Is "green rice" a kind of GM food?

[wickerwoman]

Sorry to ask such a stupid question but I'm trying to make sense of an article I want to talk about in class. It's about a Chinese professor worried because she can't sell her "green rice" because the public is suspicious of it. It's an article in a Chinese newspaper though and the political bias (the customers are apparently being unreasonable)and poor English make it hard to understand. I seem to remember a post about GM food where someone was talking about "some color rice" being a scam launched by Monsanto. It's supposed to have some higher nutritional value but in fact the quantity is so low it's no better than regular rice. Was that "green rice" or "golden rice" or something else entirely? Is it green because of the color or does it mean organic? I've tried googling but all I get are recipes.

So does anyone know anything about this kind of food and what makes it different from regular rice?

Here's the link if you'd like a laugh. The professor apparently sowed "corpses" before developing the rice.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/06/content_510023.htm

[LeftyMom]

1. that was "golden rice" nt

[Acryliccalico]

2. Never have heard of it.........n/t

[Dunvegan]

3. Soy-lent Green Rice is made of PEOPLE!

It's made of PEOPLE...and is a delicacy when used in the construction of sushi. :)

[wickerwoman]

4. Now I'm getting nervous...

I thought the "corps" thing was just a typo for "crops".

[BadgerKid]

5. Read about orange rice, though

I was thumbing through a book at a bookstore about two years ago. It described rice that was being modified with the beta carotene gene from carrots. The idea was to sell the GM rice to populations suffering from malnutrition. I believe Monsanto was the company behind it. (It = GM rice, not malnutrition :D )

Besides, there would be a market for people wishing to color-coordinate their cuisine.

[fed-up]

6. Here is a pic of "Green Rice" and info on Genetically modified Green rice

I found all these doing a google, hope this helps.
"green rice" genetically modified -recipe

There is green rice as in not ripe- (I think)
http://www.producersrice.com/members/program.html

edited to add a great website I just found
http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/glossary/main.phtml?letter=G
(scroll down for green rice)
"The term used to describe harvested rice before it has been dried to a level safe for long-term storage (12 percent moisture). See Paddy rice."

Green rice- lots of recipes for that on google.

Green rice-a new type of genetically modified rice that Monsanto claims requires less fertilizer
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6700914/site/newsweek/
To China's geneticists, the answer is yes. They've been working for years on GM rice, and they've come up with six strains as candidates for commercializing. One contains a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a soil bacteria that produces a natural pesticide. Another rice strain uses genes from legumes that confer resistance to pests like the pink stem borer, a common Asian moth that eats rice during its larval stage. A third variety produces a protein that fights bacterial blight, and geneticists are working on "green rice" that would require less fertilizer and resist drought. According to one Chinese study, adopting GM rice, along with GM cotton, could result in an annual increased profit to China's agricultural sector of "roughly $5 billion in 2010."

and a Non-Glutinous Green Rice
http://jlcofco.en.alibaba.com/product/50052807/50240775/Rice/Non_Glutinous_Green_Rice.html

[wickerwoman]

7. Fantastic!

Exactly what I needed! Thanks!

Gotta love the DU! :-)

[fed-up]

8. Here is a great summary on the hoax of "golden rice"

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/reviverice033005.cfm

scroll down to the bottom of the article for a great summary

Thanks, I worked on a GE Free campaign in my county last year, unfortunately we lost :(

GM crops are just a way for Monsanto to control our food supply.

One of my bumper stickers reads:

Genetically Engineered Food is Corporate Bioterrorism

[benburch]

9. Mind you, ALL modern food crops are Genetically Modified.

Thats what hybridization is; Genetic modification through the proxy of selection.

You simply find a mutant gene in an existing plant that does what you want, and through crossbreeding and selection move that gene into the strain of the plant that you are currently cultivating.

The modern genetic methods, however, allow this to be done much more quickly, and allows genes from plants that cannot interbreed with your food crop, or totally synthetic genes, to be inserted into the genome of your existing hybrid plant.

Prior to understanding genetic inheritance, you had to wait for a mutation to occur in your cultivated crop, and select those plants as the seed stock for the coming year. This is how the Native Americans hybridized corn from the teonactl grass.

[bananas]

10. Nope

Natural selection won't put fish genes into tomatoes.

[benburch]

11. True!

But we are not talking about Natural Selection. Hybridization is intelligent selection.

And yes, you will not get fish genes, but you CAN get genes from very different sorts of plants moved into your food crop this way, and you can sometimes get genes from wild bacteria and viruses into your plant, too. Also you can create genes using irradiation, and then transfer them to your food crop.

[bananas]

12. "Intelligent selection" = "intelligent design" ?

Are we gods?
C'mon, Ben, GM is a completely different technology than hybridization (cross-breeding), and different than waiting for jumping genes or radiation damage to do something useful.
In the U.S., it's not an option anymore, years ago about 1/3 of our food was GM with no labeling, I don't know what it is now.
Mistakes happen. Tryptophan was taken off the market because of a bad batch of GM bacteria. Or at least that was the excuse.
There are valid uses for GM.
But - the best beef I had was organic corn-fed,
the best chicken I had was free-range,
the best tomatoes I had were hydroponic.

[Odin2005]

13. I have no problem with putting fish genes in tomatoes.

It's companies like Monsanto I have a problem with.


Genetic engineering: :thumbsup:

Corporate greed: :thumbsdown: