CRISPR tomatoes genetically engineered to be richer in Vitamin D | Hacker News Reader

CRISPR tomatoes genetically engineered to be richer in Vitamin D

newatlas.com

106 pointslelf122 comments

Great.

I just wish people would stop labeling "GMO == bad" so we can continue tailoring food to our needs - like we have been doing for millennia. Except now we can be more precise about it.

Anyone who's ever tried to grow tomatoes will attest that the damn things shouldn't exist. They are just as yummy to pests are they are to us. Even the grocery store ones that are selected for production and looking good are very finnicky.

Tomatoes were the size of blueberries originally. People will rave about "heirloom" tomatoes (and some are delicious, currently trying to grow my own) but they are just as mutant as the bland supermarket ones.

Eh, I don't care to have more vitamin D. How would I test my crops for these higher levels if my neighbors start growing these? There's no visual signs that my prior year's seed is contaminated.

I wonder how hard it would be to engineer a logo or trademark pattern onto the skin of the fruit. Probably pretty hard given that SOTA is engineering a pathway to synthesize just one vitamin.

How can you tell today that your neighbor's crop hasn't cross bred with yours? And if it has, how can you tell what genes you got?

Remember - mutations happen all the time in nature. There's no difference between a seed that mutated 'naturally' and one that we modified, except for intent.

Well, and that wild mutations are generally single gene or two at a time, right? CRISPER can swap out whatever anyone wants.

It's probabilistic, so it could be any number of genes being changed. Assuming nothing environmental that would increase replication errors. There's nothing preventing multiple mutations, except that the resulting organism should still be viable.

Note that even if the number of mutations is small between two cell generations, they carry over to offspring. The neighbor's "naturally grown" seed may have hundreds or thousands of mutations compared to your seed, without any human intervention required.

CRISPR can theoretically change large sections. But we have just as much trouble as nature has trying to mutate while not killing the organism, or otherwise stunting its development or causing other issues. It's safe to assume most changes will be small in that context too.

You can generally tell because of physical manifestations like changes to shape, color, etc. This is not a big deal for regular crops. It becomes more of a big deal for crops that have "unnatural" enhancements, or patented genes.

Eh, I'll happily support GMO food but I'm not particularly eager to encourage arbitrary "healthy" traits that will make the produce aisle and the vitamin aisle converge. Genes spread beyond their intended target and even to other species. Such things should be done with caution.

Naw, let's play God and fuck with billions of years of evolution! /s

We already do and have been doing that with selective breeding since at least 10kya. If you look at Norman Borlaug's shuttle breeding program, it moved really quickly and in a way there was nothing natural about it.

Selective breeding is far from playing God, quite the apples to oranges comparison; you're not altering the code, you're putting two different naturally evolved genetic codes together and if the pregnancy is successful then it naturally occurred and fits within the existing natural framework of evolution.

Keep in mind that man's God-intended natural state is "... nasty, brutish, and short".

I think we have different understandings or belief between God vs. nature. I think God exists within and/or from nature, a result of life and energy and consciousness evolving. Nature therefore may be "nasty, brutish, and short" however arguably God reaching the top of the competency hierarchy is an organization structure and would work towards order and efficiency, among other qualities or highest ideals.

This may come as a surprise to you but many other aisles of the grocery store have already converged with the vitamin aisle.[0]

Many foods that you've spent your entire life eating are already fortified with vitamins like Vitamin D. This isn't a bad thing at all, and in fact you and the people around you are probably far healthier for it.

https://inspection.canada.ca/food-label-requirements/labelli...

The introduction of iodine to table salt is arguably one of the biggest public health policy wins of the 20th century, only overshadowed by the near total bans on tetraethyl lead and CFCs.

Few people (in global terms) had flush toilets in the early 20th century. While iodine was huge for the west, toilets are still probably the most effective public health measure you can apply today as billions of people still lack them.

Manufactured foods, sure.

Nobody is going and injecting apples with vitamins though.

Now is that because they don't want to or is it because it isn't feasible to?

Milk comes to mind, but yes.

And what if we accomplish the same end result through selective breeding, as is common today?

It seems highly unlikely that selective breeding would result in tomatoes that have significant levels of useful vitamin D.

I don’t find that unlikely at all. Tomatoes are very susceptible to improvement through selective breeding. Test for vitamin D each generation, plant seeds from the highest.

Tomatoes have 0.00 micrograms of vitamin D though.

And as the article pointed out that's not actually vitamin D, but a precursor to vitamin D and most of that small amount is in the leaves not the fruit.

