GMOs might be the first thing that comes to mind when we think about food and tech. They’ve been a contentious and emotional issue for decades now, and with new genetic engineering techniques like CRISPR entering the mainstream, keeping up is only getting more complicated.
Hence the reason for this week’s In the Field episode. We talk to Dr. Matthew R. Willmann, director of the Plant Transformation Facility at Cornell University, as well as Dr. Urvashi Rangan, the chief science adviser for GRACE Communications Foundation, about the potential power, and potential problems, of genetically engineering our food.
Listen via the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. Here are the links we promise at the end of the show:
- Without getting too technical, here is more about how CRISPR and transgenically modified methods differ in broad strokes. The piece also gets into some social differences, too.
- If you’re curious about how gene editing fits into the world’s hunger problem, we also encourage you to listen to our food waste episode.
- Here’s a list of the transgenically modified foods currently on the market. Foods modified with CRISPR are mostly still in the works, but these gene-edited mushrooms have gotten the regulatory green light from the USDA.
- Here’s a first look at the label that must appear on all genetically engineered foods by 2022. Marion Nestle has a sharp analysis.
- If you’re in and around New York, here’s the link to those Genspace classes that we mention at the beginning of the episode. They offer much more than just CRISPR tutorials.
- Here’s the link to Urvashi’s Food Print project, as well as the story that we wrote about the site. And here’s the link to Cornell’s Plant Transformation Facility where Matthew is the director.
- Urvashi also joined us back in November at Food Loves Tech to talk about a similar topic alongside former White House food policy adviser Sam Kass, Untitled executive chef Suzanne Cupps and Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture‘s crop production manager Jason Grauer—watch the video here.
- And, with the hope that citrus greening doesn’t wipe out oranges, lemons, limes and the like, here’s a grapefruit basil smash cocktail for you to enjoy while you mull over your feelings about this brave new genetic engineering future…
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The first season of our podcast is produced by the insanely talented Kat Aaron and brought to you by Oatly.
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