Artificial sweeteners, fake fat and now...
The four-billion dollar fresh tomato market is getting an artificial shot - the first genetically engineered tomato will hit the market in 1994. It's the first food created by the use of recombinant DNA. Called Flvr Savr, developed by Calgene, a California biotechnology company, will hit the market first in the Midwest.
While some question the quality of the product of whether the market will really embrace such a product, others, like Jeremy Rifkin, are actively campaigning against it. A Washington D.C. based activist, Rifkin opposes the genetically engineered food on the grounds of safety and ethics. Others ask why we need to spend more money to develop a further excess of our food supply when we are already paying farmers not to produce.
The technology was approved by the FDA in early 1992 saying that recombinant DNA is no different than classical plant breeding. However, the FDA will require further testing if the residues in the tomato turn out to be a allergen. Presently, Vice-President Gore is working with the FDA to determine whether their policy on genetically engineered foods needs to be changed.
Other genetically engineered foods are headed our way: potatoes with a chicken gene and a wax-moth gene, tobacco with firefly genes (the plants will grow in the dark), trout genes in carp, and others.