I despise this anti GMO fad that has been passing around. With the requirement that everything be labeled in the US soon (now?) I worry that advancements like this will just disappear (or never show up) from the market.

I will fight back on anyone claiming GMO's are bad when the science is clear that they are not. Now you can argue that the ethics of certain companies like Monsanto is a problem. But GMO's themselves are not and are perfectly safe. They are how we are going to feed our growing population (and maybe even grow them more environmentally friendly).

I hate myself every time I buy something that proudly claims it is "Non GMO" as if that's a good thing. It is almost as bad as the organic craze (but at least Organic has at least some science behind it).

The problem with GMO is that it's intertwined with intellectual property shenanigans favouring corporations over traditional farmers, and upsetting traditional methods of farming.

> Are you infringing a patent by selling your soybeans that contain a minor amount of contaminating Roundup tolerant seeds from your neighbor’s land? Are you infringing a patent by replanting those seeds? While you don’t intend to use or sell Monsanto’s crops, intention is not material to patent infringement. All that matters is the mere existence of Monsanto’s crops in your harvest.

https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/the-patent-landscape...

Granted, GMO is not the only type of crop affected, but it has a greater overlap with those practices than non-GMO crops.

> Farmers worldwide increasingly find themselves unable to legally save, share, sell, or breed with their own seeds.

https://www.opensourceseeds.org/en/about-us

I don't discount that, I even mentioned Monsanto in my original comment.

But the vast majority of the time (even in these comments) that people talk about GMO's being bad they are claiming the science is wrong, its bad for your health, etc etc etc.

Almost no one talks about the issues with the corporations. Which is a very real issue, but that issue should not be used to paint GMO's as bad on their own.

But labeling or banning them is not the solution. Considering the major health benefits (and environmental, costs, etc) that these improvements can have. Better laws about what these corporations can and cannot do is the answer.

Frankly, the public has been lied too to think that GMO's are bad for them.

Yes, this. The real problems with GMOs are not the changes themselves but the use of them as an excuse to use more herbicides and locking down the seeds. If you want to affect change you need to tackle the actual problems. When people wave their hands and demonize all GMOs without exception, that just obscures the real problems and makes it harder to address them. I know that this technique of muddying the waters is used by a lot of people with vested interprets to deflect criticism and defuse action.

Generally farmers don't save their seeds even for non GMO crops. It's simply much less hassle to buy from a seed farm, and produces a more consistent crop

Modifying crops to be pesticide resistant is a problem because it makes use of those pesticides less discriminate. We should be trying to move towards not spraying as much as possible to avoid runoff and increase biodiversity. GMOs can help with that too. We can't group all modifications together in the good vs bad buckets.

I could be incorrect, but I think I remember reading something about pest-resistant crops and how they are often implemented incorrectly when I was in university taking ecology classes.

Basically, if you take crop like corn as an example. Say our example corn has been genetically modified to resist various pests. However, you cannot just go and plant an entire field of said corn and expect it to be pest-resistant forever.

What farmers are supposed to do is plant non-pest-resistant corn crops for every n number of GMO corn corps in the same field. So, any given row of corn would have something like a non-pest-resistant corn plant after every 4 GMO corn plants.

This causes the said modified corn to retain its pest resistance for longer amounts of time, and the non-pest-resistant crops serve as honeypots for the pests. (You know path of least resistance and all).

However, doing this technically hurts the yields of a farmer's crops and more yield = more profit, thus many farmers forgo this practice. Even if done correctly, I still do not think it works forever, but it does slow down the microevolution of said pests -- at least hypothetically.

Not sure if that is correct, but I would love to know either way.

You and the person you were replying to are confusing two kinds of GMO crop:

Pest-resistant (kills bugs) and Herbicide-resistant( makes the plant robust to chemicals which kills weeds)

You're right about refuges, they only slow things down. To truly prevent resistance genes in pests from appearing, you need multiple modes of action. This was used effectively in HIV treatment. The virus was developing resistance to AZT treatment alone, eventually new drugs came along and patients were treated with 3 or more drugs at once. Multiple modes of action makes it too hard for the virus (or pest) to adapt in time. We don't really have multiple modes of action in plants yet, but one day, maybe?

The person you were replying to was describing herbicide resistant crops, which are sprayed (sometimes oversprayed). This isn't so cut and dry as they describe though. Things like glyphosate are much milder compared to older herbicides and GMO crops encourage things like 'no til' agriculture which greatly improves soil quality. So we're still spraying, but it's better, and has ecological benefits.

I cannot confirm, but that sounds plausible. This is the same logic for using antibiotics sparingly and in manners that will maximize their effect, to reduce the rate at which resistant strains of organisms dangerous to us can mutate.

