Why no patents or GMO?

[laughingW]

Bringing this topic over here from where it started in the Science forum... because my answer is coming from my Paleo orientation I guess.

Why is a patent a bad thing?
Ditto GMO?
My distrust of GMO is political and physiological.

Physiological - don't trust the rate of change of food compared to naturally-occuring changes. We have seen what happened to human health upon the change from hunter-gatherer food to agricultural food as described in Protein Power. With GMO changes, the adaptations are fast, fast, fast, and the scientific testing is laughably minimal.

Politically, I like what a friend has written:

I think Monsanto's plans are much simpler: continue to
promote the use of hybrid seeds, GM seeds,
particularly seeds with resistance to their chemicals
and seeds with terminator genes, and rake in the money
while genetic diversity goes down the tubes. Throw in
the complete corruption of the politicians and the
courts which allows patenting of biologicals, and
eventually Monsanto controls all meaningful
agricultural activity.

It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.
"Patenting of biologicals" goes under that.

I can understand apprehension on GMO because you don't know enough. But rejection out of hand seems a little, how to put it gently, reactionary?
There is a 3d alternative besides the two you offered ("ignorant" or "reactionary") and that is, informed, understand the scientific method, and think it's a really bad idea.

I suppose I could list the great medicines and food things that come from a lab (like Lite Salt and No-Salt), but why bother?
I have no problem with medicines for acute life-threatening illnesses.

Lite Salt? not paleo, indeed, do not bother, we can agree to disagree on the value of such things.

[maxlharris]

So, here are the links to the patents involved in SmartBalance:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l=50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=5578334.PN.&OS=PN/5578334&RS=PN/5578334
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l=50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=5843497.PN.&OS=PN/5843497&RS=PN/5843497
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l=50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=6630192.PN.&OS=PN/6630192&RS=PN/6630192

I see no patented biological. That argument is off topic.

The things under patent are the blend of natural oils as processes for moving HDL and LDL numbers. It's a process patent. It is not a gene or a seed, but a process of lowering LDL and raising HDL with oils.

Thanks for playing.

I can agree to disagree with you on progress and change without mocking your beliefs or trumpeting mine as superior. I suspect both are expressions of core beliefs and outlooks on life and that's simply not worth discussing, because no one will be moved.

But, I would suggest that your opposition to Smart Balance because it is a patented product is unfounded. The substances aren't, the mixture towards the claim is. And the GMO fear, for this product, is possibly founded, but is not substantiative. You do not know if there is anything wrong with GMO soybeans or canola oil. And even if you did know, you don't know that this product contains either.

Nice work.

[laughingW]

It's a process patent. It is not a gene or a seed, but a process of lowering LDL and raising HDL with oils.
Right, different core beliefs. The process i would like protected is "let food be your medicine". This sort of thing is the camel's nose in the tent - if I show I can change my LDL and HDL profile with the foods I eat, that contain the same oils as a patented product, will I have to pay the license fee or break a law? An exaggeration but you get the idea.

the GMO fear, for this product, is possibly founded, but is not substantiative. You do not know if there is anything wrong with GMO soybeans or canola oil. And even if you did know, you don't know that this product contains either.
I would frame it not as "fear" but a statistical probability. What are we up to now, 85% of the soybean production is GMO? If not labeled as non-GMO, it is more likely than not it is GMO. Same for canola.

And thanks for your willingness to dialog. :)

[maxlharris]

I don't know how they would enforce you going out and getting Canola, Soy and Olive oil, and home blending to the right proportions for home use. If you factory blended to the same proportion, using the same process, and made the same claims, well, that's a commercial use and fairly enforceable. It's why they have a patent. It's also why Coke and Pepsi don't (so no one can take the formula from the patent and market the same product when the patent expires).

Again, if you buy foods that provide the same mix of Omega 3, 6, and 9 fatty acids (Olive oil is like 50% 9), that's non-enforceable. If it's even detectable. Even if they could prove that you were buying these foods to mess with your cholesterol numbers, it's not a claim. No damage, no patent violation. It's at the marketing level you might find a problem.

