by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., Childrens Health Defense:
The USDA this month approved a biotech firm’s plan to genetically engineer soybeans to produce a “plant-grown” meat protein the company calls Piggy Sooy. The company called it the next “revolution” in food biotech, but critics warned it’s “a dangerous experiment” destined to flop.
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Luxembourg-based Moolec Science is genetically modifying soybeans to produce porcine myoglobin, a pig protein. The end product is a “blended meat,” which is part plant, part animal.
The company, a subsidiary of the Argentine biotech group Bioceres, is also developing a yellow pea plant that produces beef protein.
Moolec’s patented technology — which the company calls molecular farming — splices pig genes into a conventional soybean. The resulting soybeans are a pink fleshy color inside and the company claims they contain 26.6% animal protein.
Martin Salinas, Moolec’s co-founder and chief of technology, said in a press release that the approval sets the stage for another food biotech “revolution” that is “paving the way for expedited adoption of Molecular Farming technology by other industry players.”
But Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), called the technology “a nightmare in the making.”
Hooker told The Defender:
“To reduce the complexities of porcine meat into a single protein (myosin) which is the only pork protein produced by the Franken-beans is completely myopic. This is not a pork replacement, it is a recombinant myosin production factory.
“Consumers would therefore be eating a novel substance requiring extensive testing and would require something far beyond what FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] does routinely for GM [genetically modified] food.”
John Fagan, Ph.D., co-founder, CEO and chief scientistof Health Research Institute, told The Defender there is always a very real and serious concern that there will be unanticipated and unpredictable side effects associated with GM foods.
This product is particularly concerning, he said because, “Until now most GM foods fed to humans have been a minor ingredient within a product, whereas here the GM ingredient will be the primary ingredient. So people who eat it will eat much larger amounts of GM foods than they’ve eaten in the past.”
“That means they pose a whole lot more risk,” he added.
‘What could go wrong?’
The USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which regulates genetically modified organisms (GMOs), determined that Piggy Sooy and its progeny won’t likely pose a greater plant pest risk than regular soybeans and therefore doesn’t need to be regulated by that agency.
Moolec said the company plans to “accelerate its go-to-market strategy” now that it has approval from APHIS. However, the company may still need approval by the FDA and is going through that consultation process.
GMO experts who spoke with The Defender said their biggest concern with “blended meats” products is that there hasn’t been any human health testing on any of them.
Crop scientist and organic farmer Howard Vlieger said the potential danger from GMOs comes not only from the genes spliced into the plant but also from the insertion process itself, which can introduce foreign proteins that stress the human immune system.
“It wreaks havoc,” on human health, he said.
Mark Kastel, executive director of food industry watchdog OrganicEye, said he was also concerned with the lack of environmental testing.
“Once we release these GMOs into the environment, there’s no calling them back,” he said. He cited past examples with untested products, for example, DDT. Once regulators realized it was toxic, they could stop its production and application, but because it is a persistent chemical, they couldn’t get it out of the environment.
“Once GMOs are in the environment, depending on the cultivar, it can cross with other species. It can contaminate crops, non-targeted crops,” he said.
Vlieger said such products also have been shown to pose serious problems for people who may have a food allergy to the contaminants.
In this case, Vlieger and Kastel said, people may have religious or other beliefs that prohibit them from consuming the pork that could accidentally contaminate their food.
Piggy Sooy “is not soy and it’s not pork,” Kastel said. “It’s a novel food that has never been part of the human food chain. That’s a lot of experiments in one economic venture.”
“What could go wrong?” Kastel asked. “We’re opening up this can of worms. We don’t know where it will lead, maybe no problem, but we’re just kind of rolling the dice and experimenting.”
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