GMO SAFETY – Page 5 – All you want to know about GMO food and the health risks of genetically modified foods

GMO plants and the impact on the environment

Agricultural activities have in the past and even presently attributed to causing some effects on the environment. This can only mean that the genetically modified plants derived from biotechnological processes and research have the potential impact on the environment too. The effects of these GM plants can either be beneficial or destructive. This is by either accelerating the damaging effect of agriculture on the environment or improving the sustainability of agricultural practices for better environmental conservation. The evaluation of the environmental impact of GMO plants and the application of the novel technologies on the environment can only be done through comparison to those effects brought about by present practices.

However, it is important to note that these GMO plants have adverse environmental effects because of the large scale growth and as a result, the human health is also jeopardized. The following are concerns that arise concerning the impact of GM plants on the environment;

GM plants may have the ability to sexually hybridize with the non-GM plants through the transfer of their pollen grains. Additionally, GM plants may have the potential of becoming invasive weeds. Finally, the condition that is required for the growth of GM plants may pose a significant threat to the local wildlife population.

Researches revolving around GM plants and the environment

Gene transfers through seed dispersal

Based on a study that was revealed to the public in 2001, there was substantial evidence pointing at the transfer of GM genes from GMO maize through cross-pollination with the wild type maize in Mexico thus causing a cross contamination of the local wild type. The validity of this particular study was highly disputed because the research that followed were not able to demonstrate the spread of the transgene and its presence in the wild maize. There are recent reports that GM herbicide-resistant is creeping bentgrass scientifically referred to as Agrostis stolonifera L. around the US region of Oregon was spotted growing outside its designated area. The postulation drawn from this was that its occurrence in other areas is due to effects of dispersal of pollen grains that crossed sexually with the wild plants and thus GM plants seed dispersal.

Additionally, a study that was published back in 1999 raised the concern after genetically modified maize was found expressing insecticidal Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin. This insecticidal Bt toxin was shown to have harmful effects on the larval stage of the Monarch butterfly. This was postulated that the larval stage of the butterfly depended on milkweed as its staple food, and it dusted itself with pollen from Bt maize. As a result, they ate less, had a slow growth rate and were susceptible to the high rate of mortality. Since then, a wide range of researches and discoveries have focused on the probability of the larval stage of the Monarch butterfly to get exposed to large quantities of Bt maize pollen and thus its ability to elicit a toxigenic response.

Effect of wildlife population

Based on a four-year program research, there was evidence published concerning the effect of management practices that were associated with GMO herbicide tolerance on the wildlife as compared to conventional methods employed in controlling weeds. According to the study, three out of four of the crops tested led to a significant decline in the level of wildlife in GM fields compared to those in the non-GM field. However, this was quite opposite in the case of GM maize which the researches stated that the variation may have been due to different herbicidal regimes and not because of genetic engineering. This study paved the way for a government-funded platform that evaluates the impacts of GM plants and its hazardous impact on the environment. Despite this evidence, the government of the UK has permitted the commercial planting of GM maize that is resistant to herbicides.

Gene flows in the environment

A wide range of strategies has been proposed to curb the movement of genes from GM plants to a wide variety of environmental entities. This is because of the particular concern of protein expression designed for utilization in the pharmaceutical industry. This gave rise to the discovery of strategies geared towards preventing the occurrence of this namely; physical isolation and genetic containment. Physical isolation involves breeding of the plant in isolation in isolated areas whether large or small-scale. Containment method involves the growth of the plants in contained greenhouse environmental conditions or other designated areas that are free from weeds and other food crops. Additionally, areas, where the GM plants have been previously grown, is supposed to be allowed to lie fallow to ensure no seed remains can grow in the next planting cycle.

The employment of the genetic containment method is achieved through biotechnological means. This is through existing sterility and incompatibility strategies that ensure that pollen grains are not transferred. Additionally, this involves the use of Genetic Use Restriction Technologies that are aimed an interfering with seed fertility and seed formation. Another strategy discovery from these GM plants is the transfer of foreign genes into the genome of the chloroplast, and this is based on the fact that chloroplasts are inherited maternally and are not present in pollen grains.

Another research is that in Canada based on two varieties of GM rapeseed. One is designed to have high levels of erucic acid while the other aims to have low levels of erucic acid. This acid is extracted from the high producing variety for use as a lubricant in industries. However, this variety is particularly harmful for human consumption. The low erucic acid producing variety is typically used in large scale production of canola cooking oil. Because of their differences, farmers in Canada have made it a routine to separate the two during growth and processing.

