Tomato biotechnology heads for the market.Move over, microwave oven. Step aside, 24-speed food processor. Your days as the highest-tech items in the kitchen are numbered. The Flav r Savr tomato is here. The Food and Drug Administration announced last week that the genetically altered Flavr Savr The Flavr Savr tomato was the first commercially grown genetically engineered food to be granted a license for human consumption. It was produced by the Californian company Calgene, and submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1992. tomato developed by Calgene of Davis, Calif., "is as safe as tomatoes bred by conventional means." Armed with this stamp of approval, Calgene began selling its prized tomato within days, beginning in California and Illinois. Flavr Savr ranks as the first genetically altered whole food (as opposed to food ingredient) to hit suppermarkets, but more will soon follow, food experts says. The new tomoto softens less readily than regular tomatoes because researchers have altered one of the genes to produce less of a ripening ripening said of meat. See curing. enzyme, Calgene says (SN: 11/28/92, p.376). Thus Flavr Savr can be left longer on the vine and develop a home-grown flavor without sploiling on the way to market. Growers usually pick firm, green tomatoes and ripen rip·en tr. & intr.v. rip·ened, rip·en·ing, rip·ens To make or become ripe or riper; mature. See Synonyms at mature. rip them using ethylene gas. As part of a separate review, FDA FDA abbr. Food and Drug Administration FDA, n.pr See Food and Drug Administration. FDA, n.pr the abbreviation for the Food and Drug Administration. also approved the use of a genetic marker genetic marker n. A gene phenotypically associated with a particular, easily identified trait and used to identify an individual or cell carrying that gene. in the Flavr Savr and other corps, says the FDA's Laura Tarantino. The marker, located near the new enzyme gene, distinguishes plant cells that take up the gene from those that don't by making cells resistant to antibiotics. Thus, by dousing plant cells with antibiotics, Calgene can identify the engineered cells and avoid growing plants lacking the enzyme gene. Calgene asked FDA in 1991 to examine data on the Flavr Savr to determine the tomato's safety, although FDA did not require the review, says Tarantino. "All companies developing [genetically altered foods] have been good about coming in and talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" lecture, speech rebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to us," she says. Calgene says it will also voluntarily label the Flavr Savr and provide information and how it's produced. Such precautions fail to satisfy Jeremy Rifkin, a long-standing opponent of genetically engineered genetically engineered adjective Recombinant, see there foods. He plans to file a lawsuit in Federal court challenging FDA approval of the tomato. |
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