rural primitives worried about quality, lack, of seeds

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=268x1774

Oh my.

Journalgrrl  Donating Member  (519 posts) Tue Jul-01-08 02:48 PM
Original message

What's with the seeds?
   
I have to ask this because I have noticed it dramatically in all my produce...

Almost every type of fruit I've seen this summer has seeds that are either non-viable or non-existent. Apples are just shriveled inside, peaches with the pits missing and what looks like a 'melted' center...is this the evil genetic modifying of our food so that we CAN'T grow our own?

Been trying to save seeds from everything this year for future gardening ventures, and this is disturbing.

This isn't necessarily showing up in organic foods, though I am sure they stand the danger of cross pollenation and eventually being inviable too.

what's UP with this? I didn't buy "seedless" apples and peaches... they are supposedly California grown... but by who? Is this the evil Monsanto again?

edwardlindy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jul-01-08 02:53 PM
Response to Original message

1. Sure sounds like terminators.

no_hypocrisy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jul-01-08 02:54 PM
Response to Original message

2. Could it be a genetic mutation without the appropriate bee pollination that has been lacking in the past two growing seasons?

Journalgrrl  Donating Member  (519 posts) Tue Jul-01-08 02:57 PM
Response to Reply #2

3. Geez, i didn't even THINK about the bee connection!
   
you could very well be right, but if so...wouldn't it show across the board in organic foods as well?

This is just like someone 'melted' the internal structure of the fruit.

tridim  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jul-01-08 02:59 PM
Response to Reply #3

4. Are you actually eating the peaches with the melted pits?
   
I would take them back to the store.

wildgarden  (2 posts) Tue Jul-01-08 02:59 PM
Response to Original message

5. local fruit
   
I am not aware of the use of the "terminator gene" in fruit seeds, but most commercially grown fruit is of a type suited to large scale, high fertilizer input agriculture. Also many fruit seeds will not grow out true to the parent for many reasons.

You might be better off purchasing small inexpensive fruit trees from local nurseries. Also if family or friends have fruit trees you could study up on grafting techniques and try your hand at propagating from twigs.

For veggies, start growing your own open-pollinated varieties and save seed from year to year. There's a lot of good seed saving info on the web.

kestrel91316  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jul-01-08 03:54 PM
Response to Original message

6. I have a tinfoilhat theory about the fruit. I have noticed for several years
   
now that I can buy perfectly gorgeous looking fruit at the store, take it home, and in a couple days when it seems to have reached the peak of perfection the insides are all brown and rotten. I am 51 and this was not something I EVER had seen in fruit until just a few years ago.

I think it is being irradiated without our knowledge - to give it a longer shelf life. And I think that the radiation kills pathogens on the surface and into the fruit a ways, but it doesn't penetrate to the center. So we see the rot begin INSIDE, where it normally would start on the surface.

Good fruit is really hard to come by. You can buy fruit that looks perfect outside, but it's rotten. If that isn't evil, I truly don't know what is.

Journalgrrl  Donating Member  (519 posts) Tue Jul-01-08 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #6

7. the apples i cut for juicing are lik that!
   
they're the kind that come in the bag. I think you may be onto something. I never thought about irradiation. That explains why organics don't seem to be affected, maybe?

I seem to remember a few years back the FDA passed a law didn't they? they don't have to tell us if they do it, right?

Wilber_Stool  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jul-01-08 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #6

9. I see the same thing with onions.
   
I buy a three pound bag and within one week, they begin to get black rot. I used to store them for weeks years ago. Something is up.

The warped primitive nails it:

Warpy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jul-01-08 04:19 PM
Response to Original message

8. Immature seeds signal that the fruit has been picked while it is still quite green and artificially ripened at sales time.

Fruit rotting from the center out might have had the surface irradiated and simply been kept too long because the surface appearance was still good.

In any case, anyone who gets this needs to take it right back to the store, gas prices and all. Store produce managers need to know which wholesalers to avoid.

However, what the warped primitive neglects to remember is that primitives are cheap bastards, wanting cheap food, and this sort of treatment makes cheap food possible.

[Ralph Wiggum]

When Barack Hussein Obama is running this country, all fruit will be inexpensive, full of flavor, will never go bad, and have plenty of seeds. /end DU mode

 

[JohnnyReb]

I have a word for the back to nature freaks.....ICEBOX......since a real electric/gas/kerosene powered refridgerator is out of the question.

[BlueStateSaint]

I have a word for the back to nature freaks.....ICEBOX......since a real electric/gas/kerosene powered refridgerator is out of the question.

H5 for the "gas/kerosene" part.  At the deer camp I belong to, we have a fridge that runs on propane.  It's from the 50s or so, and the last time it went on the fritz, one of our members had to scour the Internet for parts for it.  We're getting ready to get a new one, which means that Cabela's is probably going to move one of their newer propane-powered models.  I don't know what we're going to do with the old one.  We're going to pay for the new one with a huge amount of scrap metal that we happen to have up there.  (One old car, one old Jeep Wagoneer, one old dump truck, none of which run.  The front-end loader we have still runs, but it has zero brakes, and only one guy will dare drive it.)

[DumbAss Tanker]

What an idiot.  A great deal of produce is hybridized and the seeds won't breed true.  Buy some damned seeds from Shumway or Burpee if ya want to raise a garden, at least you know what'll come up and it's not expensive.