“Golden Lettuce” is genetically engineered to have higher beta-carotene levels | Hacker News Reader

“Golden Lettuce” is genetically engineered to have higher beta-carotene levels

newatlas.com

67 pointsBrajeshwar58 comments

I wanted to say something in favor of sweet potatoes, so did some research:

[0] says:

The best lettuce has 2.5mg of beta-carotene in 47g of lettuce. The best sweet potato has 31mg of beta-carotene in 328g of sweet potato (sweet potatoes are the beta-carotene leader BTW :strong:).

If this modified lettuce can really have 30 times as much beta-carotene, that's a significant amount. I was expecting the numbers to show that lettuce had almost no beta-carotene, and after you times it by 30 it's still almost nothing, but apparently it's more significant than that.

[0]: https://ods.od.nih.gov/pubs/usdandb/VitA-betaCarotene-Conten...

Oh, also, if you want a stupidly easy way to eat sweet potatoes, cut one up into bite sized chunks and cook it at 350 fahrenheit for 45 minutes or longer (it won't burn easily at that temperature). No need to remove the skin, but wash it first. They aren't bad even plain. This is an easy no-preperation-necessary to get at least 1 veggie.

I love baked sweet potato fries. I don’t care if they tend to be softer, that natural sweetness is just so good.

Great idea but I hope you dont mind if I’ll do you one better: cook that same potato in a closed container (could be a bowl with a dish on top) in the microwave on high for 4 minutes. It’ll be almost as delicious, maybe more nutritious, for 1/10 the time and electricity.

I prefer to peel the sweet potatoes, cut them in relatively big chunks, then bake them without adding anything, in a closed glass vessel, in a microwave oven.

The baking time depends on the oven and on the quantity, but for example in my 1000 W oven, baking 3 big sweet potatoes needs about 8 minutes.

Once you have made a successful test, this method is very fast and perfectly reproducible. Because there is no added water and a part of the water from the sweet potatoes evaporates (but not too much, due to the closed glass vessel), the taste of the sweet potatoes cooked in this way is very intense.

As always Cooks Illustrated goes into great detail and there's a link to their final recipe. I've tried it and it is wonderful. https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/article...

My go to recipe from the past few years: 1. preheat over to 400° 2. cut the potato in half long ways 3. put it on a baking sheet cut side down. no oil, no foil 4. bake for around 40 min or until a knife goes through smoothly 5. peel the skin off and eat

it's a nice mushy texture that works as a base or add on for bowl style meals and takes moments to prepare and get in the oven. I usually throw it into an almost cold oven and just add 5 min to the cook time.

I came for the genetics but stayed for the recipes.

came to say that sweet potato has high levels of oxolates, if your gut doesn't work properly that can cause all kinds of things

You can reduce the oxalate content by boiling, steaming, and apparently even blanching the sweet potatoes, but not that boiling will reduce the beta carotene content by a lot.

Alternatively, consuming calcium (milk, cheese, etc) with your oxalate-rich food will minimize absorption of the oxalate.

Amazing. Lettuce that has increased beta carotene content – something we can already get from carrots – and, as a bonus, now looks unappetisingly like past-its-best regular lettuce.

Golden rice had the same problem if I recall correctly. The populations that it was designed to serve were reluctant to eat it because the yellow coloration was similar to that of a particular species of mold they were enculturated to avoid.

I just took a look - golden rice doesn't look too bad actually. It reminds me of yellow rice. Golden lettuce looks kinda gross though.

I’m not up for making a thorough post about it right now, but one thing to be aware of is that beta carotene converts to vitamin A at rates that range from abysmal (single digit percentages or less) to barely adequate depending on personal factors like genetics.

I’ve also come across indication that beta carotene byproducts can potentially inhibit vitamin A use (also likely connected with personal genetics), throwing another wrench into the works.

Basically I do not recommend naively conflating carotenoid intake with vitamin A intake, especially in regards to populations vulnerable to malnutrition. For me and most of you reading this however the difference is not much of consequence.

I see the title was fixed here. The original said 30x more vitamins, but it is only beta-carotene. They created a version of lettuce that has a little more beta carotene than Kale, basically, but not as nutrient dense in any other way.

On the other hand, kale is goitrogenic. With two little kids I like to make sure they get a good mix of vegetables which aren't all from the cabbage family. I'm lucky living in California; my local Safeway has all kinds of fresh vegetables, including various (non-cruciferous) lettuce greens, year round, but in many other places in the U.S. it's just iceberg plus cruciferous vegetables for long stretches.

Growing salad greens is probably one of the best things one can do for themselves. Why spend $5 for a pound of salad greens when you can buy 2-3lbs of seeds for that price? Which, speaking of, cheapest I’ve found for bulk seeds are GreenCover, does anyone know of any other companies selling that cheap?

Where I live it's a full time job to keep the deer from eating a garden.

Same, which is why ya grow stuff like baby greens in your shed. Larger crops require you get more creative of course, but hiding away smaller ones is doable at least.

