Gene editing could revolutionize the food industry, but it’ll have to fight the PR war GMO foods lost

CBC News
Plant geneticist Zach Lippman examines cherry tomatoes CBC News | James Alexander Michie

Plant geneticist Zach Lippman examines cherry tomatoes he is growing at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, N.Y. Lippman has edited his tomatoes' genes with a tool called CRISPR to make them more suitable for large-scale urban agriculture. (David Malosh)

That being the case, it could be said that genetically edited foods will probably appear without undergoing a risk assessment by Canadian regulators.

Importantly, in the greenhouse at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, New York, plant geneticist Zach Lippman is growing cherry tomatoes. They do not resemble those that most people grow in their gardens and greenhouses. And it is that Lippman tomatoes have shorter stems and the fruit is more clustered, resembling grapes more.

It should be noted that Lippman used CRISPR, a revolutionary gene-editing tool that can edit DNA quickly and accurately, to modify three of the plant’s genes and make them suitable for large-scale urban agriculture for the first time. Likewise, with CRISPR, researchers can accurately point and cut any type of genetic material.

Emotion accompanied by severe restlessness

It is clear that there is a latent emotion about the introduction of genetically edited products in the Canadian food system in the coming years, but it is accompanied by severe concern.

This could be due to the fact that the last foray of the food industry into genetic engineering in the 1990s was a financial success. But the practice is an ongoing public relations nightmare, as many Canadians distrust products that critics have labeled “Frankenfoods.” In fact, currently, the only genetically edited product available on the market is a soybean oil used by a chain of restaurants in the Midwestern United States for cooking and salad dressings.

All the world’s leading health organizations, including Health Canada, have concluded that eating GM foods does not present any short or long-term health risks.

It is appropriate to mention that according to the World Health Organization, GMO products currently approved for the market “have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health.”

Despite this, Canadians remain stubbornly unconvinced, despite the fact that approximately 90 percent of corn, soybeans, and canola grown in Canada are genetically modified, as are almost all the processed foods we consume.

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Source: Ira Basen | CBC News

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