In the future, other impacts of the GM plants in the environment may potentially emerge from biotechnological and scientific developments designed to alter plants with complex traits controlled by a large number of genes. This may have the benefit of extending marginal land or otherwise cause destruction to the fragile environment. For instance, drought tolerant maize may increase the supply of water-retention especially in semi-arid regions across the globe. This means that the threats and benefits of GM plants require a case-by-case assessment of the impact it has on the environment across different agro-ecological zones.

Genetically modified plants and its impact on the human health

Genetically modified plants have attracted a wide range of attention from the media in the past and still continue to do so even today. Despite all the media coverage concerning the GM Plants and their impacts on the human health, very few people know what GM plants are and what contribution biotechnology has to offer on the full range of applications of the plants and their products. Since the introduction of the first GM plant, there has been the emergence of two main areas of interest namely; the risk of the GM plants to the environment and the risk on human health. Despite the fact that there have been campaigns to sensitize the general public on what GM plants are, most of the information that is published are quite unreliable and does not state the real facts and scientific evidence of the GM plants.

This article will, therefore, examine the manner in which GM plants directly impacts the human health. This is regarding nutrition and advancement of the recombinant medicine production. This form of discovery is exciting in ensuring that the people’s health is advanced through vaccine production, monoclonal antibodies.

GM plants food applications

Globally, there is a total of 850 million that are undernourished and a surviving on a small ration of calories per day. This translates to approximately 1.3 million people living below the poverty line of spending $1/day. Most of these people are often rural smallholder farmers that occupy rural regions in developing countries who rely almost entirely on agriculture for upkeep. GM plant technologies are one of the approaches that have been developed to take care of these problems by increasing the yield and the nutritional content of the plants.

Nutritional content

In developing countries where people often depend on one food as their staple source of energy, the nutritional content is one of the major areas of focus for biotechnological advancement to alleviate some of the issues associated with plant engineering. This is to ensure that the GM plants can express more products to prevent the problem of malnutrition. An excellent discovery example of the GM plants is “The Golden Rice Project”.

Vitamin A deficiency is a problem that is of global health concern and is estimated to account for over two million deaths in children, especially in developing countries. Additionally, it is this deficiency that is the main reason for blindness among surviving children. Human beings can synthesize Vitamin A from its precursor called β –carotene commonly found in many plants and not cereals. The strategic discovery of the Golden Rice project was based on the targeted introduction of correct steps of metabolism in the endosperm of rice that would permit synthesis of β-carotene. Ye et al. (2000) engineered rice thus giving rise to rice with moderate levels of β-carotene thus paving the way for increased yields of vitamin A. This is estimated that 70 g of dry GM rice produces 50 % of the RDA of Vitamin A for a child aged between 1-3 years. This serves as a brilliant example of a health solution offered through plant biotechnology.

Increasing food production

The yield of crops across the globe is often affected by a wide range of factors that includes pathogens, parasites as well as insects. There are two brilliant examples of discoveries of commercial GM plants that are resistant to insects by expressing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) gene and GM papaya that is resistant to viruses. The primary cause of plant loss across the globe is abiotic stress, salinity, drought and unfavorable temperatures. Despite the fact that a wide range of abiotic stress tolerant GM plants has been produced, the research is still at the laboratory level. A good example of this is the GM maize that expresses a protein that plays a central role in oxidative signal cascade responsible for tolerating extreme conditions of cold, heat and salinity.

Are GM plants safe for human consumption?

There is evidence that demonstrates that GM plants are not safe for human consumption because of the potential toxins present in them. In 1999, a study showed that GM potatoes expressing a gene coding lectin Galanthus nivalis agglutinin were significantly affected in the sense that they caused damage to the gut mucosa.

The question that most people ask is whether there is any priori reason to believe that GM plants are harmful to humans upon consumption. Many of the reasons often point at the presence of foreign DNA sequence in the food. However, this does not have any intrinsic impact on the human health. What is of most concern is the possibility that protein produced by the GM plant may be toxic and is absorbed into the human system. Potential Allergenicity of the GM plant on consumption poses a great challenge to people’s health such as soft-fleshed fruits, soy among other foods. This is because there is a possibility of protein-protein interaction between the allergenic gene introduced into the plant and the allergenic protein already existing in the plant thus giving rise to novel allergens or altering the expression of proteins by the plant, thus contributing to the toxicity of the plant. Two examples of this include.