The problem with kale is that it’s shipped with ice over the top. This itself is not a problem. But a box that won’t fall apart when the ice melts has to be slathered in pfas.(if you’ve ever received a shipment of kale you’ll know what I mean, the box is this weird stuff oily thing) Kale has staggeringly high levels of pfas that bioaccumulate in our bodies and cause organ failure. Not a criticism of kale itself. Love the stuff. If anything an example about how 3m’s suppression of the science of pfa exposure has resulted in the largest mass poisoning in human history. They took one of the healthiest foods on the planet and made it bad for you.

I actually am getting more concerned about transgenic food. Nassim Taleb’s arguments about limited upside with unlikely, but massive downside of these organisms if they have unexpected outcomes.

I’m obviously fine with genetic modification to plants to create crossbreeds of various types of, say, lettuce, but it seems like we are trying to change out plants instead of trying to change our farming practices.

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Edit: since people are likely looking for a citation here, and are likely to down by default (again, I don't think their is anything "wrong" or "unhealthy" about genetically modification), I'll add one of his papers on the subject. Again, the concern is only to do with the effects that significant modification could have on wild species, and not on consumption:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267214303_The_Preca...

>Genetically Modiﬁed Organisms (GMOs) and their risk are currently the subject of debate. Here we argue that they fall squarely under the PP [Precautionary Principle] because their risk is systemic. There are two aspects of systemic risk, the widespread impact on the ecosystem and the widespread impact on health.

>Ecologically, in addition to intentional cultivation, GMOs have the propensity to spread uncontrollably, and thus their risks cannot be localized. The cross-breeding of wild-type plants with genetically modified ones prevents their disentangling, leading to irreversible system-wide effects with unknown downsides. The ecological implications of releasing modified organisms into the wild are not tested empirically before release.

pretty sure they were actually trying to change this plant without any need to change farming methods, so I think your intuition is on point.

I understand these kind of concerns but it's comes from ignorance of context.

Direct genetic modification is an improvement of the previous method of forced mutation by exposing seeds to UV and hoping for positive mutations. That method does not count as GMO.

The major concerns of agriculture are still the same, monocultures and disease vulnerability.

I mean, again, the negative outcomes of these practices are unlikely. His concern is one of unlikely, but unforeseen negative outcomes with systemic risk regarding effects on wild species.

> Taleb’s arguments about limited upside with unlikely, but massive downside of these organisms if they have unexpected outcomes

When did Taleb become an expert on bioengineering?

Nassim Taleb is the Malcom Gladwell of popular finance. He had to shutter his fund in 2005 after three consecutive years of losses [1]. (In fairness, after a 50+ percent gain in 2000. Nobody lost money on him. But a 4% CAGR over four years isn't hedge fund stuff, nor qualification to speak authoritatively on finance much less bioengineering.)

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

I mean, this seems entirely sensible if you want to completely ignore the creation of Universa a couple years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universa_Investments

Fair enough, I wasn’t aware they had $16bn AUM [1].

[1] https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/146052

>> change out plants instead of trying to change our farming practices.

Because investors. Because new plants can be copyrighted/trademarked/patented/owned and then sold. New farming practices must be taught and cannot generally be owned by their inventors.

Golden lettuce is an anti-evolutive move. As a new product can be successful, but I predict that It will need an obligatory supply of chemicals on its production. Probably more chemicals than the green lettuce. The benefits as healthy food will be a balance between the carotene plus the other parts in the equation. Should be treated as a cold season product at least.

As a fancy product provides a new color in the market and can bring the company a lot of money (I'm not against that as long as is grow accurately) but IMO must be cleaned thoroughly by the consumer.

This is a good idea imo. Cus we grow vegetables so big and fast nowadays they end with with less nutrients in them by volume.

Who is "we"? Because that sounds like a highly localized problem specific to the North American continent.

Higher atmospheric CO2 is actually causing this all around the world. Faster, bigger plants with less nutrient density.

How then did the Plioocene megafauna grow so large if the plants they consumed were 'faster, bigger [...] with less nutrient density'?

https://www.rmets.org/event/pliocene-last-time-earth-had-400...

The last time carbon dioxide was so plentiful in our planet's atmosphere was in the Pliocene era, around 3 million years ago. Life on Earth was dominated by giant mammals; humans and chimps had shared their last common ancestor. Although the sun's force was about the same, the sea levels were 15 metres higher and Arctic summer temperatures were 14 degrees higher than the present day.

No, this is not yet another 'climate change' thing no matter how much you want to pull that concept into the discussion. It is a large-scale 'industrial' agriculture thing with crops which have been bred for fast growth on relatively mineral-poor soil using simple nitrogen fertiliser instead of manure from pasture-raised livestock.

The same amount of nutrients can be had from plants with lower nutrient density. One simply has to consume more of the plants.

