Sunday, February 15, 2015

Not All GMOs are Created Equal

When it comes to GMOs, this 2014 City Mom learned it’s a mistake to lump all GMOs in the same pot of judgment. There is a lot more to those three letters than most nay-sayers will have us believe. The biggest lesson: You cannot judge every crop by the same standards. If you are going to call yourself a responsible consumer, you need to know more; and that ridiculous acronym is not helpful. “Genetically Modified Organism” tells us nothing about how the plant was developed. I have a small voice, but my plea to those with bigger voices is to change the way we address plant breeding using technology to assist. “GMO” doesn’t work. An engineered corn plant and an engineered apple are two completely different things, engineered differently, for entirely different reasons.

In my book, you are legitimately anti-GMO for one of the following reasons: it’s against your religion, you are joining a battle against big ag and the control of our food, you are against sharing genes across species (transgenics), or you aren’t sure about man playing God to change plant genetics – even if the end result is the same either way. I may not drink your kool-aid, but those are legitimate reasons to question.

GMOs will play an important part in the sustainability of our food future.  Not understanding what GMOs are is not an acceptable reason to be against them. The legitimate facts are available and main stream media is picking them up. It hasn’t always been, but it’s getting easier to understand them.

The latest headline that has splashed on social media is the Arctic Apple approval. Unfortunately, most of the knee-jerk social media posts are in the negative commentary column. It’s a GMO; bad, bad, bad. But, why? Do we know what we’re bashing here?

I get it if you just simply don’t want plant biologists messing with your food. The image of food engineered in a laboratory has always seemed more of science fiction and space technology. Frankly, I’m not a fan of the idea of scientists mixing powders in the lab and calling the result food (read, soda or “health” waters). But, this is different. Here’s the thing, plant breeders have been messing with our food since the beginning of food. Different varieties of peaches have been bred to have firmer flesh for canning versus eating one fresh and juicy off the tree. Different varieties of strawberries have been bred to be firmer, as well, to successfully make the journey cross-country from California fields to your breakfast table in New York. The really tasty ones you can plant in your backyard would never make the trip without turning to mush. Those giant strawberries for those special chocolate dipped Valentine delights? Bred to be that way. The beloved Honeycrisp apple? Someone worked really hard for a long time to breed it for our eating pleasure. It takes years, even decades, to develop and breed new varieties of fruits and vegetables without using computers to assist. Breeding in this way, we blindly wait for the DNA switches to get turned on and off by Mother Nature by trial and error. It can take a plant-breeder an entire career to accomplish a new variety.

Now that we have the computer technology that can assist those same biologists to speed up their understanding of the genetics that play the part in the characteristics of our fruits and vegetables, why are we shunning the outcome? An apple that doesn’t brown? Why not? They’re just turning off a piece of the DNA that is known to be the switch for the browning enzyme.

If you’re against transgenic GMOs, the Arctic apple isn’t transgenic. They used genes from another apple with a higher resistance to browning to flip the DNA switch.  There is no foreign species brought into play with this one.

Or perhaps if your GMO fear here is big ag and who controls our food, this isn’t the one, either. This Arctic Apple wasn’t developed in the lair of big ag or a company who controls our food; quite the opposite, it seems.

We love apples and they are packed with vitamins and nutrients. If they didn’t brown so fast, we would see them at the lunch-time salad bar and packed in the convenience foods we seem to really appreciate. Apples instead of fries for the kids at our go-to fast-food joint? I’d much rather have them without whatever that current spray is that imparts a nasty bitter flavor. Is it the best way to eat an apple? Definitely not. But, when we’re on the go, the convenience wins. At least it’s better than the greasy fries alternative to fill the void of hunger.

Once this apple has grown and been sold, we will still have a choice. As a consumer, I don’t have to buy the Arctic Apple. I will be able to choose my favorite Honeycrisp if that’s what I crave. The Arctic variety will serve a specific purpose and I can see it being useful to reduce food waste in the process. I wish we could all learn to be a little more patient and optimistic about the good and meaningful possibilities that will come out of the marriage of biology and technology.

Here are a few good resources for learning more about GMOs.
bestfoodfacts.org


1 comment:

  1. I'm excited about the Arctic apple. I will love being able to pack apple slices in my kids' lunches without them turning brown!

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