ANOTHER GM MONSTER FOOD CREEPING INTO THE FOOD PLATE!

Americans are about to add one more GM food to their diet if the FDA finally clears GM salmon as safe for human consumption. Developed by a small scale enterprise through biotechnology route, GM salmon is going to be a money spinner as it has the ability to grow fast and big resulting in very significantly higher productivity. According to the developers who promptly patented their product, there is absolutely no difference in taste, flavor and texture between normal and GM version of the fish. As for safety some short term studies seem to have been made based on which safety clearance was sought. As the US is one of the most ardent "admirers" of GM foods, with more than 80% of foods in the market containing GM ingredients, FDA just could not hold up the clearance process for too long. Here is a commentary on the present position vis-a-vis GM salmon in the US as being reported in the media.

"Michael Hansen, a researcher at the Consumers Union, explained that GE fish could cause allergic reactions that the FDA is unable to anticipate. GE fish will also likely not be labeled accordingly, leaving consumers in the dark about where the fish is coming from. If the FDA does not heed the public outcry, Congress could still prevent the commercialization of GE fish. Wenonah Hauter, director at the Food & Water Watch, urges consumers to contact their congressmen to overturn what has been called "a dangerous experiment" at the expense of consumer health. Other concerns about GE fish pertain to its ability to outcompete natural Atlantic salmon. If it is released into the wild, the AquAdvantage salmon could adapt to new pray, survive in tough habitats, and reproduce much faster than its natural counterpart.Andrew Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety concluded that "the GE salmon has no socially redeeming value. It's bad for the consumer, bad for the salmon industry and bad for the environment."


The most unfortunate aspect of GM salmon clearance is that the safety authorities, in collusion with the industry is trying to push the product on to the dining table of even those who are not willing to consume them. As of now the industry is not being mandated to declare the GM nature of the fish on the label for giving an option to those not wanting to eat them because FDA holds the view that GM salmon is not significantly different from natural salmon in any way. If stray reports concerning the undesirable consequences of consuming GM products are taken seriously, there can be a considerable percentage of population which can develop allergy and serious health consequence. Fears are also being expressed regarding the possibility of extinction of natural salmon in the ocean if GM versions gain access unintentionally or for commercial reasons. if mankind is driven by logic, fish eating should have stopped long ago considering one has food grains like Chea which has more than three times Omega-3 fats than that in Fish!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

CARBON CLEANSING-ANEW APPROACH FOR REDUCING CO2 IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Carbon dioxide is considered one of the greatest pollutants in the history of mankind and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air humans breath has increased tremendously with the advent of extensive fossil fuel burning practices that sustain modern civilization. Whether burning of coal, diesel or natural gas for power generation in thousands of power plants across the world or consumption of petroleum products for internal combustion engines in automobiles and other transportation carriers, carbon dioxide is the end product that is spewed out into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is known to trap heat which in turn leads to global warming creating natural havoc like drought, flooding, unnatural and unseasonal rains, agricultural failure etc and global efforts in reducing carbon pollution do not seem to be taking the world any where near the reduction target desirable for atmospheric stability. One of the feasible ways to reduce carbon dioxide reduction is to remove the same through efficient technologies on a scale that will have some significant impact. A recent claim by a company in Canada that it has developed a technology to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide is exciting news though its economic feasibility is yet to be established. Here is a glimpse what this innovator has done in this area.

"Now a Canadian company has developed a cleansing technology that may one day capture and remove some of this heat-trapping gas directly from the sky. And it is even possible that the gas could then be sold for industrial use. Carbon Engineering, formed in 2009 with $3.5 million from Bill Gates and others, created prototypes for parts of its cleanup system in 2011 and 2012 at its plant in Calgary, Alberta. The company, which recently closed a $ 3 million second round of financing, plans to build a complete pilot plant by the end of 2014 for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, said David Keith, its president and a Harvard professor who has long been interested in climate issues. The carbon-capturing tools that Carbon Engineering and other companies are designing have made great strides in the last two years, said Timothy A. Fox, head of energy and environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London. "The technology has moved from a position where people talked about the potential and possibilities to a point where people like David Keith are testing prototype components and producing quite detailed designs and engineering plans," Dr. Fox said. "Carbon Engineering is the leading contender in this field at this moment for putting an industrial-scale machine together and getting it working." Should the cost of capturing carbon dioxide fall low enough, the gas would have many customers, he predicted. Chief among them, he said, would be the oil industry, which buys the gas to inject into oil fields to force out extra oil. The injection has minimal risk, said Howard J. Herzog, a senior research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The enhanced oil recovery industry has put tens of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the ground every year for decades with no problems," he said.

World to day is estimated to generate about 33377 million tons of carbon dioxide of which China alone accounts for 9700 million tons followed by the US with 5420 million tons! Though the development of the technology is still at the pilot plant stage, looking at the technical feasibility there is no reason why it will not become an option in future for controlling the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Captive modern power plants are already deploying carbon dioxide trapping gadgets located at the emission end to bring down the level of this gas in the exhaust as much as possible. What is posing a challenge is the billions of tons of this gas spewed by millions of cars and other petroleum fuel consuming transport carriers, each one of them capable of emitting 5 tons of carbon dioxide per year! Probably location of the carbon dioxide capturing plants as reported above, in any parts of the world can have benefit for the entire humanity. Collective investment by all countries in putting up such massive plants in desolate and uninhabited islands can bring about very significant lowering of carbon dioxide in the air through out the world with its attendant benefits flowing to the entire global community.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com