Making poisonous plants and seeds safe and palatable: Canola now, cannabis next?
Every night millions of people go to bed hungry. New genetic technology can help us feed the world by making inedible seeds more edible, researchers say.
There are roughly about a quarter of a million plant species known on Earth. But we only eat between 5,000 and 10,000 of them. Many are poisonous to us — such as lily of the valley. And many plants have no human nutritional value — such as grass.
“In fact, there are no more than about 100 known species that can be used as important food crops,” says Biology Professor Atle Bones at Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
But Bones and his research team have made a major discovery. They have figured out how a canola plant can be genetically programmed to reduce the toxic substances it produces in its seeds — thus making it more palatable.
Nobody has done this before, and Bones thinks it could be the beginning of a food revolution.
“The principle could be used with other plant species and plant parts,” he says.