American home gardeners are browsing seed catalogs and choosing their favorite heirlooms when they discover a new seed: a concord grape-colored tomato with plum-colored flesh. It seems alien, possibly Photoshopped. It’s not.
Norfolk Plant Sciences spent 20 years hacking snapdragon flower color genes into this nightshade to make it purple. The genes produce pigment and many health-promoting anthocyanins. Saturday marked the first direct sale of genetically engineered Purple Tomato seeds to home gardeners. Small farmers began growing and selling tomatoes last year, but genetically modified vegetables were previously exclusively available to U.S. commercial manufacturers.
Norfolk seeks to influence Americans’ views of GMOs by selling them directly to gardeners. Only 7% of Americans view GMOs as healthier than non-GMO foods, according to a 2020 Pew Research research. Nathan Pumplin, CEO of Norfolk Healthy Produce, a Norfolk Plant Sciences subsidiary, states, “We hope to prove with this product and with this company that there’s a lot of benefits that can go to consumers through biotechnology, better taste, better nutrition as prime examples.”
Bioengineering for Health: Dr. Cathie Martin’s Purple Tomato Project
Cambridge-trained biochemist Cathie Martin leads the Purple Tomato project. She used DNA from a purple snapdragon, an edible flower, to develop a transgenic tomato 20 years ago. The goal was to create a tomato with high anthocyanin levels, which gave blueberries, blackberries, eggplant, and purple cabbage their color and superfood designation.
Anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties of anthocyanins are included. Antioxidants neutralize unstable chemicals that damage healthy cells and cause aging and disease. This antioxidant production is normal for tomatoes. Though they don’t make them much in fruit, Pumplin says they usually emerge in stems and leaves. “So what Cathie [Martin] did was put the on switch into tomato.“
She used the 1980s-discovered method of bacteria naturally inserting their DNA into host species. This can happen naturally. Sweet potatoes are transgenic because they contain agrobacterium DNA. Martin identified the snapdragon flower gene that activated the purple color. She then put the gene into bacteria. Tomatoes could absorb foreign genetic material and express this new gene.
“It really is a great example of understanding how the natural world functions and building on that to meet our needs,” Pumplin says. The result? Pumplin believes Norfolk’s purple tomato has as much anthocyanin per weight as a blueberry or aubergine. Since Americans consume more tomatoes, the nutritional benefits are more available. In a Nature study, Martin found that mice fed purple tomatoes lived 30% longer.
From Fighting Famine to Boosting Wellness: GMOs Evolve
Cornell University scientist Kathleen Hefferon thinks nutrient-dense GMOs are a new trend. GMOs began with easy-to-grow staple crops. “There was a real push of trying to achieve food security for a lot of populaces in developing countries and usually that involved making these staple crops that grew better, such as rice and maize and wheat and things like this,” said Hefferon.
Hawaii introduced a transgenic papaya to fight virus-killing crops. Most credit it with preserving the islands’ industry. There were other crops to boost nutrition in poor nations. Late 1990s golden rice has extra beta-carotene to treat Vitamin A deficiency. The crop failed due to practical and regulatory concerns.
Biofortified foods like Purple Tomatoes are trendy. “People care about lifespan and quality of life,” Hefferon says, and that’s a health trend that will persist. In 2020, California-based Fresh Del Monte made a pink pineapple. Because of its high lycopene content, its flesh is rosy, like peaches, tomatoes, and melons. Unlike the Purple Tomato, which Fresh Del Monte sells to farmers and customers, only it can cultivate it.
Beyond Lab Coats: Traditional Breeding Yields Anthocyanin-Rich Tomatoes
According to Oregon State University vegetable breeding expert Jim Myers, genetic manipulation in the lab isn’t the only technique to boost food nutrition. He claims that traditional breeders were the first to release anthocyanin-rich tomatoes. Myers crossed wild tomatoes with modern types almost two decades ago, utilizing traditional plant breeding.
An 80,000-year-old Ecuadorian species gave rise to the current tomato. About 10,000 Solanum lycopersicum variants range from marigold orange to celery green to khaki maroon. Myers believes natural tomatoes have anthocyanins in the fruit, but domesticated ones are solely in the plant.
He created the Indigo tomato collection by crossing Solanum cheesmaniae from the Galapagos and Solanum chilense from South America with a domesticated variety. The ‘Indigo Rose,’ launched in 2011, has a deep blue skin and a pinkish inside when ripe and more anthocyanin. According to him, his original tomato was bland and took a long time to ripen, but later breeding has improved it, and gardeners may buy and cultivate it.
The line now includes ‘Indigo Cherry Drops’, ‘Indigo Pear Drops’, ‘Indigo Kiwi’, and ‘Midnight Roma’. “I don’t know if supercharging is the right word, but we’re definitely enhancing their potential to provide benefits to human health,” The Indigos have more than 50 cultivars, cultivated and bred by small farms and large enterprises, according to Myers, who started working on them at the same time as the Purple Tomato developer.
“There’s just all this diversity in the Indigo market class that has come about through conventional breeding,” explains Myers. “With the GMO tomato, it’s taken them all this time and more to get one variety out there.” GMO stigma may make the Purple Tomato struggle for acceptance, unlike the Indigos. “There’s going to be this cognitive dissonance for some people in that here is a tomato that has these potential health benefits … contrasting with the origins, which was through genetic engineering.“
From Roundup Ready to Purple Tomatoes: Rethinking GMOs for Future Benefits
Corn and soybeans designed to resist Roundup herbicides were among the first GM crops. According to the USDA, 91% of maize acres used herbicide-tolerant seeds in 2023. The proliferation of chemical-tolerant plants has hurt GMO adoption, argues Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs author Mark Lynas.
“It enabled people who were concerned about the technology to really draw the conclusion that this was all about increasing agrochemical use, and the capture of the seeds in the food chain by big multinational corporations,” explains Lynas. Lynas argues it hurt their uptake since the industry might have focused on herbicide-saving genetic changes. “GMO technology could have already transformed world agriculture in a vastly more sustainable direction,” argues Lynas.
The Purple Tomato’s inventors think it will shift the debate among gardeners. Norfolk’s consumer marketing was a “stroke of genius” that could demystify the technology, said Lynas. “Stop just doing the GMO stuff with these big corporate, commodity cash crops and do something ordinary people can have in their hands,” adds. “You’ll see, actually it’s just a seed which is going to produce a purple fruit, which is probably healthier for you.“
Some people worry about eating GMOs, although studies have shown no harm since their introduction 30 years ago. GM foods on the market pose no health risks, according to the FDA. Lynas believes GMOs can help the environment and global livelihoods. If we focus on it, we can ensure that these biotechnologies have positive effects on the earth and people. Use science that way, adds Lynas.
Pumplin evaluates success by whether many people like the new tomato’s health benefits, color, and taste. “Then it chips away at this negative perception of GMOs and that will enable other products to get out to market that deliver really solid benefits,” adds Pumplin. It also has climate change, sustainability, health, and nutrition benefits.
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