A project that was geared towards the production of GM peas through the addition of protein derived from beans. This protein conferred resistance to weevils and in addition to this, the consumption of GM peas led to lung allergies among mice. Another project is that of GM soybeans that involved the expression of Brazil nut protein that caused allergies when consumed by humans.

Non-food discovery of GM plants

The use of GM plants has been a great platform for the production of pharmaceutical products. For instance, GM plants have been used to produce multimeric antibodies. These antibodies have been shown to play a central role in the treatment of topical, mucosal infections. Currently, there is the production of Hepatitis B vaccine using GM yeast.

Based on the findings discussed in this article, it is evident that GM plants play a central role in contributing positively to the human health through nutrition and drug production. However, the major challenge is the exorbitant cost of the product that makes it less affordable by the poor in developing countries. Additionally, the production of GM plants requires a wide space to increase production to meet the growing demand for the products across the globe.

The safety of genetically modified plants produced through use of biotechnology

The safety of genetically modified plants has been at the forefront of many scientific debates trying to ascertain the safety of the plants and its produce to human and animal health upon consumption. This is where the Society of Toxicology comes into play to ensure that they offer maximum protection and enhancement of the human, animal as well as environmental health. This is achieved through the sound application of biotechnological processes in production. Typically, in this context, biotechnology refers to the processes that involve the transfer of transgenes from organisms to plants hence food production. This may also apply to the expression of individual existing genes s modified permanently by employing genetic engineering techniques. Therefore, it is important for you to realize that it is not the method of modification of plants that is the concern of human and environmental safety but rather the product.

In this article, the question we will try to answer is whether the product of the transgene is capable of presenting a risk to both the consumers and the handlers of genetically modified plants. This means that the potential toxicity of the transgene plant product has to be considered by case-by-case design. This means that taking into consideration the possibility that the transgene produces toxins that are known such as protein allergens.

Toxin production

The level of toxins that are produced by the genetically modified plants and the threat it possesses to the producers and the consumers is often the focus of interest of toxicologist. This is through the use of standard toxicological approaches such as the evaluation of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) endotoxins as described by US EPA in 2001. The safety of these plants is therefore determined by their digestibility and absence of intrinsic activity in the mammalian systems. In this case, therefore, in-depth comprehension of the mechanism of action of the Bt toxin and the selective pressure that takes place in their biochemical systems increases the surety of safety assessments. However, each transgenic novel product of plants has to be considered individually. This is based on the levels of exposure, potency in causing toxic effects among other safety paradigms.

Allergen production

Allergenicity is one of the major safety concerns of consuming foods derived from transgenic plants. In as much as we are raising eyebrows on the safety of GM plants and their products, consumption of conventional foods is not equally safe. This is because the occurrence of allergies has been reported with conventional foods. However, some of the issues that have to be addressed with a high level of stringency are the potential Allergenicity associated with genetically modified plants/crops. Some of these issues include;

Do the products of the novel gene inserted into plants elicit allergic reactions in humans or animals that are already sensitized to the same protein? Does the transgenic approach employ induce alteration of the level of expression of the proteins that exist in the host crop? Do the products derived from genetically engineered plants used for food have the ability to induce de novo sensitization among humans or animals that are susceptible?

Characterization of the potentially allergenic proteins produced by the GM plants produced through biotechnological technique is based on three factors;

Structural similarity, serological and sequence homology; the principal aim of this is to determine whether and to what level does the protein produced by the genetically modified foods have similarity to other known proteins that have the potential of causing allergies among humans and animals. This is through the determination of the overall structure of the protein of interest and its similarity to allergens that are known. The use of the protein database offers the possibility of determining the similarity of the novel protein of interest with those of allergens that are known on their sequence alignments homology. This could also be compared to discrete motifs and domains in the protein where there is complete sequence similarity with that which is present in known allergens, therefore, indicating possibility of shared protein epitopes. The third approach is the use of serological techniques to determine whether there are specific IgE antibodies present in the serum of sensitized humans or animals capable of recognizing the protein of interest.

