for outward appearance and shelf-life - not for taste:(

[katchmoleen]

I didn't explain well about the seeds......most seedless varieties are just hybrids. They kept crossing until they found babies that had such tiny seeds as to seem seedless. So then they celebrate, and they just keep crossing the two parents to produce the babies that they sell to growers. Hybrids and GM are definitely NOT the same thing. Hybrid tomatoes do not have e Coli bacteria DNA in them, as some GM plants do.

[buffalogal]

Hi Juliew!

If you haven't found someone to give the book to, I would really love to have it! It's one I don't have and I've always wanted to read it. I just turned 61 and could use some beauty tips! I will be sure to "pay it forward" (pass it on) when I'm done with it. I've not done anything like this before, so I'm not sure how to go about it. Do I send you my email to give you my address? Of course, I would be glad to pay for the postage! Let me know! (Also, thanks for starting this discussion about seedless, hybridized fruits and vegetables! I'm learning alot!)

Sincerely, Marion

[Irish_Vegan_Girl]

Irish Vegan Girl: yep, to anyone :)

Cool, I would jump at the chance, but I have a strong feeling that there is someone else who would benefit from it much more than me.

[sport]

The thing that bothers me about seedless goes deeper that hybrid or not.
The purpose of the fruit is to help disperse and protect the seeds and if there are no seeds then the plant has been fooled in to producing the fruit and does not put any love in to it.
I want my fruit to be given to me willingly by the plant and I want the plant to want me to eat it so that the seeds can be spread. It is the natural way,
Seedless fruit is empty and contains no love.

[juliew]

Sorry all, I was out of town. I did find someone who wanted the book (she emailed me right away). I'm enjoying the grape discussion too :)