Engineering Food at the Molecular Level 297
Krishna Dagli writes to mention a New York Times article about the possibility of manipulating food at a molecular level. Though some of the initial suggestions are a little pointless (lower-fat ice cream, harder-to-melt M&Ms), weighter goals could eventually be achieved here as well. From the article: "Given the uncertainty about the risks of consuming new nano products, many analysts expect near-term investment to focus on novel food processing and packaging technology. That is the niche targeted by Sunny Oh, whose start-up company, OilFresh, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is marketing a novel device to keep frying oil fresh. OilFresh grinds zeolite, a mineral, into tiny beads averaging 20 nanometers across and coats them with an undisclosed material. Packed into a shelf inside the fryer, the beads interfere with chemical processes that break down the oil or form hydrocarbon clusters, Mr. Oh says. As a result, restaurants can use oil longer and transfer heat to food at lower temperatures, although they still need traditional filters to remove food waste from the oil. Mr. Oh said OilFresh will move beyond restaurants into food processing by the end of the month, when it delivers a 1,000-ton version of the device to a 'midsized potato chip company' that he said did not want to be identified. "
You always have to wonder though (Score:2, Insightful)
Artificial preservatives and flavourings were the bees knees apprently when they hit the shelves first until it turned out many were carcinogens or just really not what you body wanted to be accumulating. Now look at the consumer demand for organically grown and prepared food.
Warnings like Olestra? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahem... Wait a minute here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even though some nano-materials could be highly dangerous [hazards.org] to human health [nanotec.org.uk]? In other words, we may end up with highly dangerous cancer-causing products used in kitchens? To fry greasy stuff that we know are bad for our health anyway? Talk about a double whammy: if your heart attack does not kill you, cancer from nano-particles will. And do you want fries with that?
Then again, this is business as usual in the USA [commondreams.org], so I guess it will probably be used soon.
Call me old fashion... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:real food lover here (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for progress, but food is delicate, mistakes have often serious and sometimes fatal effects. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that in todays environment a short term financial gain for a corporation will outweigh a long term health risk. Until that trend reverses I'm all for caution.
Re:real food lover here (Score:4, Insightful)
In what sense is food 'delicate'? Certainly an industrial product can be toxic, but food is not an exceptional case. In fact, we should expect our bodies to be more tolerant of food and water pollution than of other vectors. After all, you've got a million years of evolution behind you, ensuring that your gullet can tolerate the half-rotted carcass you found lying on the jungle floor.
I'd bet that 99.99% of food-related fatalities over the past 30 years have been due to natural pathogens (or choking). Care for some organic spinach?
Re:real food lover here (Score:3, Insightful)
Being educated not only implies that you are for progress, it also implies that you recognize when to be cautious and what you can do to assess the risks that others are exposing you to.
Unhealthy biological foods are a risk, badly engineered foods pose a possible much larger risk and those risks need to be weighed carefully. If the companies that feed you this (chips factory does not want to be named ?? why not, it's progress, so it's good right ?) stuff do not want to come clean about it then my immediate question is what are they hiding and what is the long term effect of this stuff in quantity.
In lab tests it has more or less been demonstrated that anything in large enough quantities will give you cancer, be it peanut butter or radioactive milk. (yes, all milk is very slightly radioactive), so that apparently is just a question of dosage.
The questions with new stuff are very simple:
- what goes in it ?
- how was it tested ?
(preferably a double-blind test like used on new medication)
- and assuming it was tested can we please see the results ?
- what are the upsides (other than some marginal expense savings on the part of the
operator of a restaurant or factory), is it healthier than whatever it replaces ?
- what are the downsides short term and long term ?
(think of allergic reactions and such for short term and cancer & the like long term)
Companies that mess with staple foods behind closed doors bear close watching.
Think about it, if McD would adopt this stuff and it turned out that there is this
small problem that 10 years down the line you drop dead then we're going to have
a little problem. I concede that's an extreme example but if they won't even tell
you who is using it then it gets a little harder to believe they're upfront about
the rest.
Re:real food lover here (Score:4, Insightful)
Food poses a larger threat because we expect interact with it so closely. There are plenty of toxic chemicals around the house, but for the most part we don't expect to place them directly into our bodies.
But none of those million years were we exposed to some of the chemicals/proteins/etc that are being geneticly engineered into foods. Although I think the outrage of some against bioengineered food is unjustified, there are definately risks that need to be thoroughly evaluated.
How old fashioned are you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rejecting GM, processed, or whatever food with broad strokes doesn't make any sense. We've been changing our food for a long long time, so you really shouldn't be eating anything that society (modern or non-modern) produces at all. If you want "purity before human intervention" you should go back to the hunter-gatherer society, just be carefull not to gather anything that's reproduced with human-interferred stuff.
That's not to say that you shouldn't be concerned with food additives, GM foods, etc. It's just a matter of making sure it's all safe rather than rejecting it all out of hand.
Re:real food lover here (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:real food lover here (Score:3, Insightful)
Not everything else improves. Music CD technology came out and eventually killed dynamic range. Digital cable came out and we lost the ability to flip quickly through channels. Wide screen TV's came out and now everyone watches their favorite shows with all the actors' faces all stretched.
In medicine, you can say we've made progress, but now we have doctors over-recommending surgery for basic conditions. And psychiatrists prescribing Paxil and SSRI's to anyone who feels a little stressed.
This may be the worst thing I've ever read on Slashdot. Nature is the least efficient way of making food? Look at the way a seed turns into a plant which gives us fruit. Or look at how any animal comes into being. A damn egg turns into a live chicken. Nature does all of these things without following a single blueprint. And you call it inefficient?
Re:How old fashioned are you? (Score:3, Insightful)
We've been using selective breeding techniques ever since we started agriculture.
True, but there are some more recent changes. First, selective breeding has moved towards market attributes, like the ability to survive shipping and appear ideal, instead of taste ideal. Second, genetic tampering, additives, nano-scale materials, and the like have a lot less testing behind them to prove their safety.
Is the corn, wheat, tomatoes, etc the same as it was 2000 years ago, or even 200 years ago?
Nope, but neither do I assume that is a good thing.
Rejecting GM, processed, or whatever food with broad strokes doesn't make any sense.
No, but taking a cautious approach and being slow to adopt new, potentially dangerous food modification technologies does make a lot of sense.
If you want "purity before human intervention" you should go back to the hunter-gatherer society, just be carefull not to gather anything that's reproduced with human-interferred stuff.
That is awfully hard to do, but actually not a bad goal. Some of the best meat for me is the lean, natural meat from game I hunt myself. Pollution has made most inland fish and many waterfowl risky to eat from the wild, but native berries and plants are among the most flavorful and nutritious foods I eat.
It's just a matter of making sure it's all safe rather than rejecting it all out of hand.
How do you propose the average person does this? We sure can't trust the "science" behind it, since the motivations behind it lead to bogus results, and even completely false data. What is a reasonable approach? I'd argue avoiding foods made with "new" techniques until it has had a few generations of human guinea pigs chowing down on it may be the best way to make sure it is safe.