> (but at least Organic has at least some science behind it)

Not very much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food

From the perspective of science and consumers, there is insufficient evidence in the scientific and medical literature to support claims that organic food is either substantially safer or healthier to eat than conventional food.[7]

But it sure is more expensive.

> I will fight back on anyone claiming GMO's are bad when the science is clear that they are not.

Well, don't overcorrect. Being a GMO does not make an O inherently bad, but that doesn't mean all GMOs are inherently good. Labeling something a GMO is just a descriptor which doesn't say anything about the particular modification that was done on said organism. It would be like saying you'll fight back on anyone claiming homemade clothing is bad when science is clear that it is not. Well, kinda depends on the creator and the quality of the result, right?

I also don't mind GMO products as such, and think this is good progress in general, no worse than selective breeding. But what I've read recently indicates that falling food quality is linked to poor soil quality. Vitamin D is great, but if the produce is missing essential micro-nutrients and minerals that's bad. We need sustainable farming practices not tweaks to the biology that masks a more serious underlying systemic problem.

To be fair, the reduction in micronutrients/minerals is a drop in the bucket compared to our yield increases. Besides, the reduction is more closely linked to our choice in cultivar as opposed to soil health. The Rothamsted institute has studied this extensively if you are curious to read more.

I agree, though. We should not only have more sustainable farming but also a more sustained food system entirely.

Thanks for the Rothamsted reference Matt, I am interested, like so much today this is obviously a complex can-o-worms.

It certainly is, and even as an ag researcher I'm still learning and tweaking my mental model for how our food systems should work. I believe we're headed into another green revolution where our success isn't just measured by yield. It'll also be measured by efficiency, restoration of damaged land, carbon sequestration, and innovative downstream products.

Here's an interesting article from McKinsey & Co. about how agriculture is one of the least digitized industries and the benefits it could gain from innovation.

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights...

> People will rave about "heirloom" tomatoes (and some are delicious, currently trying to grow my own) but they are just as mutant as the bland supermarket ones.

I don't know about them being mutants but they definitely look monstrous! They're a thing on the Mediterranean seaside (both in Spain and France for sure). I only buy these, they're yummy...

EDIT: BTW people don't despise genetically modified food for fun... They puke on it because the attempt at creating killer seeds that'd make sure to kill non-genetically modified ones while also making sure that everybody would have to buy the seeds from Monsanto and the like. I'll push for genetically modified ones if that's accompanied with very strong guarantees that people/companies attempting to corner the market like that will end up rotting in jail.

I don't know if I have an issue with GMO persay, but it seems the general science in nutrition is so poor it would be nice if we had some evidence before we started changing things. It seems like at best the current science suggests this may do nothing, at worst it gives people a false sense of security.

Also, I'm not so worried about the method of GMO as I am who is doing the GM and for what reason, and no I don't think selective breeding is better if Nestle is the one sponsoring the breeding.

Alright fine I'll bite and be the contrarian here. I am against GMOs. And everyone who promotes them like you do. Now come downvote me.

> so we can continue tailoring food to our needs

But that's the problem, isn't it? It's not "we" tailoring food, it's 1-2 multinational corporations, intent on making your food supply dependent on them. It's not "our" needs they serve, but theirs. While their PR focuses on making food healthier, what they've done is make it more resistant to pesticide so more can be sprayed [1]. Going by what happens when they are fully free to engineer food however they like, we can expect them to turn the vegetable aisle into the health and taste equivalent of the candy/snack aisle.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_Ready

Genetically modifying a food via DNA manipulation is not the same as selective breeding, and should not be conflated.

"But it's the same outcome!!!" most people who say this would not be so flippant about genetically modifying humans, even though it's "the same" as evolution.

Our GM crops are >90% engineered with what are called "first-generation" traits which offer resistance to herbicides, pests, or environmental conditions. First-gen traits are producer-centric, and the reason they make up most of our GM arsenal is because the same companies (Monsanto/Bayer for example) that provide the seed also provide the chemical that works in conjunction with the GM trait.

In the past few years, public trust in GM crops has diminished due to false information and fear of the unknown. According to published work, only ~5% of consumers feel like they have a good understanding of GMO.

The problem is that genetic engineering is not limited to "first-generation" traits. As a matter of fact, most of the unrealized benefit of GM crops is hidden in second and third generation traits. These are traits which increase nutritional value or improve shelf-life, etc (Consumer-centric traits).

Before you bash GM by bringing up Monsanto, super-weeds, or whatever, just think about the second and third generation GM traits which could solve major issues in the world (nutrient deficiencies, carbon sequestration, supply chain resiliency).