Proteolytic stability: According to research, there is evidence of a correlation between protein resistance to proteolytic digestion and their potential to cause allergic reactions. The theory, in this case, is that relative resistance plays a role in inducing allergic responses on condition that the protein of interest possesses allergenic characteristics. In this case, the approach that is effective is characterizing the susceptibility of the protein of interest to its digestibility by pepsins and other gastric stimulated proteins. However, it is important to note that this approach alone may not be sufficient for the identification of cross-reactive proteins that have the potential of eliciting allergic responses in foods.

Use of animal models: animal models are the other biotechnological approach that may be used to assess the safety of products derived from GM plants. Currently, there is the absence of adequate animals that can be used as model organisms to simulate the same environment as humans thus facilitating their use in identification of protein allergens. However, there is ongoing research geared towards the development of techniques that are suitable for characterization of allergic responses in rodents and other species that mimic human physiological surrounding.

The safety of the GM plant and plant products has been lots of concern across the globe. However, it is important to appreciate the fact that despite the safety concerns, it is also playing a significant role in charting the path towards food security. However, a major limitation is predicted to occur in future if the transgenic technology gives rise to more substantial and complexity in the products derived from GM plants. This means that there is a need for improving the methods that are used in plant profiling of their proteins as well as studying their gene expression. This is especially important in detecting any changes that occur unexpectedly in the GM plants to determine their substantial equivalence. Therefore, continuity in the evolution of toxicological methods, as well as regulatory strategies, are necessary to be put in place to ensure that safety of GM plants and products comes first as far as human, animal and environmental factors are concerned.

Golden Rice and the Possibility of Overcoming World Famine Through Genetic Modification

Golden rice is a crop that has been in development in one way or another since 1984. The crop itself is named after the golden yellow color it has, which contrasts greatly with the normal white color of rice. The signature trait of golden rice is that it is infused with beta-carotene, an extremely important nutrient that is the source of Vitamin A. It is the addition of that nutrient that also gives the rice its distinctive color.

According to the article “In A Grain of Golden Rice, A World of Controversy Over GMO Foods” on NPR, the idea for golden rice came about from a group of master plant breeders talking after a Rockefeller Foundation funded meeting at the International Rice Institute. Peter Jennings, who had helped to orchestrate the Green Revolution that had saved billions, suggested that altering rice to include beta-carotene could vastly improve the lives of millions or even billions itself.

The reason for this was simple. In many poorer and less developed countries in the east, most children grow up on rice from a young age. Because rice lacks the ability to give meaningful amounts of Vitamin A, children tend to grow up malnourished and suffer from that lack for their whole lives. Because parents in many of those countries wean their children on rice gruel predominantly, it would be imperative to have some way of introducing the absolutely important vitamin into the diet of the less wealthy masses.

One of the hurdles that must be overcome in selling the long developed idea of golden rice to people in both the developed and developing world is to overcome the stigma of the odd coloration. While gold is not a color that is generally looked at with disdain, it still triggers the parts of our brain that warn us about off coloration of food. Those parts of the brain were evolved to protect us from spoiled food and edible items that may have been poisonous, and they also allowed us to notice the natural warning colors that dissuaded us from trying to touch harmful plants or animals. But now it is serving to scare people away from trying the healthier rice for their benefit.

On the goldenrice.org website under the heading “Sociocultural Issues”, the team behind golden rice points out that early in their inception carrots were actually white or purple. They state that while they understand why people may be hesitant to try their golden rice out of tradition for using only their specific kinds of grains, they hope that the curiosity of people in places ranging from Africa to Latin America to Asia will have them try out their golden rice.

Back on the NPR article, the writer states that while golden rice has taken decades to cultivate and turn into a viable product, the developers have gotten close to the release of the rice and were working on passing rigorous testing standards and accompanying legislation so that they could plant in countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh. Being that the rice was designed so that very low income people would have access to the nutrient it provided, it was important to make the most headway in those locations. Even with their positive goals, though, the comments were ripe with anti-gmo sentiments, and illustrated how even with the best intentions it would still be hard to get the passage approved to where the rice could do the most good- in some of the most tradition focused areas on earth. However, there was hope that all the effort that has gone into the rice would pay off for those in need.

Source:

Charles, D. (2013). In A Grain Of Golden Rice, A World Of Controversy Over GMO Foods. NPR.

Golden Rice Humanitarian Board. (2016). Sociocultural Issues. Golden Rice Project.

