While it looks as though this salmon may soon be in the marketplace,  it is unclear whether the fish will be given special labeling indicative of its genetic makeup. While the public has not been in on the decision-making process during the approval  by the FDA, they will have an opportunity to evaluate the fish once it enters into the market place.  Although AquaBounty claims that these fish will help bring fish to market with fewer resources, it is not entirely clear in which way that works. A fish that gets larger, faster will require more food to get there, though the human effort in supplying that food will presumably be reduced, hence the savings.  But, will the genetically-altered salmon be as resistant to infection and parasitic disease compared to their normal genomic cousins? Only time will tell whether these changes are maladaptive when the entire panoply of generational  life’s experiences are taken into account. But the fact is that virtually all Atlantic salmon that we eat today come from commercial fish farms.

The FDA has already signed off on the idea that the animal has a stable genetic makeup  and that the fish are not harmed if you follow multiple generations. AquaBounty is expecting approval in the next few months to begin selling the eggs to fish farmers. What a super-voracious salmon will to do the environment is not clear.  AquaBounty has indicated that all of their fish will be grown in inland tanks, so that they cannot escape into the wild. This arrangement will be different from other commercial salmon fish farms that have their fish cages inserted into bays and inlets to take advantage of natural water conditions. Such arrangements have been criticized for the influence they have on normal migrating salmon and especially on the salmon fry that come back from fresh water hatching, heading for the sea. Such fry often get infested with parasites that flourish in the overcrowded fish farm cages as they pass through, often with a lethal outcome.

This is only the beginning of the brave new world of genetically modified commercial  farm animals. Look next for the “enviropig” which has been genetically modified to produce less phosphorus pollution in its manure.  The American public already seems to have accepted genetically modified plant food sources, while our European cousins remain skeptical.  It remains to be seen whether we will accept genetically modified meat sources; it appears that the AquaBounty salmon will be the first public test of the acceptability of such animals. Will they have less mercury? However, since it is possible that these fish will not be labeled to indicate their genetic status, we may never know from whence they came. That’s the way AquaBounty wants it and there are some indications that’s they way it will be.

RFM

But, the answer is NO! The medium rare cheeseburger is actually less caloric to your body. The reason for this is simply that the part of the burger that is not completely cooked, contains proteins that have not been completely denatured and denatured proteins, because they “uncurl” are easier to digest. But, the uncooked proteins that remain in their native state, retain their complex foldings and twists which characterize their natural,  tertiary (3D) structure (provided largely by hydrogen bonding between neighbor regions of amino acids that come near to one another).  Those uncooked proteins require more effort on the part of your digestive system, more secretion of digestive enzymes and more time and activity within the gut in order to digest proteins in their natural state. That is why the development of cooking by our ancestor’s made their food acquisition task more efficient. You simply spend more energy digesting uncooked food because the tertiary structure of the proteins is harder to work on. As a result, the medium rare cheeseburger does not give your body the same number of calories as does the well done burger, because more energy is required to break it down and absorb all the calories–it eventually happens, but not before a greater part of the caloric gain has been spent on the energy of additional digestive effort. For proteins, this is not the only factor that reduces their net caloric value, because it also takes energy to convert ammonia to urea, which is a waste product for proteins that gets generated when we break them down into their amino acid constituents. Thus, the true caloric value of the food is the number of calories we swallow minus the number of calories we spend on getting the food digested and transported to internal sites for nutritional processing. Bijai Trivedi of New Scientist has a nice article on this topic, including a little interesting history of the topic.

You might want to argue that, while recognizing the validity of this concept, it must be virtually an inconsequentially small number that goes to the digestive process compared to the calories we get from food. While this is generally true, some food labels, which are based entirely on caloric energy available, may sometimes overestimate the caloric food value by as much as 25%. But it can work the other way too. For example sweet foods made from refined sugar and flower make it easy for our bodies to extract a high percentage of the caloric value. If however the food was made from course-ground wheat flour, it is known that some percentage of that form of flour is excreted and does not contribute to our caloric intake: modern fine flours, like those in sweet food are almost completely digested.

Our current calorie counting system was developed by American chemist Wilbur Olin Atwater who, in addition to his work defining the energy value of different forms of food,  developed a rather awesome 19th Century tool known as the respiration calorimeter. He was the first to demonstrate that fats, proteins and carbohydrates have different caloric value per unit weight. He also was the first to show that alcohol is a form of nutrition and serves as a carbohydrate, while caffeine may serve as a stimulant, but it does not provide us with any caloric value.

There are other parameters of food besides the degree of denatured proteins that alter their absorbed caloric value.Dietary fiber is another example in which fiber is more resistant to mechanical and chemical digestion, but in addition, dietary fiber provides energy for gut microbes which need to take their cut before you get yours. It has been estimated that the energy derived from dietary fiber is reduced by 25% from the 2 kcal per gram to 1.5 kcal/gram, through the enteric processing of the food.  Perhaps some day we will see food labeling that more correctly estimates the caloric value of what we eat. Although this idea has been suggested, so far it’s been rejected because of the additional complexity it would add to food labels, already widely ignored by the public.

It is alarming to see that Europe is suffering from the same problem that we have here in the United States, since they have been better about regulating their chemical industry. Indeed representatives from Europe have appeared in this country giving lectures to major manufacturing establishments to tell them what chemicals they can and cannot use if they expect to export their products to Europe. And, they are all taking careful notes, because they can’t lobby their way into avoidance, like they do here. Fortunately for us, we are still enjoying benefits of a free market economy approach to the chemical industry–if it doesn’t smell too bad, go ahead and use it. I suppose what we need are large numbers of robotic bee colonies that only have to come back to their hives to get their little lithium batteries recharged.  Would a robotic bee project be a suitable challenge for the summer students at MIT? Or, should we take a stab at a biological approach? Where is the genome of the  honey bee when you need it most?

RFM

But despite the achievements of the Green Revolution, the world is facing a new cycle of food shortages, created by the rising demand for food as countries are expanding and better able to import more of their dietary needs. This demand is one factor causing a significant rise in food prices as a serious wheat shortage exists.  In just the past few months, the American consumer has experienced a 20% increase in the cost of flour and pasta created by the wheat shortage. Wheat prices are at their highest level in 25 years; for seven out of the last eight years, demand for wheat has exceeded supply. The good news is that for the first time in many years, the American farmer is beginning to see his income level rise significantly. The Department of Agriculture predicts that this year farm income will be 50% greater than the average of the last ten years. Right now soybean prices are at at $12.79 a bushel, up from $8.50 last August. But the increased food prices are also adding to an increase in the rate of inflation. The farmers costs related to food production are also on the rise, due to the higher cost of gas and fertilizer. In many ways, the impact of the dramatic increase in oils prices has yet to filter through our the full range of our economy, adding further to the financial stress of middle class income expendirutres. At the other end of the food supply chain, the poorer countries cannot meet the rising prices of food and shortages of basics like bread are taking place in some countries, like Nigeria, regardless of whether they produce their own food or not.

Ultimately one anticipates that more land will be brought into food production to meet the new pressure on the food supply. But the question that everyone seems to be asking is whether food, like oil, will become permanently much higher in cost and begin to make food for the American consumer a lot like it is in other parts of the world, where a much higher fraction of one’s earned income is needed to put food on the table. What will Christmas be like this year?