Plant molecular biologist with a background in genome engineering of high-value crops. AMA

Edit: I want to add a snippet regarding the uncertainties of "playing god". First of all, CRISPR is gene editing which is much different than foreign gene insertion via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. But even agro transformation has been occuring in nature without human intervention. These bacterium have the capacity to insert foreign genes into plant genomes and have been doing so on their own for quite some time. There are plenty of known gene-transfer events which happened without human pressure. Plant genomes across the world are littered with agro transfer genes. The only difference is now we use this mechanism to deliberately insert genes of interest for functional purposes.

As a complete outsider, I've got a question for you. How hard is it to do this GMO thing? Why does it have to be limited to only a few big corporations? Why have we yet to see a diverse industry of startups and small companies competing to make the best strains at the lowest prices with the most features, like we saw with the electronics industry?

Those are good questions and I'll try to answer them all together:

Creating a stably transformed plant is very difficult. A plant is made of b(tr?)illions of cells, and if you insert a "gene of interest" into one of them, it will exist transiently as each cell in the plant has its own cell line. So the standard way is to insert your gene into a cell and then induce/reprogramme it to go through the process of embryogenesis. This is critical because that single cell is the "parent" of every single other cell that will eventually compose the adult plant. Therefore, we can ensure the entire plant is stably transformed. Anything else is essentially chimeric.

The reason it is limited to big corporations is because of: market strategy, regulations, and IP. When the technology reached the point of commercialization, the early adopters decided on producer-centric traits because of: market value, ease of implementation, and ability to upsell.

When you are trying to sell a farmer something, you have to solve one of their problems. What does a farmer hate most? Weeds and other pests. So it's no surprise that the companies selling GM seeds are the same companies selling pesticides. In order to use their seed's technology, you also have to buy their pesticides. Now you've changed your whole farm operation to suit their technology and there's no going back. Gotcha!

It also turns out that getting these cultivars into the market is a big pain in the ass. The regulatory process to get a GM crop into the field and then onto the shelves is time-consuming and expensive... so again the big companies with money can make the investment. Finally, there is a lot of IP protection for these companies; from the seeds, to the chemicals, to the process of plant transformation.

Remember the part about plant transformation and embryogenesis? Very few species can undergo the process reliably - at least we only have methods for a handful. And within each species, there are only a few genotypes that work. Currently, the only GM crops are corn, soybean, cotton, potato, papaya, squash, canola, alfalfa, and sugar beet. Companies can own a patent on certain cultivars of these crops. They also probably own the patent for whatever herbicide the plant is resistant to.

You might ask yourself: Why don't they find out what's different about the genotypes that work and the ones that don't? Well, we did! It turns out there are a few native genes called "developmental regulators" which we can overexpress to force a plant into embryogenesis. That technology is also patented.

However, there are novel methods coming out, and there are startups and small companies doing this: check out Calyxt and Inari.

More will come in the future, but it's an expensive endeavor with a huge upfront cost, overhead, many highly educated employees, and a long time to market. Ag and Food tech VC funding has grown from ~5B (2015) to ~55B (2021) so it's coming.

It will be interesting to see what value-added traits come out next.

Fantastic information. Thank you for this crash course and insight into the state of the industry!

Didn't we learn on HN a day or two ago, that eating vitamin D doesn't help?

Yes, that article has come up a few times:

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=sunscreen+margerine

The article presents evidence that Vitamin D doesn't cause good health, but instead is a biomarker of good health caused by sun exposure and thus, supplementation does nothing for most people.

vitamin d doesn't cause good health, but being deficient in vitamin d causes poor health.

That being said, vitamin d is a hormone and I'm not sure I want to be unable to figure out approximately how much im taking in.

I'm not posing an opinion either way, but what the article says is that vitamin D doesn't cause either good or bad health, it's only a marker for sun exposure which does cause good health.

"These rebels argue that what made the people with high vitamin D levels so healthy was not the vitamin itself. That was just a marker. Their vitamin D levels were high because they were getting plenty of exposure to the thing that was really responsible for their good health—that big orange ball shining down from above."

again, low vitamin D levels do cause bad health, so it can cause bad health - your body needs vitamin d. Too much vitamin d can also cause bad health although you'd need to ingest a lot of vitamin d supplement over a decent period of time.

Having 'enough' vitamin d without having toxic levels of vitamin d is a sign of good health, but being deficient or having too much causes bad health.

