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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Corn Gluten - GMO

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  • From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Corn Gluten - GMO
  • Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:23:46 -0500


On Dec 30, 2005, at 2:28 PM, Alliums wrote:
Considering that corn gluten is just the protein from the corn kernels and
not a complete cell, my guess would be that you aren't going to have
anything more than stray DNA fragments in the gluten and even then, probably
not much of that.

If you were dealing with any type of plant residue (which contains whole
cells), I would think that of course, there would be GMO DNA and probably Bt
residue there; however, since both the starch and the gluten are the result
of some pretty high-powered processing that rips the plant into different
components, it would appear to me that any DNA would be a minor contaminant
and not in any shape to really be used/abused by any other organism.

I'm planning to get a quote from the local rolling mill on corn gluten to
use as a "weed & feed" for our labyrinth this March -- nothing I've heard
here so far makes me concerned for the microbial life in its soil, but I'm
open to hearing other thoughts.


I doubt there's live DNA in the gluten meal, also. But I don't know whether there might be BT toxin. The DNA in the corn instructs the plant to produce the toxin; but the toxin itself isn't the DNA.

Whether this is a problem for your soil, or whether the toxin comes through the gluten making process, I have no idea. But I doubt that anybody else knows either. I don't think the work's been done.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



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