Have you ever wondered what mysterious ingredients are in your food? Well, at least you can trust whole-plant foods like an apple—unless it happens to be a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO). Earlier this month, Okanagan Specialty Fruits relieved federal approval from the Department of Agriculture to release their genetically modified product, the Arctic apple, to the market.
National Public Radio (NPR) covered this story recently, saying, “If you don’t like the sight of brown apple slices, we have news that might be appealing. If you don’t like the idea of scientists fiddling with your food, you might have different ideas about this.”
From a consumer-awareness perspective, the ability to read the sticker of an apple in a grocery store to distinguish the “fiddled with” from the rest may seem like a great way to be transparent. The reality is, however, that the Arctic’s target market is actually the food service industry, which supplies sticker-less slices of icy white apples for fast food chains and pre-packaged school lunches.
These apples, which are Golden Delicious and Granny Smith injected with extra genetic material to prevent the visible effects of oxygenation, have not been shown to have negative effects on human health or the environment.
In fact, the company claims on their website that by reducing the enzymatic browning that occurs during biting, slicing, etc., the Arctic apple preserves even more health-promoting benefits than regular apples.
Okanagan Specialty Fruits say that they use “time-proven biotechnology tools” to instigate the process of “gene silencing.” This “silencing” is of low-PPO (polyphenol oxidase), the gene that is responsible for browning, to reduce the overall expression of PPO in the Artic apples.
Okanagan’s website (www.arcticapples.com) claims that “Arctic apple trees and fruits are identical to their conventional counterparts in every way—until you bite, cut, or bruise the fruit, that is… No PPO, no browning, [and] no ‘yuck’ factor to discourage you from enjoying that delicious apple.”
Despite this consumer-friendly message, many apple distributors and food companies are wary of carrying this product because of a fear that customers will be scared away by the prospect of genetic engineering. In any case, it will take years before there are enough productive orchards to take these apples to market, but perhaps we should take a second look before we take a bite out of that special fruit that never browns, that square tomato that fits neatly in a box, or any food that has been altered from its original form in nature.
Genetic engineering has been part of our society for a very long time, and as long as it does not involve creating the built-in pesticide plants from Monsanto, it does not necessarily pose a threat to human health (although it may reduce bio-diversity, which is vital for our already fragile food system). Nonetheless, I personally prefer food that I know for sure will eventually break down, oxidize, and rot in the face of nature. However, like NPR said, if you don’t like brown apple slices, maybe this will get some people to eat more fruit.