Again the article is saying that bad health and not going outside causes low vitamin D and that adding vitamin D through supplementation doesn't really help. What helps is going out into the sun, according to the article - and in particular, doing so regularly, and without sunblock. In part so you can synthesize your own, but also because it yields nitric oxide which dilates blood vessels and lowers blood pressure.

The article says vitamin D supplements are useless as evidenced by numerous studies.

> ... vitamin D supplementation has failed spectacularly in clinical trials. Five years ago, researchers were already warning that it showed zero benefit, and the evidence has only grown stronger. In November, one of the largest and most rigorous trials of the vitamin ever conducted—in which 25,871 participants received high doses for five years—found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke.

>What helps is going out into the sun, according to the article - and in particular, doing so regularly, and without sunblock.

This is all well and good if you live in california, but residents of alaska go out into the sun without their skin covered a lot less depending on the season.

What about vitamin d supplementation for people who cannot regularly go out and expose their skin to the sun?

>participants received high doses for five years—found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke.

Again, the issue isn't "does high vitamin d cure cancer", its "does low vitamin d cause issues, and do you have enough", as I already said.

But lacking vitamin d can cause illness, and too much vitamin d can cause illness. I never claimed it cured cancer, heart disease or stroke. You're arguing someone else's argument that has nothing to do with what I've said.

From my understanding Vitamin D3 liquid form, sublingually, is best absorbed.

GP's referring to research that showed it was a good indicator of (whatever specific) health, but doesn't cause it. That it doesn't matter how well you absorb it from synthetic sources, because the benefit was from the exposure to sunlight, not the vit D that is a proxy measure for that.

I looked up a few articles on semantic scholar showing that vitamin D supplements do help for some things. I suspect it’s a case of “not the whole story” instead of “the story is flat out wrong”

I wish they would engineer them to taste like something again.

Can't grow them all by myself and those Holland/Spain grown taste like nothing.

It's not a matter of genetics. Store-bought tomatoes are almost always unripe, to make transport easier. Then they are treated with ethylene to artificially finish the final steps (but it's obviously not exactly the same result).

It's not _just_ a matter of genetics. But I'm pretty sure the supermarket ones have been bred for looks and shelf life.

I've grown store bought tomatoes. Last year we hardly bought any as the production was enough even though I have a tiny backyard.

There is some difference. Supermarket ones are a little bit more bland, and way bigger. But the difference in taste is minimal and you can only tell if you got them side by side.

However, if I compare supermarket tomatoes in the US vs supermarket tomatoes in Brazil, the ones in the US taste like water. They look different too (the brazilian ones don't usually look like a cartoon drawing, they are less 'perfect' visually).

If I could import seeds (not allowed!) I would, just so I could finally compare like with like (weather conditions, soil, etc).

The most likely reason for that is that it is simply a different tomato.

The first transgenic product was a tomato that decayed slower so it could be picked later. It launched the anti-GMO movement and was taken off the market.

Yeah, it would be awesome to figure out how to make delicious tomatoes that ripen well after picking and are sturdy enough to transport. There's probably a ton of money to be made on that, especially if you could make it pest and drought resistant. And while you're at it why not make them fix nitrogen like some legumes[1].

I actually mean it, I'm really excited to see how we can mix and match useful genes from other plants or heirloom varieties into sturdy crops that can be shipped to grocery stores. Theres so much potential here.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28712497/

No need for that. The varieties that taste good still exist.

Sure they do. I grow them.

They don't exist in supermarkets though and what I grow is not much. I only have balcony for that but I assure you, I enjoy every single one slowly and pure.

Pay more, and stop expecting to eat them (fresh) year-round.

I buy only organic tomatoes. The most expensive ones available at the supermarket. Have been doing that for years. Stopped buying the big (normal) ones years ago because I couldn't come by any with taste left. Went for the smaller ones. Most of those were good for some time, than they declined also. Now they have micro tomatoes. The one time I bought them, they tested quite good. Can't find them anymore. Maybe it was a one time thing. I grow my own on the balcony now and rarely try to buy any in stores these days. Sometimes you get a good batch. Most of the time it's a waste of money.

The only way to get good ones for sure besides growing them is buying tinned ones and probably on the market but I work and have no time to go to the market.

I'm in the UK, ymmv, but I'm happy with (especially British-grown) 'San Marzano' large plum tomatoes.

Especially in-season they're often in the (great value) 'tomato selection' punnets that at least Waitrose and M&S offer. (The rest are a mix of whatever their buyers found reasonable, typically mostly small cherry and plum.)

