Hot Tomatoes Genetically Altered Tomatoes Are Causing Concern Among Pure-Food Groups, But Many Consumers Rate Them First In Flavor

However you slice it, the MacGregor’s tomato is ripe.

To supporters, it’s ripe with possibility - the promise of a freshtasting tomato with every trip to the supermarket, even in the dead of winter.

But to skeptics, the whole issue of genetically engineered foods - of which MacGregor’s is the forerunner - is ripe for debate.

“You really are what you eat. I’m not happy that they’re messing around with that,” said Jamie Smith of Coeur d’Alene, a leader in the local pure food movement.

“I’m not afraid of the technology,” countered Norm Carpenter, produce director for Rosauers supermarkets. “I’ve been to seminars, training sessions, walked the fields.

“I’m confident it’s a plus for the industry, if we can get the public to accept it.”

The MacGregor’s tomato, marketed by a California company called Calgene Fresh, has its internal chemistry altered so it doesn’t get soft as quickly.

That allows it to ripen longer on the vine before being shipped, unlike most mass-produced tomatoes, which are picked green and artificially ripened later.

The federal Food and Drug Administration approved MacGregor’s in May 1994, but it didn’t reach the Pacific Northwest until last month. There’s simply more demand than there are tomatoes to go around.

“They weren’t even going to bring them into Spokane, but I made such a fuss about it,” said Mike McKenna, who handles produce for the local office of Kelly-Clarke Inc., a West Coast food broker.

Apart from the Pacific Coast, MacGregor’s tomatoes are only available in the Midwest, middle Atlantic and some New England states. Calgene produces some itself and contracts with other growers in California, Florida and Georgia.

“We’re just being very controlled in our growth,” said Calgene’s public relations manager, Carolyn Hayworth.

Some Spokane area shoppers can’t get enough of them. Many of the people who responded to a recent item in IN Food praised the hightech tomatoes’ taste.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had a garden tomato to compare them to, but I would say it’s really close,” Kathy Perks of Spokane said after finishing a breakfast of sliced MacGregor’s with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

“Once tomato season is over with, I always think, ‘There goes the next 10 months,”’ said Sara Shipley, a Spokane Valley resident and avowed organic gardener.

But she’s sold on MacGregor’s. “You let them ripen in the window for a few days, like you would with a garden tomato, and they’re really good,” Shipley said.

At upwards of $2 per pound, they’re also about twice as expensive as the typical mass-produced tomatoes. McKenna is convinced customers will pay the price.

“It’s like ice cream,” he said. “People say, I’m not going to pay $4 for a half-gallon when I can get it for $1.99 - until they taste it.”

Carpenter said sales were strong the first week MacGregor’s was available in Rosauers stores, at a sale price of $1.99, and have remained steady since then.

The traditional California crop is at its prime, along with locally grown greenhouse tomatoes, Carpenter said.

“If the MacGregor survives in the face of this kind of competition right now, I have no doubt it will survive in the middle of winter, when we’re scrambling to get any kind of tomato at all,” he said.

Albertson’s quit carrying MacGregor’s, at least for now, following slow sales.

“It’s not that nobody liked them; nobody bought them,” said Jim White, produce sales manager. “This is a pretty good hydroponic tomato market.”

Hydroponic tomatoes, grown in greenhouses using liquid fertilizers and no pesticides, are more comparable to MacGregor’s in both price and taste.

The two main local suppliers, Spirit Lake Greenhouses in North Idaho and Rucker Farms of Cusick, Wash., are confident they can meet the MacGregor’s challenge.

“I’m absolutely astonished that any stores around here would carry them, given the supply of greenhouse tomatoes available,” said Spirit Lake’s Drake Cazir.

“Maybe they have better flavor than regular field-grown tomatoes, but they’re not better than ours.”

Becca Rucker of Rucker Farms said her sales went down when MacGregor’s showed up but have since recovered.

“As people try them more and more, I think they’re going to come back to the tomato they know best, feel more comfortable with,” she said.

Kelly-Clarke’s McKenna admits greenhouse tomatoes have an edge in appearance.

“Everyone expects these (MacGregor’s) tomatoes to look like diamonds,” he said. “That’s not the case, although they taste really good.”

But with MacGregor’s, the comfort level also has a lot to do with how much faith people put in scientists and their genetic engineering techniques.

To create its special seeds, Calgene makes a copy of the gene that controls the enzyme that causes tomatoes to soften. The copy is then put into tomato plants backwards, blocking production of the enzyme.

To make sure that’s successful, a “marker” gene resistant to an antibiotic called kanamycin is also attached.

The seeds are then tested, and if they aren’t affected by kanamycin, Calgene knows they will work.

That marker gene is the reason MacGregor’s was submitted to the FDA for review. It remains one of the biggest causes for concern among the tomato’s critics, who fear the antibiotic resistance can be passed on to people.

Said Coeur d’Alene’s Smith: “If we eat tomatoes every day for a week, my child gets sick with an ear infection, the doctor prescribes kanamycin and it doesn’t work and we have to go to a stronger drug - that bothers me.”

The FDA confirmed that there’s no chance of that, said Calgene’s Hayworth.

“There’s no way that can be transferred to the human gut,” she said. “We eat many things in our diet, but we don’t take on the characteristics of their DNA.”

Beyond the specifics, there’s a more general fear that food scientists are moving into a dangerous new world where the risks are unknown.

“Any time you start messing with the balance within an ecosystem, you’re courting trouble,” said Chris Armstrong of Spokane. “In the long run, we will pay for it.”

Said Smith: “You eat what’s in season. If tomatoes aren’t any good, you wait until summertime. There is a natural order to things.

“We’re playing God here. I tend to think things were made right in the first place.”

Hayworth said the genetic manipulation has been proven over more than a decade of research. “We know exactly what the genes will do,” she said.

And, she added: “If the world wants to continue feeding itself, sustaining what we have, biotechnology is the answer.”

While MacGregor’s is the first genetically engineered food on the market, it will have plenty of company.

The FDA has also approved a crookneck squash that’s refigured to resist two common plant viruses. Everything from potatoes to pineapples to a faster-growing salmon are in the pipeline.

Calgene is working on a canola oil that can be used to make margarine without having to be hydrogenated. That means no trans-fatty acids, the latest villain in the great butterversus-margarine debate.

“The money that’s been spent, the way the whole genetic thing is going to go, people may not realize how big it is,” said McKenna.

To many, it may not matter. Local produce managers report few consumer questions or complaints about MacGregor’s. No concerns surfaced in a focus group of shoppers that Tidyman’s talked with before introducing the tomatoes, said produce supervisor Don Bergen.

Lisa Fierro of Spokane is simply thrilled to find tomatoes that aren’t mushy. “Texture is very important to me,” she said. “(MacGregor’s) have a nice, sweet flavor, and they’re firm.

“It’s what I want. How it gets there, I don’t care.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: For more information on the MacGregor’s tomato, call Calgene Fresh Inc. at 800-348-6628, or write to 9880 S. Dorchester, Bldg. 11, Chicago, IL 60628. The Spokane County Health District has produced a pamphlet about genetically engineered foods. For a copy, call 324-1560 and enter extension 2 for the food program.