You Can’t Make This Stuff Up 020308

Hey folks,

In what is getting to be a fun and regular segment here, in the You Can’t Make This Stuff Up category, tearless onions?

According to AFP - Scientists create 'no tears' onions by Margot StauntonFri Feb 1, 3:01 PM ET

Scientists in New Zealand and Japan have created a "tear-free" onion using biotechnology to switch off the gene behind the enzyme that makes us cry, one of the leading researchers said Friday.

Frankinfood.

The discovery could signal an end to one of cooking's eternal puzzles: why does cutting up a simple onion sting the eyes and trigger teardrops?

Because it does. By the way, that is the side effect of something that is VERY good for you. But, it’s inconvenient, and apparently unpleasant to some. So much so, that some want to do away with it. Yes I know. I know. Man knows better than nature.

The research institute in New Zealand, Crop and Food, used gene-silencing technology to make the breakthrough which it hopes could lead to a prototype onion hitting the market in a decade's time.

Colin Eady, the institute's senior scientist, said the project started in 2002 after Japanese scientists located the gene responsible for producing the agent behind the tears.

"We previously thought the tearing agent was produced spontaneously by cutting onions, but they proved it was controlled by an enzyme," he told AFP from his home outside Christchurch.

"Here in New Zealand we had the ability to insert DNA into onions, using gene-silencing technology developed by Australian scientists."

This is a GLOBAL effort? {Laughing} New Zealand, Japan, and Australia? How are we doing in fight Bird Flew. How about Aids? What about,,, never mind. We NEED tearless onions

"The technology creates a sequence that switches off the tear-inducing gene in the onion so it doesn't produce the enzyme. So when you slice the vegetable, it doesn't produce tears."

Eady said that by stopping sulphur compounds from being converted to the tearing agent and redirecting them into compounds responsible for flavour and health, the process could even improve the taste of the onion.

OK

"We anticipate that the health and flavour profiles will actually be enhanced by what we've done," he said.

"What we're hoping is that we'll essentially have a lot of the nice, sweet aromas associated with onions without that associated bitter, pungent, tear-producing factor."

The breakthrough has caused ripples overseas, following an international symposium in the Netherlands and after the trade journal Onion World featured Eady's work on the front cover of its December issue.

Eady, who has several model onion plants at the institute, said despite the excitement about the prospect of no tears onions in every home, it would be 10 to 15 years before this happened.

"This is an exciting project because it's consumer orientated and everyone sees this as a good biotechnology story," he said.

No it Frankinfood. Do we know how THIS will effect people that actually EAT the onion? After they tearlessly cut it?

"I'm more interested in sustainable production and the onions we are working on must be capable of being grown in an efficient manner."

"We have a burgeoning population to feed, and with climate change and other challenges, available resources are being reduced."

"The gene silencing system can also be used to combat virus diseases, and biotechnology in general can help us produce more robust crops."

Yeah, remember that? CNN - Instead of a shot, have a banana

Vaccines could be added to food
May 27, 1996
Web posted at: 5:00 p.m. EDT

Biotech researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithica, New York, are studying ways to fortify raw foods -- including bananas and potatoes -- with vaccines to provide painless, inexpensive protection against disease

Whatever happened to that? Folks, you can think this is all good if you what, but I for one, would rather eat food that is made by nature, and you can keep all the Frankinfood. Do we REALLY need a tearless onion?
Peter


Sources:

AFP - Scientists create 'no tears' onions
Crop and Food Website
CNN- Instead of a shot, have a banana