I'm absolutely not claiming they're the best, they're not, but the value's great (~£2.70/750g iirc) and there's flavour. Anything cheaper is flavourless crunchy crap IME. (And plenty more expensive too, I don't really understand, but I suppose the unpredictability of what's in the punnet is helpful/a saving to them, so it can be made cheaper to consumer? :shrug:)

Do you guys have the little varieties of cherry tomatoes they are growing now? Here in North America we have had all these little tomatoes for the past few years. They honestly taste great. Bit more sour than homegrown and not close to as big. But very tasty all the same.

I'm actually not sure about the varieties within those you can buy in supermarkets. You usually have just one "brand" of organic cherry and one brand of organic normal sized tomatoes. Those are the ones we buy. There are sometimes different version within the non-organic variants in bigger supermarkets but I haven't tested those for quite some years.

Franken-foods need to compete with whole organic vegetables in a level market playing field. You enthusiasts can purchase them, and I will pick organic. Fair, right?

What does organic mean to you? Sans synthetic fertlizer? Sans GM?

We should probably stop using synthetic fertilizer and large-scale monoculture system. But to truly address climate change and environmental degradation, you should really consider GM as a solution.

The most likely path to a sustainable food system incorporates GM crops but leaves behind the destructive framework which was built around the first GM varieties.(roundup ready monoculture systems)

> climate change and environmental degradation, you should really consider GM as a solution.

could you be more specific ?

Climate change: GM traits to improve the plants ability to sequester carbon in higher concentrations, in more tissue, and further into the soil where it is less likely to re-enter the atmosphere.

Environmental: moving away from herbicide resistance traits and focus on yield, crop improvement traits, and crop protection. The current business model of GM is designed to force farmers to buy herbicide from the same supplier as the seed. It's a double money grab.

Moving away from herbicide resistance traits will improve environment by reducing monoculture and evolutionary pressure on weeds.

it sounds like you believe that GMO foods can be key to fixing our most serious problems, and that the existing, documented problems with GMO "can go away" .. seems unrealistic at best to me

Well, it sounds to me like you are uninformed. Please, tell me about the documented problems with GMOs and how unrealistic it would be to mitigate them.

It's just so exhausting for me to communicate with someone like yourself, who simplifies a complex issue down to "unrealistic" because of its complexity. I have personally generated multiple GM varieties and spent a substantial amount of time researching horizontal gene transfer in the environment. If you think we can feed the world's growing population, mitigate and resolve climate change, and quickly address new pathogens in our crop system, *without GM crops*, then let's see it. Let's see the data which supports non-GMO as a viable equal yield. As a viable solution to emerging pathogens.

I would love to have a meaningful conversation about this, but you are certainly indoctrinated into a way of thinking about GMO which doesn't align with reality. See: "Frankenfoods" in your original comment. You choose a disparaging way to describe GM varieties as a way to amplify your negative opinion about them. Look up Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer and you will learn that the mechanism used to deliberately insert genes has already been occurring in nature for thousands of years.

What's funny is you didn't even answer the very first question I asked you: What does organic mean to you? Because organic is a half-baked term with a dozen definitions used as a marketing tool for product differentiation. Organic labels mean nothing, are based on varying parameters, and are assessed by a slew of certifying bodies with questionable ethics.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31510709

organic is a term that will surprise you when you learn what it means. organic does not mean no pesticides. organic certifiers agree to an allowed level of pesticides. organic does not mean it hasn’t been subject to genetic modification. nearly all food we eat has been selectively bred for our consumption and isn’t found in nature

> organic is a term that will surprise you when you learn what it means.

my current understanding is that the organic certification of food in America is a giant success story with many facets; that the negotiation on the meaning of organic for fruits and vegetables was relatively strightforward while the terms for meat products delayed the process and were difficult; that the organic certification has been a success in the marketplace, giving some farms a chance to get profitable with a higher selling price; that organic certification in California is also consistantly forged and that there is an enforcement challenge to curb forged organic certificates and brand marking.

Yes, I am interested to learn more about organic food, and I do buy organic food regularly and often, here in California.

What you need to understand is that organic cropland makes up less than 1 percent of total US cropland, organic commodities make up less than 2 percent, and less than 6 percent of total retail food purchases are organic.

You can buy organic all you want, but rest assured it is a luxury good and you are paying a premium for whatever peace of mind it gives you. The rest of the world doesn't have that luxury. Waging war against all GM crops could drive food prices beyond what's affordable. It also drastically reduces our ability to battle emerging pathogens.

a big concern with organic branding is how organic does something have to be? lower on the food chain on the raw ingredients end it’s easier to quantify. once you get up higher like organic breads and cakes it’s tricky. if i’m making a strawberry cake with organic strawberries and organic wheat but not organic sugar is that ok? what if i mix some organic and some not? there’s a lot of flexibility here. organic produced goods have a minimum organic ingredient percentage requirement but it doesn’t mean it’s 100% organic

Or...

