The Gourmand
A food and culture journal
THE GOURMAND
In an age of synthetic images, the chances of an accidental encounter with reality are remote indeed - Serge Daney, Sight and Sound
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1. Synthetic 2. Artificial 3. Fake 4. Faux 5. Imitation 6. Mock 7. Simulated 2
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SYN THE TIC A Synthetic foods are increasingly touted as the future of comestibles. But the technology has rapidly outstripped consumer interest. How do you push progress that makes people squirm? Only two out of 10 Americans are willing to give lab meat – animal tissue grown without a living host – a go, according to a Pew Research Center poll. A fondness for things high-tech doesn’t transfer easily to the dinner plate, it seems. Despite this queasiness over heavily modified food (a recent New York Times poll found more than 90% of Americans want GMOs labeled), a new era of so-called “extreme” genetic engineering is already dawning in grocery aisles. The technology is developing so rapidly that making a distinction between different types of genetically modified foods can be tricky. While genetically modified organisms have had their DNA sequences changed, typically by having traits of another species spliced in with their own, synthetic biology, or simply “synbio,” involves the creation of entirely new organisms with DNA sequences created from whole cloth on a computer. These organisms, typically bacteria or algae, are used to produce valuable commodities such as flavorings and oils. 5
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Research and development on these products is currently kept largely under wraps. Companies are closely guarding the technology – and perhaps the fact that they’re using it at all. Orange and vanilla flavors are currently being marketed and sold, but sellers are not identifying the companies using them and the companies are not identifying themselves. Though only beginning to enter the market, the general distrust of high-tech foods threatens to bite those companies investing in synbio. Success will require embracing transparency and explaining to consumers the benefits of the new technology. SYNTHETICA
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“There is always anxiety about change,” says Mark Post, who leads a team at the Cultured Beef project at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. “When it’s a more radical change the anxiety is bigger.” Last year, Post’s group rolled out the first ever lab-produced burger to the public to a predictable flurry of “frankenburger” headlines over the $330,000 five-ounce burger grown from stem cells. The only way through such bad press, says Post, is openness: “I think it’s important in a high-tech solution to a real-life problem that you are absolutely 100% transparent in what you are doing.”
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“There is always anxiety about change, when it’s a more radical change the anxiety is bigger.”
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