Lower nutrient density isn't an issue when there's plenty of food to eat. There weren't 8 billion people to feed 3 million years ago, and back then they lived right alongside their food.

>There weren't 8 billion people to feed 3 million years ago, and back then they lived right alongside their food.

sorta. there was more fauna/megafauna biomass then than now. the nutrient requirements were likely even greater.

> How then did the Plioocene megafauna grow so large if the plants they consumed were 'faster, bigger [...] with less nutrient density'?

Herbivores are adapted to extracting nutrients from a food source that isn't nutrient or calorie dense. Compared to carnivores, they eat a massive amount of food relative to their body weight. If a food source is less nutritious, they just eat more of it.

Greenhouses in the Netherlands would like a word, which are growing high nutrient crops fast using elevated CO2 concentrations. It's not the rate at which things grow that makes them less nutricious, it's selectively breeding for things that grow faster without bother to also select for "and taste good/have plenty of nutritional value".

This one doesn't get to hide behind global climate change.

A large part of the problem in the us is soil depletion. We need to regenerate it by allowing roots of various weeds to pull nutrients up to the surface.

Climate change too. Even weeds people don't or can't eat have less nutrients in them. That's quite disturbing plants are not as nutritious but you can't tell that by looking at them.

This makes me scratch my head. Can you share the science?

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/24/967376880/new-evidence-shows-...

Basically our use of fertilizer and weed killer killed off our microbiome in the soil. This lead to soil collapse where churning biological process add nutrients back to the soil.

I do not see much value in a golden lettuce, because nothing stops you to eat one carrot every day, which will provide enough beta-carotene.

Moreover, the carrot is certainly cheaper, because it is not patented and it is available from a myriad of sources. Also a boiled carrot is unlikely to cause any health problems, while raw lettuce periodically causes disease outbreaks, so it is not a good choice for a staple food that you must eat every day to ensure your recommended intake of a vitamin.

There are other domains where genetic engineering can provide results that cannot be obtained by any alternatives.

For example, there are genetically-modified strains of the fungus Trichoderma that can be used to produce high-quality proteins, either whey proteins or eggwhite proteins.

Such fungal cultures have the potential to become a much better source of proteins than the milk and eggs or the meat produced by animals and they would have important advantages over plant proteins, by having a superior amino-acid profile and not requiring expensive methods for separation from starch.

Even without the patent angle, carrots are cheaper than regular lettuce. They're one of the cheapest foods there is. And they are trivial to add to any meal, just put a carrot on the plate. It doesn't need anything else like all the stuff thrown into salads to make lettuce appealing. And everybody likes carrots, even kids who normally complain about vegetables will happily eat carrots.

Especially baked carrots, that was the only veggie I’d eat growing up (unless you count a singular broccoli in a sea of cheese a vegetable, I’d classify that as a mess).

I guess the idea is that you grow these in vertical farms on the moon.

You could just eat a carrot... Carrots are better than lettuce anyway, in my humble but objectively correct opinion.

But, how does it taste?

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Golden Rice, developed in the 1980s, which offered similar nutritional benefits. Golden Rice failed to gain significant traction because of dogmatic opposition to bioengineered foods. Personally, I hope Golden Lettuce receives more pragmatic review and support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice

Golden rice attempts to solve a real problem: Vitamin A deficiency in many parts of the world, where rice is also a food staple and where the poorest cannot afford a diet with enough vitamin A in it.

Golden lettuce solves what?

Isn't it similar? Beta carotene turns into vitamin A in the body.

Golden rice is a solution which works in a specific context by virtue of it being rice. People who will benefit from it already eat rice, know how to grow rice, how to store it and how to distribute it. When they could produce a fresh vegetable like lettuce and distribute it year round at a price that everyone can afford, they could very likely grow and distribute any vegetable. Particularly those which are already rich in beta carotene.

Hence my question: What problem does golden lettuce solve...

Purports to solve the same problem, but picking lettuce- which consumes huge amounts of water to produce very little- is even worse than rice.

Prepare for Greenpeace et al to shoot this down just like Golden Rice. Decades wasted, millions with damaged eyesight because of some weird Westerners with backwards ideas about what's "natural" telling people in the global south how they should live their lives (or rather, should suffer for their ideals).

Does it really matter what Greenpeace does?

Sure, when they're pursuing lawsuits to block people from using it. E.g. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/25/...

Obviously it matter.

Frankly downplaying the importance of Greenpeace, a 50 years old multinational organization that helped millions of people to remain healthy and saved millions of dollars to the public, looks very dumb in 2024.

Accusing Greenpeace of something that "hasn't done yet, but it may do, or not, in the future", is also symptomatic. Let's stick to the real facts.

> Prepare for Greenpeace et al to shoot this down

At least in America, Greenpeace is on the verge of bankruptcy after they allegedly "incited the Dakota Access protests, funded attacks to damage the pipeline, and spread misinformation about the company and" the Dakota Access Pipeline [1].

[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/the-texas-billionair...

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