On the other issue, it's very likely that it's GMO. That still doesn't address the second potential source of error: the inadequate findings (on either side of the discussion) on GMO products. That's a core belief issue (what you have in the face of insufficient data).

I was thinking about this over my commute home. I wouldn't buy Smart Balance anything. Not b/c GMO, but because I can afford Olive Oil and butter, and I like these products. But, if we are speaking from a paleo perspective, the butter is out, clearly. That's a dairy product, and dairy products come with agriculture. But how about Olive Oil? I can see Mediterranean Paleo Man eating olives (I don't eat the full product and don't know how much technology goes into turning it from a tree product to a jarred one). But pressing oil seems a little post-ag for me. But Olive Oil is undoubted good for you (calorically high, so a lot of it might be a problem, sure). Just something that popped into my mind as I anticipated your response.

[Gaelen]

But, if we are speaking from a paleo perspective, the butter is out, clearly. That's a dairy product, and dairy products come with agriculture. But how about Olive Oil? I can see Mediterranean Paleo Man eating olives (I don't eat the full product and don't know how much technology goes into turning it from a tree product to a jarred one). But pressing oil seems a little post-ag for me. But Olive Oil is undoubted good for you (calorically high, so a lot of it might be a problem, sure). Just something that popped into my mind as I anticipated your response.

See, for me, this is where the 'paleo' perspective tends to fall flat on its face.
The only oils common to all paleo societies were the oils they got from the fats they consumed which were either in or rendered from the animals/fish (think whales) that they consumed or stole milk and eggs from...or which were in (but not necessarily pressed from or extracted from) the plants they ate which contained oils (nuts, seeds, olives, coconut meat/milk etc.)

'Dairy' is not just what you get from Holsteins and Jersey cows...goats, horses, camels all produce 'milk' which there is evidence was consumed in any area where their populations could be harnessed and used by man (I hesitate to say 'domesticated' -- that came later). But did paleo man have access to milk-producing animals? Egg producing animals? Um, yeah. Not the same kind of access you get from the local 7-11, but access, absolutely, and being the opportunist he was (which is why we're all here today, that whole 'need to survive' thing), did he make use of the milk and eggs of those animals that produce them? Yep.

Just something that occurs to me...

[Dodger]

See, for me, this is where the 'paleo' perspective tends to fall flat on its face.
The only oils common to all paleo societies were the oils they got from the fats they consumed which were either in or rendered from the animals/fish (think whales) that they consumed or stole milk and eggs from...or which were in (but not necessarily pressed from or extracted from) the plants they ate which contained oils (nuts, seeds, olives, coconut meat/milk etc.)

'Dairy' is not just what you get from Holsteins and Jersey cows...goats, horses, camels all produce 'milk' which there is evidence was consumed in any area where their populations could be harnessed and used by man (I hesitate to say 'domesticated' -- that came later). But did paleo man have access to milk-producing animals? Egg producing animals? Um, yeah. Not the same kind of access you get from the local 7-11, but access, absolutely, and being the opportunist he was (which is why we're all here today, that whole 'need to survive' thing), did he make use of the milk and eggs of those animals that produce them? Yep.

Just something that occurs to me...Paleo peoples did not have access to animal milk. Neolithics did, not paleolithics. Herding is a neolithic activity, not paleolithic.

[Gaelen]

Paleo peoples did not have access to animal milk. Neolithics did, not paleolithics. Herding is a neolithic activity, not paleolithic.

Dodger...to 'not have access' to animal milk, that would mean that no milk-producing animals existed in paleolithic times--not true, and that no humanid ever encountered them--again, not true. The evolutionary evidence for both milk producing animals like horses and for man doesn't bear that out.

Paleolithic man didn't have herds of his own which he controlled. That doesn't mean that in the areas where herd animals developed more quickly, man didn't see/encounter/hunt and use the wild herds as he could.

Neither man nor herd animals developed in a vacuum...they encountered one another even when man had no control over the herd.