Plenish Soybeans and the Genetic Reduction of Trans Fats in Oil Use

Soybeans are an incredibly useful crop necessary around the world for their protein content and their use in creating oils. However, the health liabilities of using soybean oil cause a danger to the public- soybean, when cooked or fried on intense heat create trans-fat- and so DuPont has created “Plenish” soybeans genetically engineered to reduce the amount of trans-fat in their soy.

To put into perspective how in demand soybean oil is, the website Soyconnection states in their article “Soybean Oil Uses and Overview” that, due to its use in numerous food products such as margarine, shortenings, mayonnaise, salad dressings, frozen foods, imitation dairy and meat, and baked goods, soybean oil is the most highly used food oil in America and takes up 55% of the market of vegetable oils. While this is obviously good for those in the industry there is a problem with such widespread use of soybeans as oil- the health content.

As reported on GMO-Compass.org, the amount of oleic content available in soybeans is around 23% with higher linoleic acid content. Genetically modified soybeans have a much higher available amount of oleic content at 86%, with a correspondingly lower amount of linoleic acid. The report, “Soya Bean”, goes on to state that it is the linoleic acid that causes the formation of trans fat during the high temperature heating/frying process, and that soybeans like Plenish form less trans-fat as a result.

The health benefits do not end there. The article “A GMO Soybean, Engineered to Improve Your Health” on fastcoexist.com reports that in addition to lessening the amount of trans-fat, the higher oleic acid content contributes in other ways. The monounsaturated fatty acid is already a main component of heart healthy oils in general, and they contain lower saturated fats in addition to trans-fats, which are culprits in exacerbating high blood pressure. Furthermore, oleic acid plays a large role in maintaining the shelf life of soybean products, improving it to about two to three times the length of normal soybean oil products on the market.

There’s a practical farming benefit to the use of modified soybeans over, say, high oleic canola oil. Soybeans are both a highly planted crop, taking up lots of farming space, and they are also very resilient, allowing much of the crop to be harvested even in times of hardships or distress. Making healthier soybeans used in the majority of vegetable oils then aims to be a win-win scenario: there are more plentiful and resilient soybeans to be used in the most produced type of oil in America.

Time will tell if it catches on, though. As the fastcoexist article goes on to mention, unfortunately for DuPont their visual of popular low trans-fat products took too long to make a reality. Because of the time it takes for genetically modified plants to pass rigorous testing and inspections, not only has rival Monsanto come out with their own version named “Vistive Gold”, but producers of other oil products (like that of the aforementioned canola oil) have already moved to corner the market on less trans-fat oils. In addition to that, the stigma surrounding the use of genetically modified plant products, with modified soybeans being a particular focus, has limited the planting and sale of the Plenish soybeans on the world market. There is hope that soybeans can serve as an ambassador of sorts about the wondrous benefits of genetic modification, but in case there isn’t enough interest or market share left for them as edibles there one more option- industrial uses, like use in foam packing and hydraulic fluid.

Sources:

United Soybean Board. (2016). Soybean Uses and Overview. SoyConnection.

Gmo-Compass. (2010). USA: New GM soybean with higher oleic acid content approved. Gmo-Compass.org.

Schwartz, A. (2014). A GMO Soybean, Engineered To Improve Your Health. Fastcoexist.

Examining Inborn Defenses against Pests in Leptra Corn

One of the most prevalent traits of genetically modified plants is their ability to resist insects that would normally consume and destroy the plant. One recent addition to the family of gmo plants created to protect itself from insects is a hybrid plant created by DuPont Pioneer and is known as Optimum Leptra. The website states that the modification is to the corn plant and is designed to reduce the ear feeding of lepidopteran pests which delivers cleaner ears with less kernel damage and that it eliminates the major risk of development of molds and mycotoxins in harvested grain (“Optimum Leptra Hybrids”).

An article by Clarin Rural, covering news in the Latin American regions, talked about how the corn will soon be introduced in Argentina after having the Ministry of Agro Industry approve the marketing of the plant (“Resistant corn comes with four transgenic events”). The article gives more details on the function of the modifications, stating that two of the events protect against stem borer and isoca Tang, a double event for protection against fall armyworm and glufosinate ammonium with a room for glyphosate. The corn has already been made available in Brazil and hopes carry to better yields with it in Argentina.

In the United States the protections on the crop protect it from different pests. In the article “DuPont Pioneer releases Optimum Leptra Hybrid” on AGProfessional, in the United States the insects repelled by the modifications of the corn include European and Southwestern corn borers, the corn earworm, and black and western bean cutworms. In the article, penned by the DuPont Pioneer Company, they cite figures of 98% reduction in ear feeding damage using their crops. The plants are also resistant to herbicides, protecting them from more types of poison control.