Instead of spending money engineering food like this we could actually go outside without being slathered in sunscreen for about 10 minutes a day (depending on skin tone). That might even mean we get some healthy activities in that have additonal benefits while we're out there.

Edit: wow so much hate without any argument as to why this is better than existing supplementation, especially considering existing supplements have more stringent dosing. It's like I've somehow argued that supplementation is bad, when all I'm saying is this seems a waste of money if we already have adequate supplements.

Not a great solution for folks in northern climates where sun doesn't exist for 9mo out of the year.

Doctors still recommend vitamin D supplements.

I assume it's difficult to grow fresh tomatoes there too. Why should the tomatoes be benefit over the existing supplements?

Tomatoes are still eaten plenty in places where they cannot even grow, because we are able to ship them. They may not taste as nice as farm-fresh heirloom tomatoes, but clearly people still eat them.

On the other hand, most people do not take Vitamin D supplements, even if they should.

Ok... but why would these people who don't take a supplement today suddenly care enough to pick out fresh tomatoes that are engineered for it? Likely at 10x -100x the cost.

CRISPR doesn't only work with tomatoes.

Doctors recommend a lot of things due to herd mentality and syllogistic thinking. Their endorsement doesn't mean much.

This is an argument for preserving salmon habitats, which is how pacific northwest tribes met their vitamin D needs before we dammed their spawning grounds.

And when the engineering might lead to more B12 instead, should we instead go out and hunt for our food?

That's pretty off topic. We could have what-ifs about a bunch of other nutrients.

Those of us with skin cancer because we have had our "10 minutes a day" are reliant upon vitamin D supplements.

Even if you have fair skin, there is no significant cancer risk from 10 minutes of daily sun exposure. (The exception would be some very rare genetic disorders which cause rapid development of cancers.) But sun exposure alone might not produce the recommend vitamin D levels for some people, especially those living nearer to the poles.

Outdoor workers actually have a significantly reduced rate of melanoma. Sun exposure increases risk of carcinoma, which is almost never fatal (in fact, knowing nothing else about a person, diagnosis with a basal or squamous cell carcinoma implies a longer expected lifespan). Source: https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-...

Regular exposure to sunlight, in amounts insufficient to cause burns, is probably very good for us. And why wouldn't it be? Life tends to find and use all advantageous resources at its disposal--so of course a diurnal animal with lots of skin collecting sunlight would have evolved all sorts of processes to put that sunlight to beneficial use.

The overall prevalence rate of vitamin D deficiency was 41.6%, with the highest rate seen in blacks (82.1%), followed by Hispanics (69.2%).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21310306/

That's why I said depending on skin tone.

In support of what you're saying.

https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-...

not everyone can make vitamin D properly from the sun.

Ok, and what is the benefit of this over traditional supplements for them?

Supplements don't self-replicate.

I think the general discussion is around whether that's a feature or a bug.

Same reason why putting fluoride in the water was the best decision ever in terms of public health value.

People don't care about their health.

Not sure if you're joking since fluoridation is still debated to this day.

Fluoridated water is the most impressive public health victory in the last 200 years in terms of lives saved and improved.

Brown/black people in northern latitudes aren't really able to get adequate vitamin D through sun exposure alone for 6 months/yr.

In response to your edit: nothing in this comment - which is the one that's downvoted - says anything about existing supplements. It just says that we should all get our Vitamin D by hanging out outside - which, as others have already pointed out, is nonsense for much of the world and thus has been downvoted justly.

As to why existing supplements are inadequate: well, because at the end of the day huge swaths of the population are Vitamin D deficient. Plain and simple. Those people should be taking supplements, but aren't. Many of those same people eat tomatoes regularly, and this will help them; it's like water fluoridation. You can moralize and lecture about individual responsibility or whatever, but a positive outcome is a positive outcome.

There was also a problem with populations lacking enough iodine in their diet that was addressed with food additives, specifically iodized salt which had a major health benefit across the nation. These types of solutions work. It's a continual source of frustration when systemic issues are dismissed simply as matters of "personal responsibility".

