Public Perception of Gene Edited Foods

A recent study, Who Trusts in Gene-Edited Foods? (Front. Food. Sci. Technol., 01 June 2022) looks to see if people would buy or avoid.   In the end, it comes down to what a person's disposition is regarding the science, more than the benefits. The study demonstrates "that individuals’ willingness to eat, and purposeful avoidance of GEFs are primarily driven by their existing social values about food, science and technology, institutional trust, and awareness of GE foods."

Gene-edited foods - Gene editing makes targeted changes to the genome of a plant or animal to produce some desired trait. Gene editing is done using techniques like CRISPR and TALENs   that can copy, delete, or rearrange specific genes to improve the plant or animal such as to increase food nutrition, food shelf life, and resistance to disease and drought.  (Awareness and Understanding of Gene Edited Foods | SOC 3095 Iowa State)

G in nature.2

GEFs are distinct from the more familiar genetically modification organism (GMO) foods. GMOs involve the transfer of genes from one species into another species to create an organism not found in nature while GEFs make genetic changes within the same species, creating a new variety immediately

"At present, there is only one commercialized GEF, a soybean used to create an oil that has less saturated fat. Other GEFs in the development stage include high fiber wheat, high yield tomatoes, non-browning mushrooms and potatoes, drought tolerant wheat and corn, and disease resistant tomatoes, grapes, rice, and soybeans."

Front. Food. Sci. Technol., 01 June 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frfst.2022.858277
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frfst.2022.858277/full
Who Trusts in Gene-Edited Foods? Analysis of a Representative Survey Study Predicting Willingness to Eat- and Purposeful Avoidance of Gene Edited Foods in the United States.

Christopher Cumming and David J. Peters

CRISPR-Cas, ZFN, and TALEN provide gene editing opportunities which may lead to new food and agricultural products with identifiable benefits for end-use consumers. Given the public perceptions and backlash faced by previous generations of genetically modified food products, there is a lot of speculation regarding how gene edited food products will come to be understood, and if they will be accepted or avoided by society. This study provides timely and reliable data which reports representative coordinated study of the United States public as to what factors influence their willingness to eat- or purposeful avoidance of gene-edited foods. This study fills this gap to identify influential factors which, in concert, help to explain not only if members of the public trust GEF and are willing to eat GEF foods or choose to avoid them, but why they hold the trust attitudes they do. From our analysis, we find that social values, institutional trust, and awareness are the most important factors in why Americans would choose to either eat or avoid gene edited foods. Surprisingly, the public’s attitudes about the tangible characteristics of food (such as safety, cost, taste, and appearance) had no bearing on GE food perceptions. This helps explains why the American public makes little distinction between willingness to eat processed or raw foods made with GE crops.

Introduction

Biotechnology developments in food and agricultural sectors are developing swiftly. Tools and techniques including CRISPR-Cas, ZFN, and TALEN provide gene editing opportunities which may lead to new food and agricultural products with identifiable benefits for end-use consumers. Currently however, there are few publicly identifiable products using gene editing in the commercial marketplace (CAST, 2018; Shukla-Jones et al., 2018, Dahlstrom et al., under review). This emerging field is predicated on cisgenic editing, that is, editing the genome of a specific species or those sexually compatible with one another. This is distinct from the transgenic generations of genetically modified organisms (GMO) for human and animal consumption (GM food) as they do not require the insertion or translation of foreign DNA to produce desired traits within a novel product.

This current generation of gene-edited foods (GEF) may be desirable from a research and development perspective as they can be produced quickly, with greater granular control, and more cheaply than traditional selective breeding or transgenic modification (NASEM, 2017; Pirscher et al., 2018; Shukla-Jones et al., 2018; Bain et al., 2020). The tools of gene editing proffer opportunity for biotechnologists to create new products that could provide a variety of agronomic and sustainability benefits, and may also enhance food security (Abdallah et al., 2015; Georges and Ray, 2017; Haque et al., 2018; Panda and Sahu, 2018; Chen et al., 2019). This desire to foster potential benefits of gene editing in agriculture and food is also reflected in the current regulatory scheme overseen by the USDA as its SECURE Rule (Sustainable, Ecological, Consistent, Uniform, Responsible, and Efficient) specifically establishes exemptions for gene edited plants that are created through methods “where the modification could otherwise have been made through conventional breeding” (USDA, 2021). To this point, the first GEF product entered the marketplace in March 2019 as a non-regulated article—a gene-edited soybean variety which provides cooking oil that is more shelf-stable than the conventional alternative and which is free of trans fats.

Historically, some GMO products have provided benefits to certain groups and consumers, but they also evoked a great deal of controversy regarding concerns of product safety, equitable distribution of benefits, and concerns about developmental practices and maintaining high ethical standards (Cummings et al., under review; Yue et al., 2015). Given the public perceptions and backlash faced by GMO products, there is a lot of speculation regarding how GEF products will come to be understood, and if they will be accepted or avoided by society.