WASHINGTON POST– For years, advocates of agricultural biotechnology have promised a future in which foods will be genetically engineered to give more nutrition and to prevent chronic diseases, in which crops will be modified to thrive in salty soil or hot or dry climates and in which consumers will benefit directly from science’s ability to tweak other characteristics of plants.

So far, however, that has generally not happened, and the main beneficiaries of agricultural biotechnology remain farmers battling pests and weeds that threaten staple crops such as soybeans, corn and cotton, as well as the companies that develop and produce genetically modified seeds.

But last week, consumers were reminded of what might be available in the future. Researchers at the British-government-sponsored John Innes Center announced that they had developed a purple tomato that has high levels of beneficial anthocyanins — antioxidants known to neutralize potentially harmful oxygen molecules, or free radicals, in the body and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. The genes for the purple tomato came from snapdragons.

The creators of the purple tomato, a team led by Cathie Martin, tested their fruit in cancer-susceptible mice and found that the animals on a diet of 10 percent powdered purple tomatoes in their pellets lived significantly longer than those eating powdered normal red tomatoes. Her findings were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Continue reading about “Extra Nutritious” Genetically Engineered Food Years Away.

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