> The U.S. was historically iodine deficient prior to the early 1920s, particularly in the goiter belt region of the Great Lakes, Appalachians, and the northwestern area of the country, due to the effects of natural atmospheric processes. Following the successful implementation of salt iodization program in Switzerland, the introduction of iodized table salt in the U.S. during the 1920s significantly improved its iodine nutritional status. However, although recent national studies demonstrate that the general population is overall iodine sufficient, salt iodization in the U.S. is not universal, and certain subsets of the population, including pregnant and lactating women and their offspring, may be at risk for mild to moderate iodine deficiency. As such, a public health approach by the American Thyroid Association and the Endocrine Society advocate U.S. women to take a supplement containing 150 µg iodine/day beginning preconception.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509517/

That didn't have an easy and free solution in most areas, a solution that carries other benefits. That also didn't involve editing genes that could potentially spread. Also it had a clear benefit. Not so much here.

https://www.sciencealert.com/vitamin-d-tablets-may-be-worse-...

> a public health approach by the American Thyroid Association and the Endocrine Society advocate U.S. women to take a supplement containing 150 µg iodine/day beginning preconception.

That paper was published in 2012. In 2014 (my wife's first pregnancy) no major pregnancy supplement included iodine, and my wife's doctor said it was unnecessary. The only supplement I could find without an outrageous amount of iodine while still being quasi-reputable was a Whole Foods-branded, 225mcg kelp-based pill. (Not USP or similarly certified, but I figured/hoped a large, brick & mortar retailer like Whole Foods would perform some vetting of their supplier and reliability of the product.) Circa 2015-2017 major pregnancy supplement makers, like Nature Made (USP certified, sold at Walgreens, hospitals, etc), quietly added iodine.

The problem with the older conventional wisdom is/was that eating habits have changed: 1) people began eating processed foods and restaurant foods (especially fast food), most of which do not used iodized salt; 2) home cooks, especially those following TV cooking shows, began using kosher salt, which is not iodized; and 3) the medical community was admonishing everybody to consume less salt, so people were less inclined to use table salt. These are also compounded by the fact that the most commonly eaten vegetables, e.g. soy and those from the Brassicaceae family (broccoli, kale, cabbage, etc), are goitrogenic.

Another major and far more important food supplement is niacin. Widespread supplementation of cereal grains began in the mid 20th century. More recently (1990s in the U.S.) folate was made a mandatory supplement in cereal grains. The difference between these and iodine is that packaged foods, most prepared foods (fast food, restaurants using normal supply chains, etc), and the most commonly used home ingredients still contain these supplements. Whereas outside of pregnancy (i.e. fetal development), inadequate iodine is still (arguably) a creeping problem for children. This is sort of similar to vitamin D--eating habits are changing (e.g. less milk consumption) and we need to find new routes for supplementation to reach people, especially groups most at risk.

On the plus side, in relative terms the iodine "problem" is relatively small and mostly only visible at large population scales. And despite the hype over its importance, I suspect the same is true for vitamin D deficiencies--not nearly as impactful to public health as niacin and folate. But if people keeping selling this idea of food supplementation as somehow adulterating, polluting, and contaminating food, these problems are only going to grow.

That's rather presumptive that it's a positive outcome. Maybe some of us don't want supplemented tomatoes and prefer regular ones.

https://www.sciencealert.com/vitamin-d-tablets-may-be-worse-...

Basically no significant number of people (in the United States and Europe at least) wear sunscreen every day. Furthermore above 37 degrees latitude, almost no vitamin D will be produced by sun exposure even if you spend time outside exposed to the elements for an hour.

Actual published article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-022-01154-6.pdf

I thought vitamin D supplements were lacking efficacy in studies and therefore we need to get sunlight.

I'm more excited about them reactivating some dormant genetic code that would make tomato spicy like their ancestors... what ever happened to that promise from some years ago?

dont want it.

Love me some crispy tomatoes especially in a shawarma.

Double plus good cripsy tomatoes mmm

More mostly water pale tomatoes like subway etc. Wonderful.

Try a eating a real heirloom tomato and if you are still interested in this franken-food I'm not sure what to tell you.

The GM aspect of food crops has nothing to do with harvest/ripening processes

The FlavrSavr tomato was developed to delay decay so that they could be picked in a riper state. GM doesn't just mean pesticide resistance.

I'm aware of FlavrSavr as my line of work is plant genome engineering. My response was to a comment which was presumably directed toward the article that was posted. In that article, the new tomato variety is not engineered in a way to affect shelf-life. Besides, per acre, almost all of our GM crops are engineered for producers' benefit. Out of the many registered GM varieties, only a small handful are associated with something other than pesticide resistance, Bt, or environmental resiliency.

A 'real heirloom tomato' represents a plant that has been extensively modified by humans through the slower genetic modification process of artificial selection.

The wild ancestor of the tomato is the size of a pea.[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanum_pimpinellifolium

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