On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 495

animalsbysurgicallyprecisemanipulation
oftheDNAthatmakesuptheirgenes.This
manipulation bypasses the natural barriers
between species, so theoretically a gene
from any living thing, plant or animal or
microbe,canbeintroducedintoanyother.
Genetic engineering is still in its
infancy, and to date has had a limited
impact on the foods we eat. In the United
States, an estimated 75% of all processed
foods now contain genetically modified
ingredients. But this remarkable figure is
due to just three agricultural commodities
—soybean,canola,andcorn—allofthem
modifiedforimprovedresistancetoinsect
pestsorherbicides.AsIwritein2004,the
onlyothersignificantengineeredU.S.crop
isHawaiianpapaya,whichisnowresistant
to a formerly devastating virus disease.A
few other foods are processed with
enzymes made in engineered microbes —
for example, much cheese is coagulated


with rennet made by microbes into which
the cattle gene for the enzyme has been
inserted. But in general, our raw
ingredientsremainrelativelyuntouchedby
geneticengineering.
This will certainly change in coming
years,andnotjustintheWest:Chinaalso

has a very active program in agricultural
biotechnology. Genetic engineering is the
modern fruit of agriculture itself, an
outgrowthoftheancienthumanrealization
that living things can be shaped to human
desires. That shaping began when the first
farmers selectively cultivated plants and
animalsthatgrewlargerortastedbetteror
looked more interesting. In its own way,
this simple process of observation and
selection became a powerful biological
technology. It gradually revealed the
hidden potential for diversity within
individualspecies,andmadethatpotential
real in the form of hundreds of distinct