Some of the traits found in the corn have long been used in other genetically modified plants produced by DuPont, and have long known mechanisms for working. For example, Herculex I, a trait available in Leptra to kill bugs functions by being ingested by larva who feed on the modified plant. The protein binds to receptors in the gut of the larva and causing a series of reactions which ultimately lead to the death of the larva (“Herculex FAQ”).

As with any genetically modified food, of course, there are questions about the effects these different traits may have on the ecology around it. Modified plants that have natural pesticides and that are resistant to herbicides and pesticides have been shown to cause resistant strains of weeds and pest insects to survive and reproduce, causing a drop in the effectiveness of the traits modified in the plants. The article “How pesticides develop” by Michigan State University explained that worldwide more than 500 species of pests have developed a resistance to pesticides due to the growth of resistance among their populations.

Even so, the Clarin Rural article goes on to state that the importance of the Leptra crop is that, since it has so many different resistance traits it makes it easier to rotate the amount of herbicides and pesticides needed for cultivating the crop. In addition, the natural pest defenses the corn has should also reduce the amount of poison needed as it is targets the greatest pests that threaten the growth of corn plants in the regions the crop is planted in. All of these different additions may prove to be fundamental in helping feed a world that is highly defendant on its corn plants on production, if they can get past the stigma of genetic modification and scientific uncertainty.

Sources:

Clarin. (2016). Argentina approves new GMO corn with four traits for insect, pesticide resistance. Genetic Literacy Poroject.

Dow AgroSciences. (2016). Herculex I FAQ. DowAgro.

DuPont Pioneer. (2013). DuPont Pioneer releases Optimum Leptra hybrid. AGProfessional.

Gut, L., Schilder, A., Isaacs, R., & McManus, P. (2016). How Pesticide Resistance Develops. Michigan State University.

Pioneer. (2016). Optimum Leptra Hybrids. DuPont Pioneer.

Arctic Apples and the Benefit of Modified Aesthetics

Humans are a visually driven species, now more than ever. The unfortunate result of this has implications through numerous parts of our society, including the food we eat. According to a National Geographic article, “How Ugly Fruits and Vegetables Can Help Solve World Hunger”, 27.5% of all fruits in North America are thrown away either by distributors or consumers at home before they can be eaten, often due to the fruit being damaged or “ugly”. Arctic Apples, a creation of Okanagan Specialty Fruits in Canada, hopes to keep their apples from being discarded due to ugliness through a genetically modified trait they added in- “non-browning” of their apples.

Scientific American explains that apple browning occurs when an apple is sliced into or bruised it introduces oxygen into the cells that activates enzymes called polyphenol oxidase or PPO enzymes in their chloroplasts. These enzymes rapidly oxidize phenolic compounds into something called o-quinones that produce the browning by reacting to form amino acids (“Why do apple slices turn brown after being cut”). It is that browning, resulting from bruising during picking, transportation, and handling, which often has distributors trashing apples without giving them a chance. Then at the home, when a consumer cuts into the apple the browning may be enough to cause them to trash the apple themselves, and it is these two phenomena that led to the introduction of the Arctic Apples that are trying to avoid the fate that befalls so many others altogether.

The way Arctic Apples were created is simple, based on the information Okanagan Specialty Fruits provides on its website. By modifying four specific apple genes in a petri dish the company was able to silence the ability of the apple to produce PPO, which means that when the apple is bruised or sliced and oxygen is introduced there is very little to no ability of the apple to go through the process that leads its browning. With the successful application of the genetic modification the company has developed apple trees which it is planting to grow more of their Arctic Apples to put on the market.

On the website again, the question is answered about whether PPO and the action of browning serves any purpose for apples naturally. The website states that in tomatoes the high amount of PPO is used defensively to protect the fruit from pests, but given that apples produce comparatively less PPO the company theorises that it is just a left over artifact of its development. For its part, the earlier Scientific American article states that brown coloration we are used to and in fact desire- in our teas, coffee, and cocoa- are the product of the PPO process as well.

A Cnet article, “Non-browning apples may be on store shelve soon(ish)” reports that the entire process of creating the Arctic Apples and putting them through the rigorous testing standards to be allowed in store shelves took over ten years. However, even given all that work there could still be many more years until the apples are widely released, and in 2016 the apples are being tried out in test markets to assess viability.

