‘Re-Engineering’ the Egg, Lettuce, Etc.
Some of the foods that health-conscious consumers feel guilty about buying or eating--those high in fat or filled with empty calories, or foods that spoil rapidly and produce excessive waste--are being “re-engineered” to improve their shape and contents.
In the case of lettuce, the effort is simply to make the vegetable a more convenient size. At the far end of the engineering spectrum, it is plausible that a new class of foods will be created, foods so rich in certain healthful contents that they may be prescribed by doctors in much the same way medicines are today.
Worries about cholesterol keep many people today from buying or consuming eggs. But researchers have discovered that by feeding hens a drug commonly prescribed for humans to reduce serum cholesterol levels, they can significantly reduce the amount of cholesterol in eggs.
Food scientists at Purdue University have found that the drug lovastatin, which blocks the activity of an enzyme involved in cholesterol synthesis, reduces cholesterol content in eggs without undesirable side effects (such as an accumulation of the drug in the egg or health problems in the chicken).
There is one problem: the drug is far too costly for chicken feed. But Purdue researcher Robert Elkin notes that since lovastatin can reduce egg cholesterol levels without adversely affecting the egg or the health of the hen, drug developers now have an incentive for developing less-expensive compounds.
Even in our throw-away society, many people do not like throwing away food that has spoiled before they could finish it. Miniaturizing such foods could solve, for many people, the problem of fast-spoiling leftovers.
Such foods are not just a far-away dream: Miniature heads of iceberg lettuce, developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers, may be ready for restaurants and supermarkets by 1993.
The midget lettuce--about the size of a tennis ball--is designed to make a single-serving salad. The new lettuce variety is produced by soaking germinating lettuce seeds in a chemical compound that causes the plants to produce 90% less natural growth hormone than regular lettuce.
Medical researchers are now studying whether foods that are engineered to be rich in certain nutrients eventually could be prescribed for their disease-related benefits.
Richard Rivlin, head of the nutrition-research program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and chief of the nutritional division at Cornell University Medical College, notes that a number of clinical studies have recently been published that suggest a growing range of nutrients may have promising medical benefits.
Examples of nutrients with possible medical benefits--referred to as “nutraceuticals”--include calcium (possible prevention of colon cancer), nicotinic acid (reduction of serum cholesterol), beta carotene (possible prevention of lung cancer), and magnesium (treatment and prevention of certain types of hypertension).
Under the Nutrition Labeling and Health Act now, health claims for foods are disallowed except in a few situations where they are well supported by scientific evidence. (Claims considered allowable include the role of fiber and reduced fat in preventing colon cancer and heart disease and calcium’s ability to help prevent osteoporosis.)
But with more research into the disease-related benefits of certain nutrients and more engineering of foods to make them higher in these nutrients, “grocery-store prescriptions” could become a reality by the end of the decade, which would provide added financial incentive for private companies to invest in nutraceuticals.
