Simplot seeks a healthier spud
BOISE – In the potato capital of the world, spud honchos made sizzling rich on America’s french fry affair fill downtown offices. In the distance, potato fields sprawl east and west and there are ample cafes to carbo-load on spuds served baked, stuffed, fried and, somewhat miraculously, frozen into ice cream.
And inside tucked-away laboratories in the town that hash browns built, teams of scientists are splicing potato genes, working daily to perfect Idaho’s top cash crop with modern biotechnology.
At J.R. Simplot Co., biologists have used gene technology to design a spud that’s tastier and resistant to unsightly bruises and sprouts.
What’s more, the potato’s revamped gene structure rebuffs acrylamides, potentially dangerous chemicals that studies suggest bond with sugars in fried potatoes.
Company officials stress that the new potato, a genetically modified Russet Ranger, is in a preliminary research stage. It will be five to 10 years before Simplot markets a genetically enhanced potato that could supplant unmodified Russet Burbanks, the variety sold to fast-food restaurants across the world.
Still, the recent announcement of the new Russet Ranger in an industry scientific journal underscores the potential of biotechnology to mute the adverse health effects of fried snacks, while stoking the ethical debate surrounding these so-called “Frankenfoods.”
Processed foods with genetically altered materials dot the aisles of most U.S. supermarkets, the reconfigured gene structure invisible to the consumer because the government does not require labels like most countries in Europe.
However, whole foods in supermarket produce sections are almost never genetically engineered. Only a few brands of bioengineered Hawaiian papayas and a tiny amount of sweet corn ears and squash plants are on the market, said Gregory Jaffe, biotechnology project director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C.
All potatoes on the market, however, retain their original genetic structure; there currently are no genetically modified potatoes in American stores, said Caius Rommens, Simplot’s lead biologist on the gene-silencing project.
“It’s five years down the road and only if consumers really want it,” Rommens said. “But this could be the first. It’s a breakthrough – the first time genetic modification ever enhanced flavor.”
The altered potato could contain 7 percent more healthy starch, while offering a stronger flavor.
The new potato also stores longer before its starches begin to degrade. As starch degrades, sugars build in the potato. Those sugars form acrylamides when cooked under the intense heat of a fry oven or stove, international studies first reported a few years ago.
Studies have linked acrylamide, a chemical agent once used to treat sewage, to cancer in animals, according to the World Health Organization. Fred Zerza, a Simplot spokesman, said a link between acrylamides in french fries and human cancer has never been proven. But the gene-altering technology’s potential to solve the problem is promising, he said.
Even when the new Russet Ranger is perfected, it may not be a potato panacea. Consumers are skittish about genetically modified foods. Fast-food products, already under intense scrutiny from health groups and government regulators, may not withstand a public outcry against this “Brave New World” of food science.
Jaffe, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said it’s crucial that genetically modified foods are tested for higher levels of natural toxins, allergens and other public health risks.
The center thinks that after genetically modified foods face a battery of testing, the choice to eat an altered potato, tomato or other food should be left up to the consumer.
Simplot marketers hope they can eventually sell a technical distinction to the french fry noshing public: that their bioengineered potato does not include foreign DNA. Currently, Simplot’s Russet Ranger only modifies existing potato genes.