Despite the seeming simplicity of the engineering involved in Arctic Apples, there is still backlash against the fruit. An EcoWatch article, “3 Companies Say No to GMO”, states that Wendy’s, McDonalds, and Gerber have all said they don’t plan on using any Arctic Apples in their apple slice meal options. Even on their website there are dozens of comments going back and forth about the danger of cross pollination of the apples with non-modified trees and whether they present any danger to human consumption or other use. Only time will tell whether Arctic Apples can help to dramatically reduce food waste as advertised.

Sources:

Friends of the Earth. (2015). 3 Companies Say ‘No’ to GMO Arctic Apples. EcoWatch. Kooser, A. (2015). Non-browning apples may be on store shelves soon(ish). CNet.

Okanagan Specialty Fruits. (2016). How’d we “make” a nonbrowning apple? Arctic Apples.

Royte, E. (2016). How ‘Ugly’ Fruits and Vegetables Can Help Solve World Hunger. National Geographic.

Scientific American. (2007). Why do apple slices turn brown after being cut? Scientific American.

Revisiting the Usefulness of Aesthetic Genetic Modifications with Innate Potatoes

Innate potatoes, developed by the agency J.R. Simplot, are the first genetically modified potatoes to be approved by the FDA for consumption. The potatoes have a wide verity of inserted genes added for the benefit of the crop, the farmers growing them, and consumers who purchase them. In the article “What Varieties of Potato are GMO?” on Livestrong, it is reported that the potatoes come in three different varieties- Ranger Russett, Russett Burbank, and Atlantic. Also in the report it was listed that, in their March 2015 press release about their evaluation of the crop and decision that the potatoes passed criteria such as toxicity, potential for allergic reaction, stability of unintended side effect, and more.

The main benefit that is highlighted in media coverage of the Innate potatoes are the same benefits that Arctic Apples were designed to have- a resistance to unattractive bruising and brown spotting on the inside. NPR goes into further detail in “GMO Potatoes Have Arrived. But Will Anyone Buy Them?”, explaining that the reason the agency named the potatoes “Innate” was because the genes used to silence the reaction in the spuds that caused the browning are actual native to potatoes themselves, but that they went unused after a while. Much of the food waste in the world comes from the distribution process, either when processers discard unattractive foods or when consumers at home discard their bruised fruits and vegetables before eating them. The hope is that this process keeps potatoes looking more healthy and attractive so that less will be wasted in the trash.

Another potent benefit of the modified potato, as mentioned in the NPR article, is that the Innate potatoes contain much less of a chemical known as acrylamide, which is triggered in the frying process. Studies on lab rates have shown that consumption of acrylamide increases the potential of cancer in lab rats, a litmus test often showing parallels in humans.

There are a host of other benefits, explains the article “Genetically Modified Potatoes Are Making Their Way to the Produce Section” from Fortune. The potatoes are designed to resist the blight that led to the Irish Potato famine, an inserted gene from another species located in Argentina that grew to resist such pathogens. This kind of blight protection is handy for farmers, as it allows the plant to protect itself from the most common diseases they would have to look out for. The potato is also designed to be able to be stored for a longer period of time at lower temperatures, allowing them to be kept in stores and sold over a greater duration. This is also hoped to reduce the spoils of food waste on the distribution side.

Although there are a great number of seeming benefits to the use of these potatoes, Simplot agency faces the same problems as do the other producers of genetically modified plants- there is still a heavily negative perception of such crops and a reluctance to adopt their use. Big retailers such as the McDonalds Corporation (who has worked with Simplot for many, many years), Frito-Lay, and ConAgra foods have all publically stated they will not use the modified plants. Even with a successful FDA evaluation of the crop, Simplot will have to do more on its end to prove to consumers that their new potatoes are worthy of interest and will do more good for public health than bad. This will be an important obstacle to overcome to a huge market as potatoes are reportedly the third most consumed food crop in the world, according to the International Potato Center.

Sources:
Addady, M. (2016). Genetically Modified Potatoes Are Making Their Way to the Produce Section. Fortune.
Charles, D. (2015). GMO Potatoes Have Arrived. But Will Anyone Buy Them? NPR.International Potato Center. (2016). Potato. International Potato Center.
Renee, J. (2015). What Varieties of Potatoes Are GMO? Livestrong.