Understanding the Old and the New

Using Biotechnology to Improve Our Food

In last week's column Dian Dooley discussed food biotechnology and this week she answers her readers' questions.

Question: I don't have a college degree in science. I get lost in all this confusing information in the media about food biotechnology, genetic engineering, GMOs, DNA, and all kinds of "cides." I'd like to be better informed, but I don't know where to start. Any suggestions?

Answer: Since you are reading Food for Thought, you are on the right track! When I decide on a topic for this column, I do quite a bit of background reading to refresh what I already know, and to learn more. Let me share some online resources that I found useful.

On the federal Food and Drug Administration website, you will find a 2000 reprint from the FDA Consumer, entitled Are Bioengineered Foods Safe? Food safety questions are fielded by the FDA Commissioner in an interview format.

For detailed consumer-friendly background information about many aspects of new and old food biotechnology, visit the International Food Information Council website. You will also find other links to more information about the topic.

Interested in the Hawai‘i angle on food biotechnology? Then read an article by Peter Munster and Ania Wieczorek on the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources web site.

Once you acquire some background about food biotechnology, you may want to stretch your intellectual wings. The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology site provides current updates on several aspects of food biotechnology, including items in the news, poll results, and legal and ethical issues.

Lastly, for you really hard-core science buffs, I challenge you to read (and understand) an excellent, 56-page scientific report from the Institute of Food Technologists, AIFT Expert Report on Biotechnology and Foods. This report is loaded with many more references.

Who ever thought food could be so interesting and seemingly controversial?

Question: I seem to remember the first genetically modified food on the market was a flop…those hard, tasteless tomatoes. Didn't last long, did it?

Answer: The first "true" genetically modified food on the market is long lost to history or prehistory. Remember, food biotechnology, or selective breeding, is as old as humans. My guess is that it was the ancestor of today's corn, or maybe the ancestor of wheat or potatoes.

As for the new food technology, you have the right vegetable, but wrong problem. In 1994, the Flavrsavr tomato was the first genetically modified plant food allowed on the market in the U.S.

These tomatoes were modified to delay ripening and turning mushy before getting to market. The information in the tomato DNA that ultimately caused ripening was cut out of the DNA tape and reinserted backwards. This nonsense DNA told the plants to hold up on ripening the tomatoes.

Flavrsavr did well in the production of tomato products and in grocery stores. Keeping up with consumer demand was difficult, however, especially for the tomato paste product. So, your hard, tasteless tomatoes probably were not Flavrsavrs.

According to Cornell University, technical problems, legal troubles and competition from other seed-producing companies caused Calgene to pull the Flavrsavr tomato off the market in 1997.

Dian A. Dooley’s Food for Thought column runs once a month on HMSA’s Island Scene website. Dooley is an associate professor in Manoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. This article was re-run with permission from Island Scene.