Vegetables are becoming palatable soon because gene editing startup Pairwise is working on making them more colorful and flavorful to our eyes and tastebuds. Pairwise's products will soon hit the market.
Pairwise Rolls Out New Mustard Greens
Although loaded with nutrients, mustard greens taste intensely spicy when consumed uncooked. They are typically boiled to make them more edible, WIRED reported.
Pairwise, scientists used the DNA-editing technology CRISPR to delete a gene responsible for the pungency of mustard greens to preserve their health advantages while improving their flavor for the typical consumer. The business anticipates customers would choose its greens over less healthy varieties like iceberg and butter lettuce.
Tom Adams, cofounder, and CEO of Pairwise, claims that with the recent development, they just created a new category of salad. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the greens will initially be sold in a few restaurants and other establishments. St. Louis, the Saint Paul region, and Springfield, Massachusetts.
The business intends to begin supplying greens to grocery shops in the Pacific Northwest this summer.
The new mustard greens aren't technically genetically modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs are those created in agriculture by incorporating genetic material from a whole new species. Traditional selective breeding could not develop these crops, which involves picking parent plants with particular features to produce offspring with more desirable attributes.
Instead, CRISPR entails modifying the genes already present in an organism; no additional DNA is used.
One advantage of CRISPR is that new plant types can be created in a fraction of the time it takes to do so through conventional breeding. It took Pairwise four years to come up with mustard greens, and it may take longer to bring out desired characteristics in other vegetables as the process entails years of crossbreeding practice.
CRISPR for Gene-Editing
Pairwise launched its inaugural product Conscious Green under its brand Conscious Food Tuesday. In a press release, the company announced using CRISPR technologies to make nutritious products more palatable and appealing to consumers.
According to Haven Baker, co-founder, and chief business officer of Pairwise, they are honored to introduce the first CRISPR food item to the United States. We set out to address that most lettuce lacks nutritional value and that other greens are either excessively bitter or difficult to eat. They have been able to use CRISPR to improve new types of nutritious greens to make them more attractive to consumers, and they did it in a quarter of the time of traditional breeding methods. They consider the launch of Conscious Greens a significant step toward realizing their goal to create a healthier world through better fruits and vegetables.
CRISPR, a component of bacteria's defense system that occurs naturally, was first used as a gene-editing tool in 2012. Since then, researchers have thought of grand applications for the method.
Plants' genetic makeup may theoretically be altered to incorporate various advantageous features. For instance, you may create crops that consume less water, have higher yields, and are resistant to disease and pests.
Although Crispr has not yet completely eradicated world hunger, it may soon allow consumers to choose from a more comprehensive selection of foods.
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