Fluther: Is there any food that doesn't have DNA in it?

Is there any food that doesn't have DNA in it?

Asked by Dutchess_III (46827

) January 18th, 2015
28 responses
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I hope this is some spoof that just went viral, but since the Washington Post is the source, this may be true….That 80% of Americans want FDA labeling on food that contains DNA.

In the article it says, “Most food contains DNA….” which implies that some food doesn’t contain DNA.

I thought maybe Jello, however, the gelatin comes from various animal by products.

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Answers

American cheese. It is some sort of plastic.

ragingloli (51973

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It is not!

Dutchess_III (46827

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Industrial sludge.

ragingloli (51973

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Well, salt is food and contains no DNA. Here’s an example of an entirely synthetic meal. Most food does contain DNA, but that does not mean that everything we eat contains DNA.
And I’m with @ragingloli on the American cheese, which we called “plastic cheese” as kids. Yuck.

dappled_leaves (15893

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oil most likely does not contain dna.
milk might not either, and by extension, butter.
unless you count the bacteria crawling around in it.

ragingloli (51973

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@ragingloli I’m pretty sure all of those contain DNA. Honey wouldn’t, except that it’s full of pollen, which does contain DNA.

dappled_leaves (15893

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OK, salt. That makes sense. Although that isn’t really a “food” when you think about it. It does nothing to keep you alive. I’m not saying it’s not necessary, because it is. But IMO to count as a food you should be able to eat a thing for 2 months and still be alive.

So salt. GA.

Dutchess_III (46827

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Honey is made by the bees regurgitating it several times. Would that infuse it with DNA?

Dutchess_III (46827

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Maybe we are taking the wrong approach here.
Maybe we should not worry about what morons think.

hud (210

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We’re not talking about the morons. We’re talking about the food.

Dutchess_III (46827

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@Dutchess_III
OK
How about sugar. Or salt. Or Coca Cola?

hud (210

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Read the responses.

Salt has been discussed. Not sure if it even comes under the heading of “food,” as much as a chemical that our bodies need.

Sugar is made from a plant.

Naturally sweet Coca Cola has sugar in it. Also, I think it’s made from the coco bean, which is also a plant, but I’ll go check that.

Dutchess_III (46827

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Kola nuts act as a flavoring and the source of caffeine in Coca-Cola. Source

Dutchess_III (46827

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Sure, sugar comes from a plant. But it is refined and purified, and by the time it lands in the supermarket, it is just a collection of carbohydrate crystals, with all or almost all traces of cellular material removed.
That is why I listed oil. It is just fat.

ragingloli (51973

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Then you’ve got RNA in sugar.

Dutchess_III (46827

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Then I give up

hud (210

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Denuitriated protein?

talljasperman (21916

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@Dutchess_III: I doubt that sugar contains any RNA either. As far as I have ever heard, table sugar is exclusively sucrose (with maybe some spare minerals tagging along from the refining process). Thing is, with beet sugar, the process starts with the beets getting cooked so their juice can be extracted. Then the sugar is extracted from the juice using slaked lime. The bulk of the beets are turned into dried beet pulp which is a popular dairy herd feed component because it is high in protein, suggesting that all DNA and RNA remain behind and don’t enter the juice.

sahID (2523

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Anything that is alive has DNA and or RNA. Harsh processing treatments (overcooking, sonification, radiation, etc) of the food could denature the DNA breaking it down into nucleotide or smaller parts. If such “food” was over processed (for whatever reason) then it’s DNA concentration might be zero or close to it.

gondwanalon (22881

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Since DNA is in anything that grows, it would be in almost everything. Salt wouldn’t have it, but that’s all I can think of.

filmfann (52234

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Well, since the article claims that 80% of Americans want DNA labeling on foods that may contain DNA, does that mean that 80% of Americans have no clue what DNA is? Whatever is is, it must be bad for you because you can’t pronounce it!

Dutchess_III (46827

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Well, a quarter of americans do not know that the Earth orbits the sun.

ragingloli (51973

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Looks like it’s not just “Merkins. “As alarming as some of those deficits in science knowledge might appear, Americans fared better on several of the questions than similar, but older surveys of their Chinese and European counterparts.”

Dutchess_III (46827

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BTW, here is a more credible source that says 4/5ths of Americans know the Earth revolves around the sun.

Dutchess_III (46827

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Nails. I ate a bowl of them for breakfast this morning. Without any milk.

dxs (15160

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Did you click on this link in the article?

Secondly, participants were asked “Did you read any books about food and agriculture in the past year?” Just over 16% of participants stated that they had read a book related to food and agriculture in the past year. About 81% answered “No”, and 3% answered “I don’t know”.

Those who answered “Yes” were asked: “What is the title of the most recent book you read about food and agriculture?” The vast majority of responses were of the form “I don’t remember” or “cannot recall”. Fast Food Nation, Food Inc., and Omnivore’s Dilemma were each mentioned about three times. The Farmer’s Almanac and Skinny Bitch were mentioned twice. One respondent mentioned the bible.

Interesting survey population here.

I think people are thinking of GMOs when they responded about DNA (the same proportion of support). I can’t really imagine what else was going on in their brains.

Cupcake (16280

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