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Anyone for modified salmon?
Source: Agencies |
September 24, 2010, Friday
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WE have always played with our food - even before we knew about genes or how to change them.
For thousands of years, humans have practiced selective breeding, pairing the beefiest bull with the healthiest heifers to start a new herd. That concept was refined to develop plant hybridization and artificial insemination. Today we've got tastier corn on sturdier stalks, bigger turkeys and meatier cattle.
Now comes an Atlantic salmon that is genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as a regular salmon. If US regulators approve it, the fish would be the first such scientifically altered animal to reach the dinner plate.
Scientists have already determined that it is safe to eat. They are weighing other factors, including environmental risks, after two days of intense hearings.
Whatever the decision on salmon, it is only the start of things to come. In labs and on experimental farms are:
- Vaccines and other pharmaceuticals grown in bananas and other plants.
- Trademarked "Enviropigs" whose manure does not pollute as much.
- Cows that do not produce methane in their flatulence.
And in the far-off future, there may be foods built from scratch - the scratch being DNA.
Sometimes when science tinkers with food, it works. Decades ago, Norman Borlaug's "Green Revolution" of scientifically precise hybrids led to bigger crop yields that have dramatically reduced hunger.
Sometimes it flops. Anyone remember the Flavr Savr tomato? Probably not. It did not taste good.
"There was no flavor there to save," one expert quipped. But you might remember 10 years ago when genetically modified corn meant for animal feed wound up in taco shells?
To the biotech world, precise tinkering with the genes in plants and animals is a proven way to reduce disease, protect from insects and increase the food supply to curb world hunger.
To skeptics, genetic changes put the natural world and the food supply at risk. Modified organisms can escape into the wild or mingle with native species, potentially changing them, with unknown effects.
Over the last 15 years, genetically engineered plants have been grown on more than 2 billion acres (810 million hectares) in more than 20 countries.
Consumers eat genetically engineered plant products in large quantities in the US, often in unlabeled products such as oils and processed foods.
For thousands of years, humans have practiced selective breeding, pairing the beefiest bull with the healthiest heifers to start a new herd. That concept was refined to develop plant hybridization and artificial insemination. Today we've got tastier corn on sturdier stalks, bigger turkeys and meatier cattle.
Now comes an Atlantic salmon that is genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as a regular salmon. If US regulators approve it, the fish would be the first such scientifically altered animal to reach the dinner plate.
Scientists have already determined that it is safe to eat. They are weighing other factors, including environmental risks, after two days of intense hearings.
Whatever the decision on salmon, it is only the start of things to come. In labs and on experimental farms are:
- Vaccines and other pharmaceuticals grown in bananas and other plants.
- Trademarked "Enviropigs" whose manure does not pollute as much.
- Cows that do not produce methane in their flatulence.
And in the far-off future, there may be foods built from scratch - the scratch being DNA.
Sometimes when science tinkers with food, it works. Decades ago, Norman Borlaug's "Green Revolution" of scientifically precise hybrids led to bigger crop yields that have dramatically reduced hunger.
Sometimes it flops. Anyone remember the Flavr Savr tomato? Probably not. It did not taste good.
"There was no flavor there to save," one expert quipped. But you might remember 10 years ago when genetically modified corn meant for animal feed wound up in taco shells?
To the biotech world, precise tinkering with the genes in plants and animals is a proven way to reduce disease, protect from insects and increase the food supply to curb world hunger.
To skeptics, genetic changes put the natural world and the food supply at risk. Modified organisms can escape into the wild or mingle with native species, potentially changing them, with unknown effects.
Over the last 15 years, genetically engineered plants have been grown on more than 2 billion acres (810 million hectares) in more than 20 countries.
Consumers eat genetically engineered plant products in large quantities in the US, often in unlabeled products such as oils and processed foods.
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