Adam, Eve, and Genetically Modified Organisms

A while back, I was walking through the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I was attracted to a Renaissance painting by some grand master. I don't remember the title of the painting, nor do I recall the artist's name, I'm so bad with those details. As I walked closer to the painting and the group of onlookers standing nearby, I saw a scene of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Except for some gravity-defying loose-leaf system, they were stark naked, and, in Eve's hand was The Apple. Adam's hand was outreached to receive it, presumably to a big bite and get thrust out of Eden and do nothing for the rest of Eternity except view Baywatch reruns.

The Apple was dead center of the painting and, of course, my eye was drawn right to it. "Ugh!" I said, "who would eat such an apple?" It was the most mis-shapen, gnarly, mealy-looking apple I've ever seen. It was unappetizing, unappealing, and hardly worth a Garden of Eden Eviction Notice from the Landlord.

A woman standing in the group near the painting responded to my outcry of revulsion to the Apple. It's true, I did say my comment out loud for all to hear, that's how I felt. The woman told me that, since this is the forbidden fruit, the artist painted it to look pretty forbidding, as it indeed was. OK, that seemed logical, forbidden fruit should look forbidding. Makes sense....sort of.

However, something about her comment didn't make sense to me. I began thinking about life in the 14th century, or at least how I thought life might be. I thought about apples, for example. How would an apple in Renaissance times appear? Well, I'm guessing that sciences like horticulture were not advanced compared to today's standards. The concept of determining traits in plants and mating them to achieve plants with superior traits was first suggested by Gregor Mendel in the mid-19th century. So, I think it's a fair guess that much of the food people ate was what we would call "wild." Fruits, for example, came from trees whose genetic material was determined randomly by pollen-carrying bees and such. So, it's possible that apples in the time this painting was created didn't look so great.

Fast forward to the present. A walk in the grocery store produce aisle is like walking through a still-life painting of perfect fruits and vegetables. But, consider, in Renaissance times, there was no such perfection. What happened? What did we to to our fruits and vegetables that made them so perfect and beautiful? We would never accept the apple in that painting. Any self-respecting fruit grower would leave it on the ground to be next year's fertilizer.

Our understanding of Nature now helps us to eat better than royalty did in the 14th century. As our understanding of genetics, horticulture, plant nutrition, and plant pests increased, so did the quality of our food. Horticulturists have been mating plants with desirable characteristics to create perfect peas, spectacular citrus, delicious corn, potatoes to die for, and squash about which to write home.

You see, by purposefully mating plants with positive traits to get an optimum organism, we are manipulating their genetic material. Using the mating process, we are controlling their genetic codes, their DNA, to give us what we want. And, once we've created this perfect produce, we grow it all over the place. And, while we are growing our perfect produce, other, less-desirable varieties, are not being grown, and are becoming extinct. This is not only the case for plants, but for domestic animals. Cattle, for example, are bred to produce high levels of tender meat. Breeding programs can produce cattle that are so heavy, they cannot stand, their legs won't support their weight.

So, when we hear about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), it's not a stretch to see that we have been genetically modifying plants and animals for centuries. We have accepted organisms that are products of breeding programs and believed them to beneficial because of their higher yields, resistance to pests, and better taste.

It's interesting to me when we apply today's standards and morals to times of the past. I often hear people wishing for simpler times, when life was slower and therefore better. If you could put them in a time machine back to the 14th century, for instance, I doubt they would find much very desirable. The available food would be pretty bad, diseases rampant, dirty water, sewerage all over (no plumbing, you know), and no escape. And, you die early.

Meanwhile, back in the 21st century, things are going faster than you ever imagined. These days, we don't have to bother with horticulture, we can go directly into a plant's or animal's DNA and have a good old time. Any biologist will tell you that you can't mate two species, Nature's safety valve kicks in and there is no progeny in such acts. So, if you have a plant that is resistant to, say, the boll weevil, and you have cotton, which isn't, you can't mate those two plants. But, today, we can take the genetic material from the boll weevil resistant plant, and incorporate it into the cotton. Voila, you have boll weevil resistant cotton.

It isn't that easy, but, it's not impossible. A half century ago, it was impossible. Today, there are companies that will take your organism and DNA from another organism and incorporate the DNA into that organism to create a completely new variety of that species. The USDA's Plant Variety Protection Office (PVPO) administers the "Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA), by issuing Certificates of Protection. The Act provides legal intellectual property rights protection to breeders of new varieties of plants which are sexually reproduced (by seed) or tuber-propagated" (from http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateC&navID=PlantVarietyProtectionOffice&rightNav1=PlantVarietyProtectionOffice&topNav=&leftNav=ScienceandLaboratories&page=PlantVarietyProtectionOffice&resultType).

Maybe we are living in a modern Eden. We have perfect fruits and vegetables, our food supply is the most varied ever, and it's just down the street at your local FoodWay store.

I'd stay away from the Apples if I were you....